Photography: Carmen Bunting
Beautiful gardens are ready sources of joy. However, there’s greater satisfaction in not only admiring, but doing, getting soil under the fingernails as one tends and nurtures. This was the philosophy that drove enthusiastic amateur gardener Virginia when she moved to this charming cottage in Macedon, Victoria. Creating a basic working space was her first priority so she swiftly installed raised vegie beds and compost bins in the backyard.
“I did that to get some vegies and be able to get my hands dirty while I worked out what I wanted to do everywhere else,” she says.
The front garden took precedence – the Tim Pilgrim-designed naturalist garden (which featured in Home Beautiful’s March 2024 issue) is the main entertaining area, wrapping the cottage in clouds of blowsy blooms. In early 2025, Tim returned to design the back garden, incorporating Virginia’s lust-have pottering spaces, while linking the look with the whimsical front garden. Says Tim, “It was the final piece of the puzzle, tying together a garden that we were really proud of.”
Steps lead away from a gravelled patio. The former is cut from a single basalt boulder. Flanked by a loose spill of shrubbery, the steps seem to be part of the landscape
Flowering plants abound, including pinkladies, seaside daisies, Aquilegia ‘Rose Queen’ and alliums.
PLANT PALETTE
Tim created an intentional link with the front garden, using a similar cottage-garden palette of plants, strategically chosen to provide an evolving cycle of year-round interest. “We worked on a staggered succession of planting,” says Tim. “It’s not all singing, all dancing, right through the year; one thing replaces another, each taking turns in being dominant.” Structured evergreens form an ever-present backbone of the garden, and, in the case of the clipped Buxus balls, a touch of formality amid the wild froth of seasonal blooms.
MATERIAL WORLD
Hard materials come secondary to the plantings, with basalt boulders, sliced stone steps and puddle pavers peeping through a fringe of foliage. The bold exception is the Sproutwell ‘Orangery’ glasshouse, the picturesque hero of the space. It’s raised on red brick footings in a nod to the front garden material palette, which includes a brick-paved patio. This also gives the build a sense of balance with the raised studio adjacent. “The bricks gave it more height, because it’s the lowest point in the garden,” says Virginia. “I wanted it to feel spacious.”
(Credit: Photography: Carmen Bunting)
Dark side Tim’s palette was given a shady-garden twist, prompted by the towering pine trees on the fenceline. A grove of birch trees were chosen for their ability to thrive in the filtered light and acidic soil conditions caused by the pines. Agaifence linenst a shadowy maroon base of Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker’s Red’ and Heuchera ‘Black Forest Cake’, contrasting spots of sunshine appear in Penstemon ‘Pink Cloud’ (opposite, top left), and Scabiosa caucasica ‘Perfecta Alba’.
IN THE ZONE
‘Being’ and ‘doing’ spaces sit shoulder to shoulder in the back garden, reflecting how Virginia uses the space. “I’ll take a coffee out and potter, look at what’s going on with the vegies,” she says. “It’s a little slice of heaven.” At one end is a patio, a quiet space attached to the guest accommodation, but Virginia favours the greenhouse (her dog Harvey even has his own bed in there), checking the vegie patch, or deciding what to grow in her cut flower patch, which is currently a sprawl of sweetpeas.
(Credit: Photography: Carmen Bunting)
A cut above Tim describes the paving stones as basalt ‘puddles’ since they mimic the look of still water. These connect the exterior zones, hopscotching past Virginia’s cutting garden. “I love growing dahlias in summer – I wanted space for lots of cut flowers growing,” she says. Snug against the glasshouse, the bed is currently planted in a mass of sweetpeas. In time, these will give way to Virginia’s seasonal fancies, such as dahlias. “I love these hardworking spaces,” adds Tim. “We were able to blur the lines between a pretty place to ‘be’ and a place to ‘do’.”
COTTAGE
Garden heroes
1. Geum ‘Lady Strathden’ and seaside daisies (Erigeron karvinskianus) sprawl over basalt boulders and topiary Buxus.
2. A haze of purple is cast by Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ and Allium ‘Purple Rain’. The latter blooms in large spheres and the former in tall spires.
3. Pale pink sweetpeas are a fragrant star of the cutting garden.
4. Red valerian (Centranthus rubra) sends up delicate clouds of pink flowers.
5. Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’ is a tough but pretty perennial.
SOURCE BOOK – your trusted home directory >>
Landscape design: Tim Pilgrim Gardens, tpgardens.com.au.
Landscape construction: Macedon Ranges Garden Services, macedon rangesgardenservices.com.au.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Share this post