Leura Gardens Festival, Blue Mountains Spring Gardens

Rustlings 39 Woodford St.Leura
Peter's Garden, Courtesy of Claudia Fisk

Since acquiring "Rustlings" in the year 2000, Peter and Claudia Fisk have transformed it to create a wonderfully tranquil and inviting garden. Meandering paths invite you to journey its many rooms, each with a different feel, and an incredible variety of plants and landscaping styles.

As you enter the garden through its wisteria covered front gate, you will be lured towards the house by a formal gravel path. Resist! Instead take the path to the right, past the Buddha and go towards a bed of Japanese maples, each  one a different elegant specimen. The path leads towards the conifer forest underplanted with rhododendrons  camellias,woodland plants and ground covers. The huge sequoiadendron tree here is eighty years old. A rustic wooden bridge over the dry creek bed beckons you towards a grove of dramatic tree ferns, and architectural birds- nest ferns, underplanted with hellebores, azaleas and plectranthus.

Journey onwards on a stone path past the irises, and you are in a serene place-the Japanese meditation garden with its beautiful tea house and ponds. From here, the path winds around and across the lawn towards the house past massed planting of bulbs, Dutch iris, daffodils, bluebells, sparaxis, anemones, and of course, stately tulips. The bed under the "Star Wars" magnolia is planted with different tulips every year, and to the left is a re-designed bed featuring a "cloud pruned" tree surrounded by elegant grasses and feature rocks.

Explore the terraces at the front of the house, where neat hedges of buxus contain lavender and masses of flowering annuals, bulbs and roses which compete to catch your eye. To complete your journey, take the path around the rear of the house where camellias, azaleas and hydrangea grow under a huge old oak tree.

Peter's garden, courtesy of Claudia Fisk.