2020 Garden Visit - Invermay - Chris Dickinson

 



Tanawah Gardens

Ever since I was 15 I wanted to live on a few acres, build my own house and have a large garden. In the 1950s and 60s my Mum aspired to a nice garden. As a teenager I enjoyed  mowing our double block and being able to take pride in its presentation. Neither my peers nor my siblings shared this interest.

 

As an adult, purchasing a few acres only came to fruition after I had renovated a  house in central Ballarat. This provided me with a range of building skills that saw me at 32 embark on being an owner builder on 45 acres. The building itself is a story on its own and created all sorts of challenges.

 

A new house sitting in a large paddock overawed me. I didn’t know where to start. With little money the option was to fence the paddock into a manageable area around the house and plant eucalypts with a token cottage garden which always struggled amongst the gums. Kids ponies and goats occupied the peripheral paddocks.

 

The kids grew up and moved out leaving more time and resources available to rethink the garden. The goats found new homes, fences were taken out and with the help of one insightful son I embarked on one project after another that seemed to make sense. We linked the garden to the house by putting in over 150 metres of brick garden walls that terraced a sloping block and created individual “rooms”. Each step was debated extensively but gradually it  come together without a master plan.

 

Having observed a nearby garden we embraced mass plantings of Manchurian pears and Portuguese laurels to effectively create a walled garden. The dam was increased from a small farm dam to  about an acre thanks to the big machinery that is now available. My son found lots of plants to compliment it and with advice a couple of quirky buildings were added. With a little bit of patience we are now seeing oaks, elms, ashes, acers, chestnuts and willows making their presence felt over several acres of expansive lawns .

 

Every year nature now improves what we see as a “Park” that sits comfortably in a bush setting.


Chris Dickinson November 2020



Photos - Andrew Parker
























Comments

  1. Lee Albert8 December 2020 at 08:17

    Congratulations, Chris! A mighty effort and a great result!

    ReplyDelete

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