Halcyon days in the Valley

By Kath Gannaway
MELBOURNE Cup weekend in the Yarra Valley will provide a feast for garden lovers, with the Upper Yarra Garden Club holding its annual open garden weekend.
Halcyon in Healesville will open its gates as part of Australia’s Open Garden Scheme and the Wallace Garden in Coldstream will also go on show.
Halcyon, at 466 Maroondah Highway, has been home to the same family for six generations and is rarely open to the public.
It is open on Saturday and Sunday and Cup day from 10am to 4.30pm.
The property, opposite Maroondah Dam, features a large, beautifully designed garden, featuring mature conifers, deciduous trees and eucalypts underplanted with cool-climate shrubs.
The spring colour with rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, is spectacular. Lily and iris beds are in full bloom, there is a parterre, orchard and walled vegetable garden and excellent examples of dry stone walls retaining perennials and roses.
Christine Wallace’s garden, hidden behind paddocks at 7 Maddens Lane, Coldstream, is also an absolute delight.
The Wallace garden will be open from Friday 29 October to Cup day.
The 1.3 hectare garden features a mix of exotic and native plants with masses or irises and roses just about to burst providing a particularly spectacular show.
Other features are ponds, a dry creek bed, a silver birch forest and new plantings of various eucalypts.
There will be a garage sale, including plants, and Devonshire teas.In the Upper Yarra, five garden club members on the Warburton Highway will open their gates.
The diversity of gardens is one of the great attractions of this traditional weekend.
The gardens are Claremond Cottage at 14 Webb Street, Warburton, Nerrigundah at 325 Eacotts Road, Hoddles Creek, The Rambling Rose at 10 Surrey Road, Warburton, Christabel Park at Yarra Junction and the Wickramasurya garden at 506 Woods Point Road, East Warburton. The gardens range from just three years old to well established ones. The gardens are open from 10am to 5pm and there are single garden or five-garden passes available.