Author Jackie French reveals the secret to a thriving home garden
Author Jackie French boasts one of the most unique country homes in Australia – the source of much of her inspiration.
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“I knew the moment I saw it that it was where I was supposed to be,” says author Jackie French of her first impression more than 40 years ago when she and her then-husband laid eyes on the Southern Highlands property that would soon become home.
“It was a grey, misty day and we’d driven to a spot to look out over the land, when suddenly the fog lifted and a rainbow spread across the valley, ending in the very spot I’m speaking to you from right now.”
“I thought, look, I don’t need to be hit around the head with a cricket bat to realise that this is obviously the place where I belong. And it turns out, this is where I belong. My life, my writing – everything comes from here. I’ve written all my life, but not the things that I write here.”
It’s not difficult to see how French’s particular slice of bushland, perched atop a gorge in the idyllic Araluen Valley, inspires the creativity that saturates her days.
Her beloved garden, home to more than 100 different types of fruits, vegetables and herbs that supply the avid cook’s constant rotation of delicious homemade fare “pretty much looks after itself,” she explains.
“It’s a wilderness garden, which means if you plant things in the right place, they will grow there by themselves with very little intervention. If you plant the right understorey there will be predators that will control the pests, and if you plant it all properly, there won’t really be room for weeds to grow.”
And indeed, blooming across four lush hectares, the garden is a road map of the passions, curiosities and experiences that have shaped the writer’s life.
It was here, of course, that French met the wombats who would go on to inspire her award-winning children’s favourite Diary of a Wombat – just one of the more than 125 books French has published in her 69 years.
Then there’s the date palm, transported as a pocketful of seeds after one of French’s workshops in Cape York, that, after months of La Nina’s onslaught, suddenly revealed great unexpected piles of the fruit.
“I’d really just planted it to see what would happen,” she says, amused. “I never knew they’d grow in this climate.”
And, of course, there are the chooks, the perennial vegetables that fill the kitchen season after season, and the stonework French has created herself – nods to skills formed in leaner years that etched self-sufficiency into a personal ethos.
“For about 15 years, I lived in poverty – and not from choice,” she says.
“I lived pretty much on what we grew, and what I could forage from the bush. I used old books for instruction on how to make everything from perfumes to soap and nail polish to the mortar for the bricks. I used a very old technique for stonework, because I can’t even drive a nail straight, but I can build a stone wall using this method.”
“The bush has always looked after me. Here, I’m just one animal of many,” she says simply, and the story she tells next lends an eerie weight to that statement. “There used to be megafauna in this valley, including wombats – or diprotodons, I should say – the size of mini buses or even bigger.
“The land dried up and all the megafauna died, but ever since I’ve been here, and associated with wombats, I’ve had this image of the last of those giant wombats to die here. I’ve imagined this animal, stranded in the valley, slowly dehydrating so that all that was left was just the skin and the bones.
“That’s actually what happens when a wombat dies, their skins are so tough that you’re just left with a dehydrated wombat. It was an image that haunted me for many years.”
Gather ‘round for a ghost story
That is, until one night as French left her elderly neighbour’s property after dinner years ago.
The author had been warned of a mass murderer who had escaped from nearby Goulburn Gaol, feared at large in the area. Halfway into her two-hour walk back home through the bush (at midnight, no less), French began to hear footsteps in the bush at her back.
“I would turn, and I’m sure someone was actually ducking into the shadows,” she says.
“I kept walking faster and again, the footsteps resumed, until I heard quite a strange noise. I’m very familiar with wombat noises, and this sounded like a very, very large one. There was a scream behind me, and I just ran.
“The next day, another neighbour drove up to tell me that they had found the body of the prisoner, but he was dead. They were surprised, though. He looked as though he had been dead for many months, even though he’d only escaped two days ago. His body was completely dehydrated.”
AUTHOR JACKIE FRENCH’S FAVOURITE THINGS
Antique sideboard with treasures
“My grandmother designed this sideboard – it’s classic Art Deco, and she designed all the patterns on it as well.”
Diary of a Wombat cover in French
“This one is hilarious – the book is in about 40 countries now and the French are the only ones who added more carrots to the cover – they obviously thought we were being very stingy with the original!”
Becoming Mrs Mulberry
“It’s a love story, it’s a mystery and it’s social commentary. It’s about how society has ‘second sight’ – they see things that they don’t want to see – homelessness, people who have been injured or scarred in some way – and then on second sight, they very carefully don’t see them. They just ignore them.”
Fireproof book bunker
“After the (2019/2020) bushfires came through, I commissioned a man named Tom Coupe, who specialises in fireproof buildings, and he created this cross between a gypsy caravan and a TARDIS. It will take any degree of fire they could experiment with and all my precious books are inside.”
Clay wombats
This charming collection of little ceramic and clay figurines sits on a windowsill.
“I have probably the world’s largest collection of wombat memorabilia,” laughs Jackie, “none of which I have bought!”
Embroidered linen placemats and tablecloth
“They were embroidered by my grandma or great grandma – I spent the first few years of my life living with my great grandmother, and she would never, ever – even if it was just her and I – ever serve afternoon tea without a tea cloth. I value these greatly, just to see the hours and hours of incredible women’s work that went into making these.”
Australian of the Year 2015 award
“The most magic moment was the announcement of these awards. We realised it was all women. Four women had received the Australian of the Year awards that year and that had never happened before.”
Extremely old, fragile recipe book including the classic Anzac biscuit
“This recipe is possibly the first recipe written for Anzac biscuits, circa 1916. The biscuits were sent over to Aussie soldiers during WW1 and a lot of blokes wouldn’t have survived without them.”
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