Open Garden - Ercildoune

We also went to another open garden today called "Ercildoune" this is a massive property intially 73,000 acres, then sold in 1872 and sold off and I believe it is now about 28,000 acres, the gardens seem to be about 10-20 acres? There is a large walled garden on 1 acre, and many old and dilapidated houses on the property that the owners are doing up. But the gardens are stunning and the owners that have owned the land now for around the past 12 years have done a fantastic job in restoring this garden to it's former glory, it has also a hydro electric station on the property - no longer in use. I have included the link explaining way more than I can of this magnificant property and taken some pictures of out day and the gorgeous garden, we ended up taking a picnic lunch and they had people selling tea and coffee which we took advantage of too. I found the brickwork to be intricate and believe they had a kiln on the property and the initial house was built by the sons at the time in their teens!!! They also had at one stage their own hydro-electric plant on of only a few private ones in the Country and it did actually work although is no longer working to this day. http://www.ercildoune.com.au/ Enjoy the pictures, this place is simply amazing and I hope sometime you get too visit the lovely gardens too!

Open Garden No 1 - Ripon Cottages

Today we decided to take a much needed garden break and visited a couple of open gardens. The first was a 2 block Bed & breakfast place in Ripon Street, Ballarat called Ripon Cottages and the second I will need to do another post for it was massive and we spent the entire afternoon there after packing lunch and afternoon tea! Anyway this place had some lovely idea's on re using containers for the garden I would never think of such as an old pair of boots and a suitcase with the centre cut out with plants inserted some lovely wrought iron pieces and they were selling Water Irises for $2 per plant so after trying to sell our very good condition bath and not getting any nibbles I have decided to turn the bath into a pond and buy up on the Water Irises but a pump and make a decent water feature from it. Stay tuned for pictures of that conversion over the next few months!

Here are some pictures from the first open garden, they also had some chooks and ducks and looked to be running them on a section where they are going to possibly put a veggie garden? Had a chat to the owner too who was very garden savvy and funnily enough I knew many of the people wandering around the garden from gym - not really such a coincidence as I did pick the flyer up from Fernwood! The monies raised all went to a Relay for life - Children's Cancer cause so your always left feeling good you've not only gotten to look at a lovely garden but also helped with a great cause.

Here is a link to the cottages; http://www.ballarat.com/riponcottages/index.htm