When early winter snow fell on the Monaro a fortnight ago, Trisha Dixon took an evocative photo from her kitchen window of the apple trees in her orchard at Bobundara near Cooma.
She moved to the property – which dates back to 1830 – in 1985 and the apple trees and apricots are framed by ancient elms. Hundreds of these trees line the stream that goes through the wild garden but there are also ancient English mulberry, almond and quince trees, a huge and very old plum tree, large pear trees and a sloe – fruit for the gin, of course.
She says the productive side of her garden is paramount. The tennis court has been made into the vegetable garden where, last year, architect/landscape architect and garden historian Peter Watts and his wife Jo created a lattice of woven canes from willow, elm and poplar as surrounds to the raised veggie beds.
Trisha has planted fruiting trees near the old stone barn (steading) as they provide shade and also many snow gums (eucalyptus pauciflora) and eucalyptus mannifera. There are a large number of Kentish cherry trees growing on the site of a Chinese garden from the 1880s to 1910.
Bobundara means “place of thunder” and in the landscape are volcanic cones and high country lakes while the Monaro Plain is in a rain shadow.
Many Canberrans know Trisha Dixon as an author, photographer and leader of travels to Mediterranean islands and countries. Her most recent book, Spirit of the Garden, was commissioned and published by the National Library of Australia. The book was launched there with talks by the author, most recently on June 9, a popular event held by Friends of the NLA with the Australian Garden History Society.
Trisha believes we have a fundamental connection to the land in our subconscious and genetic memory of landscape experiences. Her parents lived on the edge of Bungonia Gorge and she remembers her mother spending all her time in the garden and her father having to call her in to have dinner. Trisha says her brother, a science professor, has the wine gene while she has the book gene and a huge library.
She quotes pastoralist Sidney Kidman who said we should treat the dry as normal and the rains as a bonus, and it is best to go with the seasons for harmony. Landscape designer Edna Walling, whose camera Trisha now owns, thought it best to plant simple quince trees or plum trees rather than specimen trees in home gardens.
When Edna Walling visited Micalago Station at Michelago in the 1940s she remarked it was the only garden she had seen that couldn’t be improved upon. Not only for the fruit trees there but for the sense of repose, the pergola, the axis but mostly the gentle guiding hand and not having immaculate tidiness rule supreme.
Source: canberratimes.com.au
