Melrose is a garden not easily categorised, with a strong Mediterranean theme, dry climate plantings, elements of cottage gardens, an extensive use of productive plants in an ornamental context, and a mix of formality and informality.
Visit the home garden of landscape designer Sam Cox. Mentored by pioneering Australian landscape designer Gordon Ford, Sam’s garden is created in the Australian natural style.
A historic property designed in 1926 by Melbourne architect Marcus Martin; the garden showcases a perfect combination of European and Mediterranean plants.
Tugurium is the fascinating private garden of renowned garden expert, radio personality, and nurseryman Stephen Ryan. Set on a peaceful country lane at Macedon, the garden showcases Stephen’s decades-long dedication to collecting and curating rare and unusual plants, including species on the Plant Trust National Plant Collections Register, such as Acanthus, Sambucus, and Osmanthus.
Created in 1994 by landscape designer Grant Saltmarsh, the 1.5-acre garden includes a sunken garden, a caged vegetable garden, and meandering paths flanked by perennial beds and mature fruit trees, often ducking off into secret hidden corners.
Sunnymeade is the home garden of landscape designer Peter Shaw. It's a creative and practical space with a strong connection to the coastal bush landscape around it.
Buttenshaw Farm in Montrose is a highly aspirational three-quarter-acre organic and permaculture micro-seed farm garden at the base of the Dandenong Ranges.
The Haven is located in Mooroolbark. This small productive garden demonstrates great diversity, focusing on growing in pots and containers.
Located in Mooroolbark, you’ll find The Aussie Veggie Patch, an 800m² chemical-free garden owned by Instagram-famous vegie gardener Tim Johnston.
Visit the beautiful DDS Garden this February. The entrance courtyard has a Japanese theme, with a superb cloud pruned jade plant. The Japanese theme continues and includes a paved area under tall shady elm trees – delightful in summer!
Built around a straw-bale home overlooking a seasonal waterfall, renowned perennial garden designer and artist Ralph Bristow’s breathtaking semi-wild garden opens with Open Gardens Victoria on the first weekend in March 2024.
Spend a day in The Big Little Garden. In a rectangular area, foliage and flowers spill over onto a network of narrow little sawdust paths that crisscross through the garden beds. Towering above head height are buttery yellow rudbeckia, huge golden sunflowers, bright annual cosmos with their lovely lime green foliage, purple verbena and eupatorium.