Inside Dame Elisabeth’s Garden: Foxtel documentary looks at Australia’s treasured garden

WHEN Sir Keith Murdoch gave his young bride this wedding present, no one knew it would become a national treasure.

WHEN Dame Elisabeth Murdoch met her husband Keith it was love at first sight.

Then it happened again, when he bought her a farm with a country cottage for her wedding present in 1928.

“I was very young and romantic and I was so taken with this lovely country cottage, with the honeysuckle and the roses,” she said.

Dame Elisabeth was just 18 when she met 42-year-old Keith Murdoch.

At first he said he could not attend a ball because he was “far too busy” but then agreed to go only if he could be introduced to the young debutante whose photo he had seen in one of his magazines.

“He’d seen a picture of me which I think now looked to be a very gawky debutante,” Dame Elisabeth recalls in a new Foxtel documentary.

At first Dame Elisabeth thought the cottage was too much, but she grew to love it.

Dame Elisabeth thought she looked ‘rather gawky’ in this photo that sparked the couple’s love.

Cruden Farm is beautifully designed to incorporate different areas.

The couple were married soon after, despite those around them protesting the age difference.

But Dame Elisabeth said she would “rather have a short time with a man I love than a long time with someone I don’t”.

The Murdochs named the property Cruden Farm, after Cruden Bay in Scotland, where Sir Keith’s father was the clergyman.

They were so taken with the country cottage, they spent most weekends there, riding horses and entertaining guests with their children Rupert, Helen, Anne and Janet.

Dame Elisabeth was a young bride compared to her older husband.

The couple fell in love when Dame Elisabeth was just 18.

Dame Elisabeth planted all the trees in the 1930s and Sir Keith engaged Edna Walling, one of Australia’s most influential landscape designers, to come up with a plan for the property.

But Dame Elisabeth never liked that. Ms Walling didn’t consult the young bride on her own thoughts, so she didn’t approve of a lot of the garden and thought it was “rather townie”.

She also didn’t like the house because her modest tastes thought it was too showy, but over time she grew to love it.

Dame Elisabeth didn’t like where Ms Walling put the rose garden and eventually she had an opportunity to change it as she wished in a rather unfortunate turn of events.

The garden suffered a devastating blow in 1944 when bushfires tore through the property.

Most of the garden beds and orchards were destroyed, and only a wind change saved the house itself.

Dame Elisabeth went on to create a green oasis of 54 hectares that’s become one of Australia’s most beautiful and treasured gardens.

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch in the garden at Cruden Farm in 1963.

Dame Elisabeth loved spending time in the garden up until 103. Picture: Cruden Farm: Garden Diaries, by Michael Morrison and Lisa Clausen

Dahlias are one of the drawcards when they come into bloom.

Cruden Farm, now in its 90th year, lies on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, less than an hour from Melbourne and is open for the public enjoy.

What Dame Elisabeth created still flourishes and thrives, with a sweeping drive of hand-planted lemon-scented gums that lead to carefully planned spaces, with a flower picking garden and an ornamental lake.

She continued planning and creating the gardens until she was 103, watching acorns she planted grow into majestic, towering oaks.

“It’s hard to describe your sensation which you get from a beautiful smell, it’s extraordinary,” she says in Inside Dame Elisabeth’s Garden, which airs on Foxtel on Thursday night.

“It builds one up in some ways.”

Her gardener Michael Morrison, who arrived when he was 27 in 1971, still tends the property.

Their working relationship of 40 years has been hailed one of the most special collaborations in Australia.

A photograph from book Garden of a Lifetime: Dame Elisabeth at Cruden Farm. These are the lemon-scented gums that adorn the driveway.

Gardener Michael Morrison with Dame Elisabeth at the farm. Picture: Cruden Farm: Garden Diaries by Michael Morrison and Lisa Clausen

These days Mr Morrison has taken over the duty of arranging flowers, something Dame Elisabeth loved doing.

The gorgeous lake is a hit for families who visit for picnics.

“The boss always said she loved Cruden Farm from the moment Sir Keith drove in the drive the first time he bought her here,” Mr Morrison said.

He said Dame Elisabeth’s garden friends said she didn’t create a garden, she landscaped a farm.

With each season bringing its own character and life to the garden, for Dame Elisabeth autumn meant serenity.

“The glorious burst of the summer has faded and the garden’s going to sleep but before it does it has this wonderful colouring, as the trees lose their leaves, you see the skeletons and the shape and the form,” she said.

“So autumn does have rather particular meaning to me.”

In autumn the garden gives off a deep, romantic glow.

Cruden Farm took its name from Scotland to carry Murdoch tradition.

Inside Dame Elisabeth’s Garden airs on the Lifestyle channel on November 8 at 8.30pm and celebrates the 90th anniversary of Cruden Farm.

Originally published as Inside Dame Elisabeth’s Garden: Foxtel documentary looks at Australia’s treasured garden