Life marches on and time is passing in a flash of a second. Nearly eighteen years ago, Kees and I began our last big adventure of our privileged time on earth. We decided to create our own piece of Paradise to keep us busy in our retirement years. Our four children were fast becoming successful in their own endeavours and our city garden was bursting at the seams from my avaricious desire to plant every flower, leaf or habit of growth that I fell in love with during my constant visits to nurseries.
A story - Our eldest daughter was at University when a Uni friend asked her "Were your parents up North in the weekend?" On being informed that we had been, her friend laughed and said "I told my parents it was them. We passed a forest in a station wagon travelling the road and looking in, all we could see were plants, no driver, no passenger, just pots and pots of plants!" Above all I had a yearning to create a water garden. The little pond that my youngest daughter had dug out, using a pickaxe, in the shadiest corner of the town garden, as a Mother Day's present, was not enough to satisfy the deep down longing I felt. How could I grow Lotus plants in deep shade? It did become a dear little secret pond and gave me an excuse to buy some small growing ornamental Japanese Maples! And it did shut me up from nagging Kees for a few years, until that fateful year, nineteen years when we visited a wonderful water garden in New Zealand and the itch returned. After the purchase of the 138 acres property which consisted of 2000 apple trees, 8 acres of professionally grown raspberries, paddocks and natural bush and a run down house C1880, our lives were very much changed. Our weeks were split in two - our very living practices were doubled - gardening, housework and visits to nurseries. We travelled all over Tasmania to purchase rare and special species Rhododendrons, Acers and other exotic cool temperate plants. We enlarged our plant searches to the mainland of Australia for unusual Conifers and trees. My husband's Dutch family was another priority in our agenda and every two or three years we visited Europe. Now, who will blame me for visiting superb English and Scottish gardens, drooling at the sight of fields of the blue poppy, Meconopsis, or standing in awe while gazing at the beautiful water gardens at "Bodnant"? In my opinion, "Bodnant" is the best 'monied' garden in Britain. Returning to our own unique gardens, I would again be inspired to recreate my own versions of these garden scenes. The only way to achieve anything was to purchase seeds and nurture our own little plants. And what an exciting pastime that is!
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