A Basket Weaver’s Garden, SA
OPEN garden: 48 Bevington Rd, Glenunga. Open this weekend 10am to 4.30pm. Entry $8, Under 18s free.
OPEN garden: 48 Bevington Rd, Glenunga. Owners Pam White and Trevor Collinson. Open this weekend 10am to 4.30pm Entry $8, Under 18s free
Describe your garden: Our home in Adelaide’s foothills is on 0.3ha of established family garden with large trees and garden rooms. It’s an eclectic mix of drought-tolerant natives and Mediterranean plants; a productive fruit, nut, herb and vegetable garden; chooks; and a collection of basketry supports and sculptures. It’s a refuge, an experiment in sustainable living and a place to relax and have fun. We came here 15 years ago with young children, wanting them to grow up appreciating home-grown produce.
What makes it special: My interest in basketry means that all sorts of prunings are recycled into trellises, tripods, screens, baskets and sculptures. I use grape and glory vine prunings, grasses, palm fronds, dried parsley stalks, and even make string from old canna lily leaves.
Biggest challenges: Changing climate, water restrictions and possums and birds eating the fruit and vegetables. We’ve worked hard to improve the alkaline clay soil with compost and mulching.
Favourite part: The productive garden to pick things, as I need them — why else would I keep a head-torch by the back door? And the secret garden is a restful, enclosed space offering winter flowers and summer shade.
You hope visitors will: be inspired to try making a simple wreath or basket from their garden, and to grow some of their own food and taste the difference.
What’s in flower: Cyclamens, camellias, plectranthus, lilies, and the spring bulbs are starting.
Extras: Sales of hardy succulents, herbs and organic vegetable seedlings. Tea, coffee, cake. Basket-making demonstrations and basketry objects for sale. Funds raised go to Medecin Sans Frontieres.