Hi everyone from Moorfield in the last throws of February, the last throws of summer! For us, the last day of the summer that hasn’t really been a summer, the heat less consistently sweltering than even what we experienced last year, our first summer, or what is typical of this area, as we are assured by locals.
That’s not to say there haven’t been hot days and hot windy days, an anxiety inducing combination in high summer but for the most part, it’s been very, well, pleasant and we’re enjoying it while we can as the weather experts warn of a shift, an impending El Nino which is supposed to dominate the next few years; basically the opposite end of the extreme spectrum experienced here in recent seasons, of colder and wetter than normal. Getting our water supply secured further, beyond the 3 tanks, including the new 100,000L Tank, to include a bore, is the main priority this year. Our first dig finding water but not at the rate the driller was satisfied with and is convinced can be found at a better flow in a spot divined elsewhere on the property.
This was the month, a year ago, that we were handed the keys to Moorfield. It’s hard to believe, in some respects, that it has been that long. In others, it feels like we have been here a lot longer for all the challenges we’ve faced in getting work underway and then how much we’ve managed to do in the last few months in order to make up for lost time. We were also reminded the popping up of FB memories, that this time 10 years ago the Little Oak garden was but barren ground with not a single plant, the house was falling apart, fences hadn’t been finished or even begun in some areas, we’d not yet even started on what would be the steepest ascent to understanding what we were doing, what would one day become like second nature. It was good timing. It felt as if the universe was sending me a message. Just breathe, it said; You’ve been here before, it will all happen, in good time. Trust the process.
So I am. Trusting the process. I look back on images I took at this time, a year ago and less, six months ago and compare it with what sits in front of me now, and that’s what I mean, when I say, “Trust the process”. Just do the work, just keep doing it, be open to learning and accept you might get it wrong and if you do, you’ll just have to do it again. Not the right position, not the right soil composition, not the right plant, not the right layout. All of these things happened at Little Oak more times than I could ever convey to you, countless mistakes, an astonishing amount of frustration was experienced in the pursuit of mastering the art of gardening and creating a garden but it never outweighed what it gave me in joy, fitness, mental and physical and a whole new way of life, a career that allowed for time with those I loved and time to start a family. That all came from taking my work stress and working it out in a garden and not giving up when it just felt more like plain bloody hard work because in the beginning it often is just a lot of that but it worth it in ways you can’t even imagine yet.
February has also been a wonderful month immersed in the gardens and gardening psyches of others. An overnight trip into the highlands to visit the incredible home and garden of Ralph Bristow, an artist and garden designer, and never were the two disciplines so well executed as one, it was more canvas than earth, more artwork than garden. I walked through it almost giddy with the colour and texture and the way it came to life in the breeze. The way I could imagine one day creating a ‘naturalistic’ style garden here at Moorfield, where I can go mad with my love of perennials.
I also had the great pleasure of attending a talk with some lovely people I’ve met through OGV (Open Gardens Victoria) by Kate Seddon and Kate Catterall of Kate Seddon Landscape Design on their recent garden design projects, which are always so inspiring, and also recent travels to the renowned Chelsea Flower Show and several gardens I hope to one day make my own pilgrimage to with Nes, mum and Hugo. It was fascinating to hear Kate Seddon discuss and show images she’d captured of the evolution of some ancient and extremely famous gardens moving into this new era of gardening. How they have adapted to a changing climate and changing approach to how we garden and what we now regard to be important considerations.
A lightbulb went off this month also, after spending the last 12, and lets be honest, the last decade, visiting and following amazing gardens and gardeners, and having this incredibly rich and varied world opened up to us via our instagram community, I have created a new way to share where we visit with everyone else here, in something called, The Garden Gadabout. It’s a bit of a passion project because I just love immersing myself in other peoples visions made real and learning how they did it, what inspired them, what challenges they faced and what it means to them to have a garden like they do.
I will photograph these special places and chat to the people who created them, professional and also just really passionate gardeners and put these things together in a story I hope you will love delving into and pouring over and ultimately, be inspired by. I will do this in our home state of Victoria and in other states of Australia that we visit; and when we travel overseas. We are headed to Noosa, Nashville, Maine, Los Angeles and Hawaii this year, so if you know of anyone whose garden is something to behold or yours is, get in touch. The Garden Gadabout will live on substack, here at The Garden at Moorfield.
February saw mum’s house get walls, insulation, a roof (well, most of a roof), verandah decking, windows and the cladding start to go up, and we can start to see it as it will be on the landscape and therefore, I am able to begin piecing together in my mind and scribbling madly on a sketchpad, exactly what her garden will look like, the areas between her home and the shared gardens, more compact spaces but ones that will provide quiet spaces for contemplation and breakfast amongst the trees and flowers, spaces she can entertain in, separate from the larger family shared spaces.
It also has me thinking about the ‘naturalistic’ garden I mentioned, that will be created in front of mum’s house, woven amongst and around the granite boulders this country is so famous for, and I so love. A style of garden epitomised in Ralph Bristow’s masterpiece but made famous by Piet Oudolf, though many designers have now made it their signature and with incredible results. I envision waves of mass planted perennials over an expanse that looks out beyond the garden boundary to the golden paddocks and the snaking creek. In this instance, an expanse that stretches over approximately 70 metres on a 20 metre deep slope, large enough that you can disappear into it and be immersed into a world of colour, movement and life.
We saw the pool fence go up, though posts still need to be cut down to the height of the fence and we await the anticipated sign off on it by the powers that be later this week. Then we can begin landscaping around it which involves a perennial border running almost the entire perimeter of the fence which will sink the fence into it and hide the plinth it sits on and in high summer leave only the tops of said fence visible. The area is a dry garden, with heat loving and more drought tolerant plants as it is in an exposed direct north facing position (our sunniest position in the Southern Hemisphere for all of you facing the exact opposite in the Northern Hemisphere). An olive and citrus grove will also radiate out from the pool garden, a number of other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern tree species (we’ll release a Garden Guide or two for this area specifically as we create it) and it will also be home to Hugo’s most anticipated garden feature, ‘The Outdoor Kitchen’, or as it is called where Hugo was born (Santiago, Chile), the Asado. The Asado or Outdoor Kitchen will be a Garden Guide on hard landscaping all its own, I think.
This the second Asado Hugo has ever created, the first being at Little Oak, and we learnt a lot from that process, this will be so much more considered than our last. A mud/brick oven will return, the parilla too (a South American BBQ), a bbq pit called an “A La Cruz” and a space for Hugo’s offset smoker as well as casual seating/dining area, a lounging area and a space for entertaining larger numbers of friends and family. All the detail that is now starting to concentrate as the big hard landscaping jobs like the terracing and fence are complete.
Our fingers have been permanently stained for the last month with a never-ending supply of mulberries from the crooked old tree and we’ve frozen bags full for warming winter crumbles, made jars and jars of jam and eaten them daily fresh atop breakfast and the odd dessert. We have become accustomed to just grabbing a few every time we pass by it, which is often, hence the permanently stained digits from the impromptu picking.
The Long Border is beginning to look blousey, fluffing up and filling out the beds nicely, I’ve indentified the gaps and have more grasses planned and some much loved Persicaria bistorta superba for the borders. It has taken several goes at weeding as the initial years of establishing new gardens often do, all of that weed seed bank germinating but over time that will decrease and the time invested in weeding will to. Now we’ve finished that job, next month will see us mulch the central path with old woodchip as an interim solution to keep down weeds but also to insulate the garden beds on either side and create mycelium highways which add to the overall health of the soil and therefore, plant life. One day this path will be a green strip of grass cutting a clean line between the two frothy beds, offering relief to the eye and helping to emphasise the wildness of all that grows on either side.
We completed, well, we mostly completed the shade garden under the giant ash closest to the homestead and herb garden and the pool area. A little more road-base is required before we can gravel the circlet on which the table sits, and the paths leading in and out. It’s been an exercise beyond my knowledge, beyond what I know of shade loving plants I used to work with in nurseries for years, to create a true shade garden of my own and I have been busy researching soil conditions and plant species, and trying to establish how to marry garden areas, inherently very different, but occupying the same parts of the garden, physically and visually.
We released ‘The Rose Guide: Part 1 and 2’ in February, huge undertakings but they’ve been so positively received it’s made it all the more worth it and tbh I’ve actually really enjoyed it, a foray into my old world as a designer, where I used to illustrate all the time, only fashion and textiles, in a beautiful office I’ve made for myself here surrounded by all things botanical. It’s also where I’ve begun work on ‘The Orchard Guide’ (out on 10 March) as I begin ordering the final instalments in bareroot trees to our orchard here, the last 4 trees to add to the existing 30 odd, to be planted in late winter/early spring. We have been stunned by the growth we’ve witnessed in the trees we planted last spring, truly mind-boggling, which you might’ve seen in a recent reel we put up on insta.
So, yes, this work for our new substack community has been a huge part of February, work which I have loved getting to do and I have especially loved hearing how it has become useful to you in your own gardens or become the way you settle into a Friday night with a glass of wine or lay in on a Saturday morning with a cuppa. And I will settle into the rhythm of bringing it altogether too, as the months continue, juggling creating the garden and the telling of the creating as well, and of course, like everyone, and just the stuff of life in general.
It is, after all, everything I ever wanted to capture and communicate when we first began Life at Little Oak Farm, now, The Garden at Moorfield, on instagram which has brought so many of you here, but couldn’t as there is only so much the insta grid and word limit can encapsulate of what is actually a highly involved process and journey over years and years of learning and work. Now I get to condense it into journal entries and Garden Guides; the process, and everything Little Oak taught me, us, and the experience of just getting to be here, observations of the way the light moves, the other life that calls Moorfield home and it is all a lot of work too but like the making of the garden itself, it is something I am loving creating for those of you who are loving it.
On that note, I must be away. I am in the middle of creating the overall map of the whole Moorfield Garden as it will one day be, for this Friday’s Garden at Moorfield Journal: 8 “The Big Picture” and I must find time amidst the rest of life to water the nursery, the new shade garden, weed the rose garden and get on with the rest of life, not garden related.
Thank you for being here, thank you for listening and thank you for the support but mostly, thanks for being part of an amazing community of gardeners and garden lovers that encourage and inspire us, and eachother. Pip and Hugo (and fam) xo
READING: DREAM GARDENS by Michael McCoy.
And SOULSCAPE by Peter Shaw, THE THOUGHTFUL GARDENER by Jinny Bloom, MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN: Venacular Contemporary by Louisa Jones and GARDENS ON THE EDGE by Christine Reid, all four providing inspiration for the design of the pool/dry garden area.
On substack: Sophie Hansen’s, ‘Something to Eat and Something to Read’ and as always, Jo Thompson’s, ‘The Gardening Mind’.
WATCHING: Gardening Australia (of course) and ‘Summer Gardening with Carol Klein’ (available via Daily Motion and YouTube). Her enthusiasm is entirely infectious.
LISTENING TO: ‘A Little Chaos’ score by Peter Gregson when I’m writing. Amazingly detailed and longwinded stories about mermaids and bats by Nes. New music from Dan Sultan. And old favourites by Mandolin Orange.
FOLLOWING: @ralphbristow_artist the insta account of the amazing highlands garden we visited this month and @kateseddon_landscapedesign and Kate Catterall @gardeneuphoria whose wonderful talk I enjoyed at a recent private event. And for more ‘naturalistic’ garden inspo @adamwoodruff.llc which I am loving seeing pop up on my feed for planting combinations.
MAKING: Mulberry cordial from the final harvests as the season change begins to appear in the leaves. Illustrations for The Orchard Guide instalment of our Garden Guides here on Substack and the overarching map of the future garden here at Moorfield for the next journal. Decisions about decking timber for the pool. Plans to visit the US in Northern Hemisphere Autumn.
PLANTING: Shade loving plants in the new garden beneath the giant Ash closest to the homestead, including the Japanese Maples and Boxwood finally, which we’ve kept alive in pots for almost a year. More perennial fillers for the Long Border so they can establish over autumn and winter.
BUYING: Bareroot apples, pears and cherries in bareroot stock to fill our orchard gaps and an additional 13 roses, along with 4 I’ve already ordered, required to finish the rose garden.
So inspirational we have just recently purchased 6 acres and I’m so inspired by your words and your work.
Where can I purchase the orchard guide ?
Just love your work Pip.
I love your drawings too .
Always so inspiring. Sitting looking at my garden and wondering what next to tackle. Awaiting the olive and citrus grove info and also the heat tolerant garden to get some ideas for my place.