Work of heart

Jennifer Edwards is an oil painter and a passionate gardener – and the two talents intertwine in her glorious technicolour garden in the Hartley Valley of New South Wales, on Gundungurra country. With fields of flowers in rainbow hues, Hartvale is her ultimate masterpiece, her botanical brushstrokes creating a vast, ever-changing canvas of colour and texture.

In 2017, Jennifer and her partner Pete Kube were living in Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains, on “a suburban-sized property”, when they went to nearby Lithgow to buy a humble fridge. But a two-hectare block advertised in a real estate agent’s window caught their eye. On a whim, they went for a look. “I remember walking across a paddock towards a large oak and falling in love with that and the incredible mountain and valley views,” Jennifer says. “Pete and I didn’t even speak. We just looked at each other with smiles on our faces.”

So they sold their home and embarked on an adventure, the starting point being the oak tree and 20 eucalypts peppered around patchy paddocks. That scenario provided fertile ground for her equally fertile imagination. Jennifer’s grand plan was for a sprawling garden that would soak up its setting and reflect some of the character of the historic villages nearby.

“Surrounded by mountains, we are in a microclimate here, sheltered from winds,” she says. “We receive more sunlight – and experience warmer days – than the mountains above us.” And those majestic trees, all of which they kept, would frame the expansive gardens she had in mind.

She was fully up to the task. “I have gardening in my DNA. My parents, John and Fay Edwards, were champion gardeners of the Hawkesbury for 10 years from the late ’90s. I cannot imagine not having a garden – being surrounded by flowers feeds my soul and connects me with nature.”

There was no dwelling on the property so, first up, licensed builder Pete built them a house (a “glamorous shed”), a guest cottage and an art studio for Jennifer. He then landscaped a walled garden, arbours, a potager, water features and a hothouse, using stone and timbers and a plethora of recycled materials. A statement water fountain comprises reused tin while an arbour-like structure called a tonnelle is made from rusty iron from a Southern Highlands antique shop. “The combination of rustic buildings dressed with recycled timbers, retaining walls of old railway sleepers, repurposed stone edges, old water tanks and vintage carts give the impression that the property is much older than it actually is,” Jennifer says. “We wanted a nod to the history of [local village] Hartley.”

But the construction work left a mess of roots, rocks and “lousy soil”, so weeks of extensive, back-breaking preparation preceded any planting. “Then we had to bring in truckloads of good garden mix,” Jennifer says.

The main garden, which flows to the north of the house and has a sunny aspect and sweeping valley views, was the first area to be planted. Six large sleeper-lined boxes sit either side of a grassed walkway, directing the eye towards the vista. “I never had any plan for this garden,” she says.

The garden explodes with colour in spring and autumn. “I plant everything close together to create fullness and minimise weeds,” Jennifer says. “In winter I plant for spring, with seeds that will create a field of poppies interspersed with snapdragons, stocks, irises and aquilegias.” The garden is framed by trees such as snow pears, flowering plums, a golden elm, weeping Japanese maples, a Canadian maple and espaliered apples.

The south garden includes the potager, a walled garden and a hothouse garden. It is built around a watercourse, which had to be diverted to avoid stormwater flooding. Boasting flowers and vegetables all year, the potager consists of six raised garden beds with a walkway flanked by Japanese box and overlooked by a vine-draped tin shed. In spring, the beds overflow with vegetables peppered with nasturtiums and orange calendula. The hothouse, with flaking paint and an old panelled glass door (“reminiscent of my grandma’s verandah”), is home to succulents and potted cuttings. Its adjacent garden can again be described as organised chaos. Dahlias, penstemon, roses, bog sage and other salvias compete for space from November until late May, while rudbeckias, or coneflowers, create golden colour.

For the walled garden, Pete created rustic walls on two sides using rocks from a local quarry, which Jennifer espaliered with pears. This garden is bursting with poppies in spring, along with foxgloves, veronica, blue lupin, linaria and ‘Grosso’ lavender.

“Nurturing a garden is like creating a beautiful relationship: it needs time, effort, attention and love,” Jennifer says. “I am a part of this garden’s process as it is a part of mine. It’s difficult to describe the deep connection I have with it, the joy I get watching it change with the seasons and the gratefulness I feel at its beauty.”

Photography by Brent Wilson