What a weekend! It was crazy, it was huge, it was wet. Oh but it was fun! And it was just wonderful to see so many beaming faces wandering the garden, gumboot-clad feet walking the Labyrinth, visitors juggling brollies with bunches of flowers and discoveries from the Barn, queueing for pig & potatoes (well….I’m sorry about the queue but I gather it was worth queueing for!).
Of course, I had little time to take photographs….only the slimmest opportunity before the gates opened! But here are just a few images to give you some inkling of our rain-sodden yet magical weekend. A handful of Joe’s twig furniture on the croquet lawn….
The sweetest succulent-filled Terrariums hanging from the spokes of the Camden Park umbrella….
Just one of the weird, wonderful and special plants on their stand: Stapelia lepida with a sensational flower (and smell to match!). Their stand was manned by the voluntary Camden Park Nursery Group, when Dwin wasn’t taking charge herself.
Pressed for enough hands on deck, I decided to hand over our own mediaeval-market-style tent to Ovvio Organic Teas, and move our own plants to the Barn (of which I snapped not a single image!)
I was delighted Ovvio Organics could be here in order to tell folk about their beautiful teas…..
As our darling girls serving tea & cakes were under a wee bit of pressure with so many people requesting slices of every kind of cake we had! And no….I didn’t get any shots of cakes at all! I’ve received so many comments about their deliciousness that I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t set up a tea-shoppe (no, I’m kidding!!!). I send the most enormous thank you to Jillie at The Cooking Tree. She baked and baked, and baked some more….about 60 cakes over the 2 days! It was a huge effort (but I also know she loved every minute).
Eugalo Flower Farm’s Andrew & Freda set up the most fabulous flower stall you could imagine. In the middle of our garden. You simply cannot imagine how excited I was about this!
And Martin Boetz, well….his Cooks Co-Op produce stall in the Hayshed was sensational, his Pig & Potatoes scrumptious (I gather – we workers saw not a morsel it was so popular!) Next time more pigs please! Just seeing Marty & his team enthusiastically beavering away here was such a treat for us all.
The Patio Plants seedlings were as startlingly perky, beautiful, healthy, colourful and sought after as ever. I’m so sorry I don’t have an image of Barbara’s divine Talking Cookbook Tent, full of books, the prettiest cards & Barbara herself, or The Planthunter’s distilling efforts on Sunday (they had a contraption that looked like a rocket about to be launched into space, but you’ll be hearing more about that from me in the future!).
In fact, my image taking was so poor that I’m delighted Luisa Brimble turned up on Saturday to save the day, and I’ve asked her to put together a little collection for an Open Garden page on the website. She captured beautiful images, as she always does.
I’d just like to say THANK YOU for visiting, to all those who did. There were many hundreds of you. You were intrepid and uncomplaining in weather that truly left a great deal to be desired. I’m sorry you had to park on the road instead of in the paddock (much closer) that Larry had spent hours & hours mowing beautifully in preparation for your arrival. And thank you for listening to our Mount Hunter Rural Fire Brigade volunteers….they had a bit more to deal with than we’d anticipated. A big thank you to all our stall holders for their marvellous effort to bring my quirky vision to reality, and to everyone who contributed an hour here, a few there to ticketing at the gate. A great big thank you to all ourtea girls – what a whirl of excitement you dealt with. A huge thank you also to Eliza for manning my Barn with the biggest smile the whole weekend, and to Alex for being everywhere at once!
Will we do it all again? SPRING 2016….watch this space!