A visit to Alowyn Gardens
By Hanna Ashton-Lawson
While some of our gardeners have been exploring gardens a little further afield, you don’t need to travel to France to see showstopping gardens. Alowyn Gardens in Yarra Glen is an easy day trip from Melbourne (or half-day trip if you’re working around a toddler schedule like us!). The gardens will provide inspiration for any style of gardener, with formal French gardens, a native dry garden, through to edible produce, a zen garden, a woodland birch grove, a loose perennial border garden, and many more hidden treasures.
Alowyn Gardens is most famous for its spectacular wisteria arbour, which delighted us by peaking right at the time of our visit. Photos just don’t do it justice, and it was harder to capture today as the garden staff were setting up for a wedding. The most romantic setting for a ceremony, don’t you think?
The first time we visited Alowyn, the French Garden truly took my breath away. Its scale is immense, fringed by towering hedges. Formal topiaries stand proudly alongside the grand promenade, and round buxus balls are scattered across the lush green lawns. While we missed the pretty ballerina blooms of the crabapples this time around, the shade of the trees was the perfect spot for a picnic.
Another favourite part of the garden for me was the productive cut flower and edible sections. Just beyond the French Garden is the market garden. There were rows of broad beans, leafy greens, and the last of the brassicas were backlit by a sea of waving poppies.
As we worked our way back, we meandered through the kitchen garden. “Kitchen garden” sounds quite casual, and Alowyn’s is anything but. The scale of this garden is enormous, with long and leafy avenues of productive fruit trees clipped into shady archways above. There is a netted berry garden, full of common and unusual berries.
Lastly, there was something magical (isn’t there always?!) about the birch forest. The breeze rustled their silvery leaves, and the afternoon sunlight lit up the masses of bluebells and hellebores planted underneath. Definitely a place where fairies hide!
Chasing a determined toddler around meant that we missed some of the sections of the gardens today. For the record, Lyra’s highlights were the gates, and going up and down various steps. There were whole other sections that we missed, that you could explore on your visit here and enjoy some surprises.
On the way out, you can browse the extensive nursery and accidentally impulse buy as many plants as your heart desires. I got off lightly for once, with just a white baby boo pumpkin seedling and a seaside daisy. There is also a cafe and gift shop with lovely gardening bits and bobs that would be a great place for some Christmas shopping.
So if you’re getting a bit of envy reading some of our earlier blog posts, do visit Alowyn Gardens - soon to catch that magnificent wisteria! But with rose buds everywhere, and dahlias labelled and resting underground in the rose garden, there is a lot more joy to come in this beautiful garden no matter the season.