Hillside haven

When Leslie and Angus Richardson retired to Perth 18 years ago, finding a property with sufficient groundwater that could sustain an English-style cottage garden was Leslie’s top priority. The couple had spent most of their married life in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt, where Leslie grew native gardens that could cope with both severe frost and baking summers, even while she dreamt of a soft, ‘exotic’ landscape.

Gardening in the Perth Hills was a new adventure for Leslie, who enrolled in garden history courses and joined gardening clubs. There, the enthusiastic members took her under their wing, and shared cuttings and advice.

“I’d always wanted a cottage garden, and my wishlist of plants quickly became a collection,” says Leslie. “I set out to find as many things that grew together, as I have a desire to have a garden without bare earth showing. It’s probably the result of living in the country, where things don’t survive without mulch.”

A rocky start

The couple chose their site to build their home and garden because it was surrounded by State forest on three sides, and also had access to good supplies of underground water. Bore water is pumped to a concrete tank at the top of the block, then gravity-fed to the reticulation system – a combination of overhead sprinklers, sprayers and drippers.

The very stony ground, and a 16m slope upwards from the front of the block, presented ample challenges. After the house was constructed, Angus used a pneumatic drill to break up the rock around it, using it to build retaining walls. Rather fortuitously, road workers were widening the nearby highway, and transported truckloads of loamy soil to the site, which Angus mixed with compost to use in the newly created garden beds.

Today, the Richardsons’ 2ha property in Sawyers Valley is shaded by 300 deciduous trees, and filled with fragrant roses (there are 200) and swathes of flowering annuals and perennials. In spring, the garden is a kaleidoscope of colour, thanks to penstemon, mass plantings of bearded iris, perennial foxgloves, and lots of self-seeded annuals, which are magnets for bees, butterflies and other the pollinating insects. Double peony poppies in coral, red, purples and mauves, the purple-black flowered honeywort (Cerinthe major), and bishop’s lace (Ammi majus) are dotted throughout, and flourish among the roses.

While Leslie enjoys spring, her favourite time of the year is autumn, when the weather cools, the roses and salvia are in flower, and the deciduous trees change to myriad brilliant tones. She especially enjoys the butter-coloured leaves of Ginkgo biloba, and the brilliant red leaves of several ‘Lipstick’ maples and crabapples, which also delight with their delicate spring blossom. Leslie appreciates all types of trees, and her collection includes ash, crepe myrtle, magnolia, honey locust (Gleditsia spp.), Chinese tallow, ornamental pear, jacaranda and elm. Spring bulbs, including tulips, daffodils and jonquils, have naturalised beneath them.

Working together

Leslie gardens about a quarter of the site intensively, and works in the ornamental garden most days, while Angus keeps the reticulation flowing, grows vegetables, and looks after the dwarf fruit trees and blueberries. These are enclosed in a walk-in netted cage to protect them from birds, then netted against fruit fly after pollination. The couple’s chooks wander freely through the trees to provide insect and weed control.

One of Leslie’s most loved areas is a low-maintenance swathe of hellebores, which have naturalised beneath three mature Chinese tallows. She’s also proud of her 8m-long dwarf lemon hedge, which she keeps contained to about 2m tall.

The plantings that edge the property are mostly unirrigated. On the southern boundary, the couple are developing an oak tree walk and have planted 17 trees that will be magnificent in years to come. Adjacent are 300 jam wattle trees (Acacia acuminata), hosts for Australian sandalwood trees (Santalum spicatum), which were planted from seed. Densely planted native species on the northern boundary provide bird habitat, and, along with a grove of Manzanilla olives, which are harvested for their oil, suppress the noise from the highway.

“The garden is my therapy and solace,” says Leslie. “When I spend time there, it lifts my day. I love nothing more than nurturing a seed into a plant – thinking about the before and after gives me a great sense of satisfaction.”