When the prospect of a trip to London and the Prospect of Whitby beer garden is low, an alternative is to explore Denman Prospect. First stop, the impressive Ridgeline Park playground planted with casuarinas and Roman cypresses around the perimeter. These echo the historic plantings on Roman Cypress Hill between the Lindsay Pryor National Arboretum and the National Arboretum Canberra and on City Hill, part of Canberra's early history.
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Cruise past Cravens Creek with its pond and dry river bed of boulders to the bottom of Felstead Vista and Denman Village shops. The architectural design of the curved buildings is said to follow the line of the creek and a planting of shrubs on a steep slope has a large sculpture of a pair of scissors or secateurs.
The breakfast menu was still available at Morning Dew cafe. We shared Green Island savoury waffles, house-made with spinach and avocado on a swirl of garlic yoghurt and beetroot hummus and topped with two poached eggs scattered with dukkah. Coffee is from ONA.
On the way home, after driving through the butterfly-named streets in Wright, we detoured via Heysen Street in Weston and stopped at Fetherston Gardens which are open to the public.
A few raindrops were falling on the large pond which was emptied and repaired in 2010. In its centre is a pontoon to which stepping stones once led (removed for safety purposes), now the resting place for ducks.
There are fruiting trees including two large mulberries, black and white varieties, medlars and persimmons, olive trees and loquats and wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox) was scenting the air.
The best accent plant in the landscape was red hot pokers (Kniphofia species) or torch lilies. One vibrant red and yellow flowerhead had been snapped off and abandoned, possibly by a bird. I rescued it, hence the "mop" in our photo. Every kitchen needs a mop for dishes or the floor.
A man who has seen the photo said it would make a good dancing partner and a woman said it could be a marketing success.
The highlight of the Fetherston Gardens is the double row of 20 espaliered fruit trees which were planted in the 1970s. This arboretum and woodland was the former site of the CIT School of Horticulture and it re-opened in October 2013. A herb garden from the 1980s has been resurrected by Fetherston Gardens volunteers and, on our visit, frogs were croaking in the marshy ground between the new children's garden and the Gallipoli Garden and down to the frog pond in the secret garden.
The fruit trees are magnificent in winter with their expert pruning by horticulturist and volunteer Helen showing the fruiting spurs of Delicious apples, Packham's Triumph pears, Josephine de Moline and Winter Nelis, Beurre Bosc pears and a Granny Smith apple tree. There is also an unusual Belgian dessert pear tree Glen Morceau, raised in Mons in 1750.
Horticulturist and committee member Paulene Cairnduff measured the largest apple tree for us last week. The trunk has a caliper (circumference) of 1.6 metres just below the branching starts (about 30cm above the ground). Paulene says one of the dedicated volunteers, Ian, has made a delicious pear relish from the fruit of the pear trees.
Convenor of of the Friends of Fetherston Gardens, horticulturist Lesley Pattinson, and the committee members invite you to visit the gardens tomorrow July 14 (and join the working bee if you wish) or on Sunday, July 25, from 10am to 1pm with morning tea at 11.30am.
Giveaway
Winter is the peak season for apples and pears and in Kitchen Garden, June 22, we met Trisha Dixon in her home garden, Bobundara, with its snow white apple trees. We referred to the launch of her book Spirit of the Garden (National Library of Australia, $65).
Now Food & Wine has a copy of the book to be given to a Kitchen Garden reader. In the text, Trisha shares her written reflections and outstanding photography as she explores the relationships between ourselves, our gardens and the natural landscape. Chapters include gardens of the mind through artists, thinkers and writers on their special places, the Aboriginal history of this ancient land, gardens belonging to landscape architects and designers from Young to the South Coast, her own place on the Monaro, and us - the people who garden for their mind and soul.
For our Kitchen Garden article, Trisha also shared her favourite recipe for an upside-down pear cake. To win the copy of the book, tell me about your special place and share your top recipe for using pears or apples in the kitchen. Email with your name and address to: bodenparsons@bigpond.com
