Elaine and Les Musgrave’s garden, Wildes Meadow, NSW Southern Highlands

Attracted by the favourable climate, rainfall and soil, the Musgaves relished the challenge of making a new garden.

Elaine and Les Musgrave’s garden, Wildes Meadow, NSW Southern Highlands

“Even though this is called retirement, nothing has really changed because we’re still doing what we love,” says Elaine Musgrave, a renowned botanical artist. She and her husband, horticulturist Les Musgrave, downsized 10 years ago but both essentially work full-time at their complementary passions.

The couple were well known for their previous garden Fernbrook, at Kurrajong Heights in the lower Blue Mountains. It was a 5ha showpiece, open most days and with thousands of visitors per year. Les worked as a professional gardener and cut-flower grower at the same time, and Elaine’s studio gallery attracted a stream of local and international collectors of her superb botanical art.

Elaine and Les Musgrave’s garden, Wildes Meadow, NSW Southern Highlands

When they “retired” in 2009, they bought a house on 2ha at Wildes Meadow in the NSW Southern Highlands. Attracted by the favourable climate, rainfall and soil, Les relished the challenge of making a new garden, despite the wrench of leaving Fernbrook. “It’s the opposite of what we had,” he says of The Kaya. “This is open, sunny, undulating land compared to the shady forests and creeks of Fernbrook. I had to learn quickly what would survive the hard frosts.”

He added structure to the young garden they inherited, using evergreen hedging and their collection of urns, benches and pots. The lawn in front of the entertaining deck is now a gravel garden where informal groups of irises, daylilies and gold-foliaged Choisya ‘Sundance’ allow visitors to wander at will. “The colours are mostly yellows, purple and apricot,” explains Les.

Elaine and Les Musgrave’s garden, Wildes Meadow, NSW Southern Highlands

It flows to the unconventional parterre garden, surrounded by a silver hedge of Teucrium fruticans, where Les’s “not green” theme starts with arches of ruby-leafed Norway maples. A pattern of gravel paths dissects the red decomposed granite, planted with dramatic and textural plants in silver, grey, burgundy, pink, red and “a bit of yellow”. Standout plants include Mexican lily (Beschorneria yuccoides), Cordyline ‘Electric Pink’ and purple smoke bush (Cotinus ‘Grace’). Red cabbage is a favourite plant for the vegetable and parterre gardens but it’s all about the form and foliage. “We don’t like eating cabbage very much,” Les admits.

Twin pergolas, one draped with white wisteria and one with mauve, extend either side of a summerhouse. Behind the house and Elaine’s studio (a converted stable) Les grows many of his horticultural treasures in deep beds, while lawn walkways lead to one of two tree-fringed dams. Les also propagates thousands of plants for his other passion, the new Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens, with which he is heavily involved as a volunteer.

Art by Elaine Musgrave

While the garden is Les’s domain, it is Elaine’s botanical “sweet shop”. “I wander out of the studio when I’m looking for something to paint,” she says. “Something will speak to me.”

They’ve been married nearly 50 years; in the early days Elaine freelanced as a greeting card artist while raising their family. She credits Les for her shift to botanical art after he’d point out botanical inaccuracies in her floral work. “Then I realised this is what I’m meant to do,” she says. “It makes me happy.”

The Kaya is open to groups in late spring by appointment: phone [phone]. The studio gallery is open year round by appointment: more at elainemusgravebotanicalart.com

Q&A

What tree would help us screen our neighbour? We’d like an attractive, bird- and bee-attracting evergreen to 6m tall, but not hugely spreading. Cate and David Sutton, Melbourne

Evergreen magnolias have large, white, fragrant summer flowers; Magnolia ‘Little Gem’ has an oval crown, ‘Alta’ is more upright. Native choices include lemon myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) with lemon-scented leaves, and ivory curl tree (Buckinghamia celsissima) with showy cream flower spikes late summer. Both are smaller in urban gardens than the wild. Other natives are Brachychiton ‘Jerilderie Red,’ a grafted kurrajong with red, bell flowers in summer; coastal hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus ‘Rubra’); and some of the taller bottlebrushes. Also look at tree gardenia (Rothmannia globosa) and the fast but short-lived Virgilia oroboides.

Frost struck early here. Should I prune off the dead top of my native hibiscus and other shrubs? Lis Miller, Northern Rivers, NSW

The damaged parts, although ugly, will help protect plants from further frosts, so ideally leave them. Pruning will help your native hibiscus grow thicker but you’ll need to be vigilant about frost protection from now on. See next week’s column for more on frost.

My apple tree has only a few apples each year. Do I need a second tree? Anna Bartsch, Adelaide

Most apples need a cross-pollinator, one (sometimes two) compatible with your variety. An apple pollination chart is at blericktreefarm.com.au. Partially self-pollinating apples include Jonathan, Granny Smith, Pinkabelle, Braeburn and the Ballerina series of columnar trees. You also need bees.

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Send your questions to: [e-mail] or Helen Young, PO Box 3098, Willoughby North, NSW 2068. Website: helenyoung.com.au. The best question for June wins a pair of stylish, waterproof and lined Muck Boots worth $129.95 from swanndri.com.au