The Gardens
Garden map
Download our handy map of Crookwell and surrounds to help plan your visit.
Gardens are open 10am to 4pm on both days.
1. Turner garden
Gorham Rd
Crookwell
This large country garden on a working cattle farm features stands of liquidambars and ornamental pear trees. Fence lines of Smaragd and Spartan conifers, a parkland area and a silver birch grove underplanted with bluebells lead you through the property to the main garden brimming with a wonderful selection of roses that should be coming into exquisite bloom when the garden festival is on.
There is lots of creative garden art and views over the gorgeous surrounding countryside. The garden beds are full of all sorts of colourful perennials and provide a veritable feast for the senses!
There is also a well-designed orchard with, pear, apple, peach, nectarine, plum and fig trees, and six elevated vegetable gardens.
2. Pratten garden
63 Wade St
Crookwell
Screened from the street by Japanese maples and silver birch, this is a gem of a town garden. It may be small but it’s well established and very well cared for. A wonderful, gnarly old ornamental grape vine shades the rear of the house. Neatly clipped hedges frame parts of the garden.
There are exquisite hydrangeas, roses and lots of fascinating perennials. A great outdoor entertaining area, adjacent to an enclosed and secluded lawn. Perfect for either breakfast with the birds or a summer soiree.
If you have a small space and you want to make the most of it, this garden is sure to give you some great ideas.
3. ‘Myahgah’, Watson garden
66 Cowper St
Crookwell
‘Myahgah’ is a delightful small town garden which is full of surprises. Gae and Mark have worked meticulously on creating an eclectic blend of country, cottage and garden whimsy.
On arrival visitors are greeted by the gentle cooing of doves, the tranquil sounds filtering through from a large aviary at the rear of the property. Neatly manicured hedges are underplanted with hardy perennials, including comfrey and red sedum. Clumps of bamboo add an oriental touch, and everywhere there are carefully placed agricultural implements and old tools.
As you round the house and enter the back yard, be prepared for a raucous greeting from an assortment of cockatiels and princess parrots, housed in another spacious aviary. If they like the look of you, they will whistle and shriek with delighted excitement at seeing a visitor.
Look out for the fairy garden and collections of old bottles. Not to mention an astonishing selection of rusty old chains, wheels, mattocks, an old gate, old signs and repurposed timbers all of which give the garden an air of heritage, local history and nostalgia.
Be sure to check out the Ajax Wool Press, and also the massive boulder carefully placed among a small grove of stately silver birch trees. As with every item in this garden, there is a fascinating story to be heard about how they ended up here!
This garden is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when combining cold climate hedges and plants with vision, mission and purpose. But it’s also very much a family space and much used for social gatherings, a place to relax and enjoy company. It’s a happy place!
4. Hudson garden
72 Cowper St
Crookwell
This place is simply magical. The front gate is flanked by a gorgeous flowering cherry on the left and an ancient and imposing holly on the right. As you look through the gate a mysterious shape looms over the path: a very large, interesting and somewhat spooky weeping cyprus. It's just like something from a Harry Potter movie!
This garden has many more interesting trees and shrubs, including a lovely selection of rhododendrons in shades of cerise, pink, mauve and creamy white.
It’s truly a garden for all seasons, with massed hellebores and bulbs flowering in winter, and an abundance of aquilegias and other cottage garden gems, and yet more bulbs celebrating the arrival of spring. As the spring blooms gently fade away, they are followed on by a delectable selection of gorgeous roses and yet more exciting blossoms in the hotter months. Of course, there is also plenty of autumn colour too.
It was the garden that inspired owners Margaret and Brian Hudson to buy the property. Margaret says, “We were really looking for a different style of house, but we saw the garden and that was it. The decision was made!”
The foundations of the garden were established by previous owner Alan Craven, a well-known local weaver who had somewhat of a cult following for his fantastic and beautifully crafted woven tweeds, used to create wonderfully exquisite garments. His talents also clearly extended to the field of horticulture and resulted in this enchanting town garden. It was Alan who designed the basic layout of the garden, who planted the various trees including the wonderful weeping cypress, and who created this special place.
Under the loving care of Margaret and Brian, who bought the property in 2010, this charming garden will continue to evolve and develop. It will surely delight visitors for many decades to come!
5. ‘Kiloren’
Hay St
Crookwell
This garden was designed by Edna Walling in 1951 and is hence both well designed and well established. A large garden (originally around four acres) in the classic Walling style, with its skilful use of sweeping rock walls, naturalistic plantings and use of groves of trees to create a deep sense of tranquillity and integration with nature. Walling enjoyed blurring the boundaries between the manicured control of conventional gardens and wild and untamed woodlands and forests, teeming with wildlife.
Marvel at the many very large, magnificent trees and associated shrubberies as you wander through this wonderful garden, with groves of silver birch, Manchurian pear, amelanchier and silver elm. Rhododendrons create splashes of colour, and drifts of forget-me-nots, bluebells, primroses, aquilegias and many other flowers will both soothe and inspire your senses.
As with all gardens, the work is never finished. The owners have been extending and renovating the garden, painstakingly constructing new rock walls and adding an orchard and vegetable garden.
6. White garden
Gordon Rd
Crookwell
A kaleidoscope of colours greets you as you enter this garden. Neat garden beds packed with a fascinating array of annuals, perennials, bulbs and shrubs. Cherry trees, weeping elms, azaleas, rhododendrons, conifers, garden art and windchimes. It’s a wonderfully enchanting place that invites you in to explore.
But that’s just the front garden!
As you round the house and enter the backyard, you will be greeted by two enormous and very majestic oak trees, one an English oak and the other a pin oak, set in a large expanse of lawn. Try to resist the urge to run over and hug these magnificent trees if you can!
The initial feeling is of space and room to play. And that’s no accident; the rear garden is planned for family fun and provides plenty of room for kids and grandkids to run amok and burn off energy. It’s also a fabulous place for a social gathering, a perfect place to enjoy al fresco dining under the shade of those wonderful trees.
And yet more horticultural treasures in every corner! Geums, salvias, peonies, phlox, ericas, roses, the list seems endless. So many botanical delights to savour and enjoy.
The soft tinkling of more wind chimes and the strategically placed garden artworks add to the charm of this special place that effortlessly combines so many garden styles. A cottage garden, a parkland oasis, an art gallery, a botanical garden? It’s all of these and more.
Masterfully created and packed full of so many interesting plants and sculptures, and yet not busy or overwhelming. It’s spacious, and somehow both simultaneously stimulating and calming. Take your time here, there’s a lot to see and there are surprises hiding in unexpected places.
This garden has such an array of different plants that there is always something delightful in bloom, no matter the time of year.
Truly a garden for all seasons!
7. Woodward Lane Garden
Woodward Lane
Crookwell
This is your chance to witness the early days of a garden that is destined for future greatness. Paul and Kerry have a great love of trees and have planted out an astonishingly diverse collection on their two hectare block over the last five years.
Groves of silver birch, cut-leaf birch and purple birch have been underplanted with a variety of bulbs and perennials. Crimson sentry maples and ornamental pears march along the boundaries and glorious lipstick maples line the driveway. Carefully placed golden elm, geisha elm, liquidamber, pin oak, nyssa, plane, Chinese pistachio, claret ash and golden ash. So many gorgeous trees!
Paul has a particular love of Japanese maples and cercis, and many different cultivars have been incorporated in this grand vision. And there’s yet more botanical treasures to see: dogwoods, crepe myrtles, magnolias and Japanese snowball trees. Camellias and wisteria, roses and even waratahs and proteas.
Something very special that you may not have seen before is the katsura tree. The heart-shaped leaves turn glorious golden shades in autumn and emit a most distinctive sweet caramel smell.
Neatly clipped hedges define the buildings, and even here there is variety, with hedges of escallonia, English box, Japanese box and Buxus ‘Faulkner’.
You might be thinking this is an arboretum in the making, but it’s so much more than this. The trees have been grouped and placed strategically and this really is a garden with a grand vision. It’s spacious and forest like, yet intimate. The diversity is fascinating, but the design ensures it is cohesive and inviting.
Kerry has a keen eye for rocks and at various places in the garden you will find magnificent examples of Southern Tablelands geology that have been rescued and salvaged from the local district. Here’s a challenge for the ‘rock hounds’: how many different kinds of rock can you identify in this garden?
It’s a young garden and there’s a lot of work to be done as the garden evolves, but for Paul and Kerry it’s a labour of love. Their enthusiasm and passion for gardening is contagious and you will certainly be inspired by a visit to this special place. You’ll also want to come back in years to come to see how it has grown and developed!
8. ‘Casa della Pace’
9 Diamond Rd
Crookwell
This much-loved garden was one of the very first to feature in the Crookwell Garden Festival and if you’ve seen it before you’ll definitely want to come back.
As you arrive you are greeted by the entrancing Rosa ‘Mutabilis’ cascading over a rock wall. Enter the garden gate and an enticing path leads you through the wisteria walk and a charming woodland area, planted out with flowering shrubs, bulbs and perennials. Keep following the path and you’ll encounter secluded garden rooms, shady trees and intriguing garden art.
Take time to sit and savour the peace and tranquillity and the stunning views, or just enjoy a leisurely stroll. There’s certainly lots to see!
9. ‘Bindalea’
Queen St
Binda
A hidden garden that is full of surprises, Bindalea is screened from the adjacent busy country road by dense plantings of hedges, shrubs and trees and it’s a lot larger than it seems when you first walk through the gate.
Take a magical horticultural journey through a series of carefully planned and landscaped garden rooms, each packed full of interesting trees, shrubs and other plants. You’ll need to spend some time at this garden to fully appreciate what it has to offer.
The property is low lying, located on former pasture land on the periphery of the Binda Creek floodplain. Parts of the land are prone to inundation in heavy rain events, and cold air flowing through the valley pools here in winter, so it’s often bitterly cold and waterlogged.
Conventional wisdom would be that it’s hardly the choicest location to establish a garden, but Andrew and Tony have unflinchingly taken on the challenge and more than triumphed. By careful selection of suitable plants and much trial and error, they have created an amazingly diverse and beautiful landscape that cannot fail to inspire and impress.
You’ll also be amazed to discover that most of the plantings are less than five years old. It’s a tribute to horticultural skill and passion, and amply demonstrates that a master gardener can create a beautiful garden anywhere!
10. ‘Markdale’
462 Mulgowie Rd
Crooked Corner
Acknowledged as one of the great country gardens of Australia, Markdale was started in the 1920s and redesigned in the late 1940s by the pioneer of Australian landscape gardening, Edna Walling.
Spanning 5 acres, the garden is said to be one of the most intact examples of her garden design in New South Wales. It features her signature design—blending native plants and exotics, thyme lawns, informal garden pool and hand-built paths. Garden features include a pergola of blue and white wisteria, stunning golden and weeping elms, a profusion of roses, a stone-walled garden and a sweeping lawn down to a small lake.
Walling used the glorious natural scenery of paddocks and hills to advantage, removing many of the existing hedges in the process. Today, silver birch, aspens, pin oaks, hawthorns, golden elms, golden and claret ash, spireas, viburnums and eucalypts shelter and frame the garden without obscuring the view.
11. ‘Woodford’
Boorowa Rd
Narrawa
This old country garden is located at Narrawa, on the Boorowa Road 25 minutes from Crookwell. The garden is well established and features a diverse assortment of mature trees and large shrubs. The plants in this garden have proved their worth.
They are not just ornamental, they have shown over the decades that they can survive cold bleak winters and hot dry summers, droughts and flooding rains.
A thriving Kalamata olive tree at the rear of the house fruits prolifically, but apparently the chooks have first dibs on the olives! Rosa rugosa thrives here. It has wonderfully delicate looking blooms, but this is one of the toughest plants growing in the garden.
A bonus for those who make the drive to this garden is that it is adjacent to Red Robin Nursery, which stocks a wide range of rare and unusual perennials, shrubs, climbers and trees, plus gardening books, garden furniture, tools, pots and gifts. Importantly, toilets are available, including a disabled toilet.
There will also be tea, barista coffee, chai, hot chocolate, other refreshments and cakes for sale on the weekend.
