Daylesford Organics farmers Kate Ulman and Brendon Eisner live on 50 acres of forest and orchards that make up their farm in regional Victoria, with their three kids, Indigo, Jarrah and Pepper.

In the heart of their block is an incredible garden, comprising a kitchen garden right outside their doorstep, and a larger, flower, veggie and berry garden on top of a hill at the Musk Vale property.

These picturesque grounds are straight from the pages of a country living magazine, with abundant rows of brightly coloured dahlias, perennial plants, and an amazing sunroom nearby – complete with lush indoor vines! We recently stopped by for a visit.

It’s hard to believe artist and garden designer Ralph Bristow only started working on this flourishing garden in regional Victoria three years ago.

Tucked away on a six-acre block in Barwite, near Mansfield, the neglected paddock has been transformed by Ralph into a spectacular botanical wonderland filled with Indigenous trees, biannuals, bulbs and shrubs, plus a vegetable patch and a perennial garden!

The colourful landscape changes magnificently with the seasons – witnessed from his strawbale family home. Take a closer look at The Barwitian Garden in all its autumn beauty, before it features in the annual Open Gardens Victoria program later this month.

It’s a landscape designer’s dream to be offered a large site and the freedom to create any garden of their choosing.

This very scenario resulted in this Black Rock garden by Andrew Panton Design, which combines overflowing foliage, formal hedging, and tropical beach elements relevant to its bayside Melbourne location. 

Designed with year-round interest firmly in mind, the garden is divided into sections highlighting perennials that bloom throughout the seasons.

If life had turned out the way Andy Kepitis initially planned, he’d be spending his days in front of a computer working as an accountant – not tending to cacti and succulents in his backyard!

It wasn’t until studying at university that Andy discovered his love for plants, leading him down an entirely different career path, to found kep Horticulture. 

We caught up with Andy in his Northcote garden to learn about his horticulture practice, garden philosophy, and the value in loving what you do. 

Landscape architect Liz Herbert from Openwork describes a “healing garden” as a plant-dominated environment designed to meet the physical, psychological, social, and spatial needs of users. Whilst these spaces are often linked to hospitals, nursing homes and other health-related environments, Melbourne’s newest healing garden sits within the grounds of Heide Museum of Modern Art! 

Designed by Openwork, this beautiful new garden combines elements of conventional therapy and healing, with productive and edible gardens, and spaces intended for art and play.

Located on the site of Heide co-founder Sunday Reed’s first kitchen garden (later repositioned), this new environment reflects the late art patron’s keen interest in the symbolic and medicinal properties of plants, as well as Heide’s growing desire to provide restorative spaces for visitors of all ages and abilities.

If there is one category that never fails to appease our audience, it is gardens. No matter your taste, it seems that a thoughtfully designed garden is a perennial crowd-pleaser!

From a magical hidden flower garden in Ivanhoe, to an amazingly abundant lawn-free garden in Melbourne’s inner suburbs – to a pair of lifetime gardeners tending to their plot in Woodend, these are the best gardens we featured this year.

Rose Hawkins bought her organic garlic farm five kilometres north of Tenterfield, NSW three years ago. With an altitude of 850 metres, the property has four distinct seasons, crisp air, pristine spring water and a temperate, Mediterranean climate.

Here, among olive groves and fig trees, Rose grows garlic and dahlias and other produce. Setting foot on her farm is like entering a peaceful between-world, where the rhythms of the running stream and the rolling hillocks drown out the pace of daily life.

The last time we caught up with Clea Cregan it was way back in 2016, when she was creating terrariums under her business, Miniscapes. These days, terrariums are just a small part of the Miniscape Projects offering, which is now a fully-fledged landscaping service.

Sean Fennessy’s beautiful, rolling garden at his epic Fisher House? Yep, she did that!

Clea’s approach to cultivating the perfect green space is refreshingly lawless. She likes it best when plants sit well together, evolve into new beings, and create a strong sense of place.

Entering Petrina Burrill‘s Ivanhoe garden is like stepping into another world – as close to Narnia as you can get in suburban Melbourne. It’s a complete sensory experience that makes your jaw drop, your eyes widen, and your heart swell.

Petrina’s garden is, in fact, a suburban, sustainable micro flower farm. Here, she creates beautiful hand-picked bouquets for friends and strangers, bringing joy to all who stumble across her little patch of heaven.

The suburb of Haberfield in inner-west Sydney is a traditionally working class neighbourhood, though its proximity to the CBD has accelerated its gentrification in recent years. When Christopher Owen of Fieldwork was engaged to complete this garden in the suburb, he was torn on how to balance his love for the nostalgic, characterful space that had been in the previous owner’s family for decades, with his client’s brief for a contemporary garden.

He settled on a design that respected the garden’s legacy as a family space, by creating a new site ripe for the next generation of memories to take place. And it’s gorgeous!