Tasmanian Gardens by Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett features 20 gardens from around the state

Writer Meg Bignell and photographer Alice Bennett searched far and wide - and even underwater - for the extraordinary Tasmanian gardens featured in their new book.

Deb and Scott Wilson's Old WesleyDale garden at Chudleigh. From Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett's new book titled Tasmanian Gardens. Picture: Alice Bennett

Alice Bennett didn’t expect to have to put on a wetsuit while photographing for a book about gardens.

But in the middle of winter she found herself diving into the freezing waters of Fortescue Bay.

“I was quite nervous about capturing that one because I hadn’t dived since I was about 18 and I’m 46 now. I had to learn to dive again to be able to go down there, and capture that garden. Then I leaned I had to do it in the middle of winter because of the visibility,” Bennett says.

The Underwater Garden is one of 20 featured in the new book Tasmanian Gardens photographed by Bennett and written by Meg Bignell.

Rather than a gardening book, it’s a collection of beautiful images of gardens and stories about the people behind the gardens.

The book also challenges the definition of a garden.

There’s traditional beauty, including Old WesleyDale at Chudleigh and the Sculptor’s Garden at Spreyton.

Then there’s the rustic appeal of the Gnome Garden in Queenstown.

There’s also plenty of blissful country scenes to be enjoyed from the likes of Wattlegrove’s Willowbend and Snug’s Earthenry flower farm.

And of course the Underwater Garden on the Tasman Peninsula, where scientists are regenerating the seabed with threatened marine plants including giant kelp.

Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett. Picture: Tom Gray

“We wanted to include an indigenous garden story, native gardens, kitchen gardens and gardens filled with special things,” Bennett says.

The idea for a book celebrating Tasmanian gardens formed over many conversations between the two friends.

Bignell is the author of three novels, The Sparkle Pages, Welcome to Nowhere River and The Angry Women’s Choir. She lives on a dairy farm at Bream Creek.

Bennett is an award-winning commercial photographer who lives in Dunalley on a sheep and oyster farm.

She is also the daughter of pioneering Sydney-to-Hobart photographer Richard Bennett.

The pair began to map out the book starting with some well-known gardens, including one Bennett encountered when working with writer Georgia Warner on the 2012 book Country Houses of Tasmania.

“Some of them we already knew about and we knew we wanted to include – one of those was Sally Johannsohn’s Artist’s Garden and another was Old WesleyDale, because Alice visited there before with the book she produced,” Bignell says.

Simon Brooks's Underwater kelp garden. Picture: Alice Bennett

Others became part of the book by chance.

“I was buying daffodils on the side of the road, I had my camera in my hand and a voice from over the fence said if you like daffodils come over here,” Bennett says.

The voice belonged to Robin Reeves, 84, whose Boomer Bay property spans 15 acres of coastal bushland.

“He came into the book simply by shouting at me over the fence,” Bennett says.

Bignell and Bennett travelled the state to collect the material for the book.

Their journey took them to the wild West Coast, the North-West, the Huon, South-East and the Derwent Valley.

“We spent a couple of months developing the idea and a year to photograph and travel around and write stories because we wanted to represent all the seasons,” Bennett says.

“We would talk all the way there and on the way home we would be squealing with excitement about all the things we discovered,” Bignell says.

“We were just thrilled with the stories and being able to celebrate these people because gardeners are not people to toot their own horn.”

Sally Johannsohn's Artist Garden. Picture: Alice Bennett

As multi-generational Tasmanians, Bignell and Bennett were keen to include Aboriginal heritage in the book.

“There was so much we didn’t know,” Bennett says.

To this end they took part in palawa woman Nunami Sculthorpe-Green’s takara nipaluna (Walking Hobart) tour.

During the tour Sculthorpe-Green takes visitors to colonial landmarks such as Franklin Square, St David’s Park and explains their history from an Aboriginal perspective.

“It was important to us from the beginning to talk about some of the Indigenous history of Tasmania because it’s hard to talk about gardens without talking about what came before,” Bennett says.

Kitana Mansell’s palawa kipli bushtucker garden at Risdon Cove is also included.

During their epic journey Bignell and Bennett did not do all their travelling by road.

On the West Coast they rafted the King River for several hours, heading into the bush to find the Ghost Garden of Marion Oak Sticht.

Sticht emigrated to Tasmania from Colorado in 1895, with her husband who worked as chief metallurgist at the Mt Lyell Copper mine.

The Ghost Garden on the King River. Picture: Alice Bennett

In the shanty town of Penghana, Sticht created a European garden that included rhododendrons.

The Stichts and the shanty town are long gone, but a century-old giant rhododendron remains.

The plant is storeys high and in full bloom when photographed for the book.

“It’s the most incredible story for someone from the other side of the world who wanted to make a bit of their home in the wilds of the West Coast,” Bennett says.

“It’s a magical part of the world.”

Tasmanian Gardens, by Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett

Tasmanian Gardens by Meg Bignell and Alice Bennett is available now, RRP $79.99; published by Thames & Hudson Australia