A treat for garden lovers

By Kath Gannaway
GARDEN lovers will have the opportunity to look over the work of the ABC Gardener of the Year for 2008 in October.
John Van de Linde’s Alowyn at 1210 Melba Highway, Yarra Glen, is opening under the Australian Open Garden Scheme on 4 and 5 October.
The Alowyn garden has been designed and planted on a grand scale by Mr Van de Linde.
At the heart of the garden is a huge wisteria arbour, covered in about 100,000 blooms. About 100 metres in length, the arbour links visually the four areas the garden is divided into. A large intricate and formal box-edged parterre of 17th century design contrasts with the natural style of a forest of about 500 silver birches with their fresh new foliage and underplanting of hellebores.
There is also a recently-established edible garden with avenues of different kinds of semi-mature trees including espaliered olive trees.
The fourth of these sections of the four-acre garden comprises six smaller more intimate spaces or rooms. Here visitors will see imaginative drought-tolerant and frost-tolerant plant combinations including sedums, salvias, penstemons, and ornamental grasses.
The Red Cross is providing refreshments and, along with the local CFA, will benefit from the opening.
Alowyn will be open from 10am to 4.30pm. Entry is $6.