Honeysuckle Cottage
Reporter: Lea Wilson
Lea gets hands-on in a bloomin’ antique garden in the Blue Mountains.
Rediscover the delights and charm of a huge 1830 country mountain garden, surrounded by Bellbirds and filled with unbelievable fragrances and flavours of Australia's colonial past.
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Complimentary: Famous Honeysuckle Cottage scones, teas and coffee on Sat and Sun. Open Thu to Tue 9am to 5pm.
Honeysuckle Cottage is a Green Ark, which was created in 1977 by two internationally recognized professional botanists/horticulturalists committed to conserving the world’s fast diminishing horticultural diversity. And as a result, to enable the conventional breeding of new varieties capable of coping with future climate changes and increasing new UV light intensities. Huge collections of heirloom plants are grown annually in the acres of organically managed display gardens on a beautiful 1830s property high in the north eastern Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
The nursery supplies many of the rare and antique plants in the collection.
Their programs of half and one day workshops all catered with delicious food provide a wide range of fascinating, informative sessions for beginners to experts in horticulture, garden design, floristry, garden crafts and botanical and garden painting.
The still room provides products created from the acres of fragrant flowers and herbs. The glorious views are the perfect background for garden and all activities.
The nursery has won international recognition and awards including the Jaguar/Gourmet Traveller Award.
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Several hundred rare and heirloom culinary, fragrant, medicinal and useful herbs are offered in the nursery including huge collections of mints, basils, oregano, thymes, sages, scented geraniums and rosemaries.
Honeysuckle cottage has one of the largest collections in the world of Antique Sweet Violets and has managed a breeding program that has released new varieties now sold world wide.
Approx 200 chilli peppers are in the collection of the Hell Fire Garden, around 140 of which are available as plants and a number as seeds annually. Many are of great rarity collected from around the world.
Every year Honeysuckle Cottage offers some 700-800 rose varieties from the past. Roses that grew in Ancient Greek and Roman gardens, in medieval monasteries and castles, in Tudor and Elizabethan gardens, roses collected by Napoleon’s Josephine and treasured by countless colonial wives desperately homesick for faraway lands and loved ones. A large rare collection can also be seen in the gardens.
Honeysuckle Cottage’s Festival Of Fragrance
18th – 22nd & 25th – 29th October 2007
Over two long-ish weekends Honeysuckle Cottage goes beyond its normal open garden and nursery to running talks and workshops on their wide variety of plants.
Workshops for Spring 2007 to Autumn 2008
The Honeysuckle Cottage Workshops are very special. Expect to have truly expert, highly qualified speakers, fascinating topics, wonderful surroundings, delicious food, and very special attention in limited number groups. The workshop days are planned as very special outings for those who love gardens, food, and home crafts, and enjoy being spoiled. Workshops will be held at beautiful Mill Farm in Kurrajong in truly delightful accommodation, and each will finish with a delicious afternoon tea and an expert garden advice clinic to answer all your questions.
Those who participate in workshops receive copies of the 8 page nursery newsletter, both of the large mail order annual catalogues for Perennials and Herbs, and for Heritage, Nostalgia, and David Austin Roses, and will receive a 10% discount if they visit the nursery or place a mail order within a month of attending a workshop.
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More Information
Honeysuckle Cottage Nursery
30 Bowen Mountain Rd, Grosevale Telephone: (02) 4572 1345
Entry is free, but gardening workshops are $90 per person and you’ve got to book. |