Watch seasons change in Cottage Garden, Canberra

BEES love a cottage garden, and you will too.

Cottage Garden, Canberra.

OPEN garden: 18 Ebden St, Ainslie, ACT. Owner: Christine Fernon. Open this weekend 10am-4.30pm. Entry $8, Under 18s free.

Describe your garden: I’m in the foothills of Mount Ainslie on a 750sq m plot. The modest 1940s red-brick house is well suited to a cottage garden. The atmosphere is relaxed and I’d say idiosyncratic in that I have a lot of garden ornaments, many of which I’ve mosaicked. I’ve also mosaicked around my front door, the letterboxes, some walls and a shed. There are espaliered fruit trees along the driveway, a rhubarb patch, three vegetable patches but no lawn. I’ve planted out the nature strip as a native garden in homage to the large eucalypt in the middle. Six birdbaths in the garden are all popular with the birds. It was a neglected rental when I bought it 10 years ago, so I started from scratch. This is the first time I’ve opened my garden to the public.

What makes it special: You don’t see many cottage gardens nowadays, although bees love them. I reckon it’s a great way to spend time and very satisfying when a combination of plants you envisaged grows and looks just as you thought it would. And if it doesn’t, well, you just move them next year. It’s never finished. People walking past are always very encouraging and love the changes through the seasons.

Biggest challenge: The enormous gum tree sucks up all the moisture and nutrients. It took years for the roses in the front to reach maturity.

What’s in flower: Roses, nasturtiums, salvias, canna lilies, asters, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, phlox, marigolds, windflowers, hydrangeas, verbenas, dahlias, shasta daisies, penstemons, echinacea, cosmos, catnip, alstroemeria, achillea, and many annuals.

Extras: Raffle for some of my mosaic pots. Funds raised go to the Care For ­Africa Foundation to help build a well in Tanzania.

Also open this weekend:

Tina’s Mosaic Garden, 28 Vasey Crescent, Campbell, ACT

Wyoming, 25 Wharf Road, Birchgrove, NSW. Entry $10.

Gunyah, 22 Lochinvar Street, Pascoe Vale South, Victoria

The Pomegranate Garden, 5 Largs Court, Greenvale, Victoria