Bathurst Open Gardens

On the Sunday after the Bathurst Blog Meet I had my annual outing with my good friend Lisa.  We have been visiting the Bathurst Open Gardens for well over 20 years without ever missing a year.  It is something we both look forward to.  This year, as is often the case, Mick joined in as well.  He's always on the lookout for ideas for the garden.

As usual, there was a mix of country and town gardens.  We started off visiting two at Yetholme, to the east of Bathurst.  This has an altitude of 1,100 metres, so the climate is quite cool and suits different plants to in town.

Beautiful azaleas.

A stunning white wisteria on the back deck.

More azaleas and alpine phlox beside a lovely winding path.

It's not the bet picture, but this waratah was huge and in full bloom.

I always love to see a nice vege patch.

Our next two gardens were in Glanmire, a bit closer to town.

We were entertained by a small ukulele group at one of the gardens.

A lovely banksia rose.

The second garden had some rather formal areas, including this pond.

However, they still had a vege patch, and a rather lovely one at that.

Next was a very formal walled garden.

Just lovely.

The crab apple was beautiful and played host to many bees.

Glimpses of the distant rural view was a nice backdrop to the garden.

Next it was a quick bite for lunch and to check out the town gardens.  The first three were all on the same road in a subdivision of properties of about two and a half acres, so not your average suburban block.

A lovely Japanese inspired space.

This garden also featured a wide variety of irises.

A nice shady place to sit quietly.

The owners of the next property filled in the swimming pool which wasn't being used and used the space to create a lovely big vege patch.

Another nice shady spot.

The third property obviously had young children who had the best ever play area and cubby house.  Please humour me with the next few photos.  I was just a tad jealous.

The view from the front of the house was rather stunning and framed beautifully.

Mick liked this idea.

Then we visited a cute cottagy garden around a simple house on a normal sized town block.

Love those golden irises.  So unusual.

This garden was realistic but had so much to see.

The following garden was the complete opposite.  The block was small and hidden away behind older  homes.  The house was very modern and the garden angular and structured, but so very peaceful. The home had been designed for all the rooms to have views onto the garden courtyard.  It really was well designed and we feel lucky to have been given the opportunity to visit.  Unfortunately, my photos don't do it justice.

The final garden was Bishop Court which is a boutique hotel and cookery school.  It is open every year, but there are always changes.  This time the little kitchen garden was rather cute.

Finally, there was a theme of Fairy Gardens this year.  Each garden had fairy garden somewhere.  Some were obvious while others were hidden away.  Here are just two, as I've put up more than enough photos already.

We are so lucky to have so many gorgeous gardens in the district and are privileged to be able to visit them.  They do compare very well with their more famous Blue Mountains counterparts.  To top it all off, the garden club raised $19,000.00 which has been divided among several local charities.

Now we just have to wait until next year to do it all again.