Inglewood's Pretty House ... and Garden ...and Garage Sale

I visited Inglewood recently. I have two favourite houses there.  The first is an older house which sits opposite the cenotaph.  The second is what I call to myself  "The Pretty House" because its garden is beautifully done and filled with colour.

On 7 December it was Inglewood Alive day.  Among all the festivities on this day is a huge day of garage sales ... and The Pretty House was no exception. It too had a garage sale.  I had taken some pictures of the front garden as I came in ... and the owners said to me to take some of the backyard too.  I didn't need to be told twice.  So here are pictures taken at The Pretty House with some of the garage sale items as well.

A garden, a giant cabbage and a Trad Pad

I love this grow yer own garden ...
befitting a Trad Pad
Wisconsin, 1895.
Just one thing?  What was the keeping quality of the cabbage?

Music at The Buninyong Brewery

The Buninyong Brewery in spring

One of the loveliest Trad Pads in the Ballarat area is the beautiful Brewery, home of Merle Hathaway, at Buninyong on the outskirts of Ballarat.

I recently spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at The Brewery listening to a range of entertaining music, enjoying a marvellous afternoon tea, all to raise money for refugees and asylum seekers and organised by the Ballarat Circle of Friends.  The afternoon was a huge financial and social success.  It was standing room only with the overflow amusing itself conversing in the wonderful outdoors surrounding The Brewery.

Below are some lovely photos taken by my friend Ian Hall, visiting from Inglewood.

On the banks of the Yarrowee ... a new Trad Pad

2012 turned out to be a whole year's hiatus on The Trad Pad.  With hindsight, it is going to be a year that I wrap up thoughtfully and tuck away.  I am rather glad - in the end - that I didn't do anything public on The Trad Pad last year.

On the banks of the Yarrowee River, Ballarat

This year looks like being very different.  I have moved to a really real Trad Pad situated 2kms and a world away from the city centre of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia.  I am living in an historic old mining area across the road from the Yarrowee River at the foot of a forested hill.  In this out of sight, out of time part of the world the roads have no bitumen, no channelling and kerbing.

 Water in a formerly dry waterhole on the Yarrowee.

Below: blossom and oaks on the Yarrowee.

Until yesterday, directly in front of my place the river was dry.  After some good and much needed rain, there is now water in my part of the river.

I live right on the Yarrowee Trail - part of the Goldfields Track and the Great Dividing Trail.  Runners and walkers and bikers of all shapes, sizes, and ages wander past my place.  I have a large old Golden Ash in the front yard which is a beautiful and natural form of air-conditioning and perfect for sitting under on a hot afternoon.

And - as you can see from the picture in the title above - there is a verandah.

The cottage that is The Trad Pad is quaint, quirky and small and in need of some repair.  It allegedly has three bedrooms but I prefer to say two bedrooms and a dressing room because the third has the only built-in wardrobe in the place.  While it would take a single bed, I have two chests of drawers in there instead.  So it is not a sleeping room but a dressing room.

While there is a nicely sized front yard there is almost no backyard.  The backyard is a sort of triangle (the house is on a corner - the western wall forms part of the property's boundary) with a lane behind which once would have been used as a dunny-run - adjoining a square. The whole is gravelled instead of grass.  If it was grassed one would need barber's clippers to trim the lawn.  I have some of my potted plants there.

 

At the foot of the forested hill

Astolat: now and then

Further to my previous post on Astolat...
I have found some older photos taken on 5 September, 1970...
by John T. Collins. See them here.

Astolat: an idyllic garden

This album is powered by BubbleShare -

On Sunday, I visited a garden in Australia's Open Garden Scheme. I could have taken more pictures but the battery gave up. However, there are plenty of pictures in the slide show above to give you an idea of how wonderful it is - and the skills and resources it takes to maintain it.

Astolat, 530 Riversdale Road, Camberwell, Melbourne, Victoria was buiit circa 1882-1884 by Thomas Plumley Denham Junior, a solicitor. The residence is typical of late 19th century Italianate architecture of the Melbourne upper middle class. It has an asymmetrical building form, return cast iron verandahs, refined cement render detailing, intct fenestration, chimneys and a slate roof. The name, Astolat, is derived from Tennyson's Idyll of the King.

The garden was developed soon after the completion of the mansion and is recognised as a typical 19th century suburban villa garden. At the front of the house is an oval lawn formed by the carriage drive, a tennis court with original pavilion built in 1890, an elaborate timber picket fence, and well established tree and shrub species of the era.

From 1985, the garden underwent many changes as a reult of new owners. Many Australian native species were planted. Structural additions such as urns, a small circular temple, the recessed seating west of the court and new additional buildings at the rear of the mansion diverted from the original design and changed the Victorian feel of the garden.

In 1995, the present owners bought the property and have proceeded to slowly rejuvenate the garden and return it to its original Victorian glory. A tree replacement programme has been implemented and is slowly removing self-sown and inappropriate tree species, replacining them with species of the Victorian era. Garden renovations have created seven specific themses within the garden: a fern garden; tropical garden; cherry walk; woodland garden; hot perennial border; grey border; and a winter border.

These gardens act like rooms encouraging one to venture further, provoking curiosity to see what is around the next corner. The addition of themed gardens helps generate interest throughout the year through texture, form, and colour.

Australia is in the middle of the greatest drought since white settlement in 1788. This year, underground tank has been installed at Astolat beneath the lawn to the east of the residence. The capacity of the tank is over 300,000 litres and is fed from run off from the buildings and drains throughout the two-acre property. This development will ensure the garden will remain healthy and intact. The garden is maintained by the equivalent of four person days per week under the oversight of a qualified landscape gardener