Country garden festival brings visitors to warm spring gardens over five days

The Festival of Country Gardens held last week was a big success, with many visitors flocking all over the South West region to observe the best gardens on display. The five-day festival was accompanied by hot and sunny weather, which accentuated the flowers that had been blossoming and were in bloom over the weekend, with 15 gardens open to the public for viewing and those wanting some inspiration in their own gardens. Festival chairperson Nadene Weaver said she was satisfied with the turnout this year and noted the traffic among the different gardens throughout the festival. “It’s going really good and I had lovely reports from the weekend that the gardens had lots of visitors over four days,” she said. “Some gardens had more than 120 people attending per day, and Thursday, Friday and Sunday morning was busy, but Saturday was the busiest in terms of visitors to the gardens.” She said she felt quite pleased with the amount of traffic brought to Bridgetown with the festival, noting the business visitors drummed up for local boutiques and businesses. “I’m feeling really good about the visitors and I’ve spoken to couple of business and they were stocked up for the Gardens weekend and Blues this weekend. “They sold out over the weekend, so business owners are having to quickly stock up for the Blues at Bridgetown now.” Wallace McNamara and Teresa Schofield were responsible for one of the gardens on display, Bridgetown’s Elysian Fields, a 0.8 hectare property with front and back gardens, on display for its fourth year. Mr McNamara said the progression of the garden within the four years it had been shown meant visitors were able to see the garden grow and evolve with each iteration. “We were talked into it and we’re happy to do it because they wanted to see our garden starting from the beginning, when our garden was two years of age, which was four years ago,” he said. “People have been coming for three years and have noticed a difference in that time.” Ms Schofield also mentioned the progression, noting that this year’s festival was the first time the garden was close to completion. “This is the first year that the garden has come together, as before it was a work in progress, so we’re happy it’s at that nice stage where everything has come together,” she said. The transformation and development of the garden came with its own challenges, according to the owners. “We did cutting initially, but when you go down to the nursery and see certain flowers, you think ‘well, that would be enjoyable’,” Mr McNamara said. “You start getting smarter and get better at your plant choices, especially when you lose a few because of the weather. “Now, it’s more choices based on the weather, watering, sizes and colours.” The pair will donate money paid for entrance fees to local youth organisation Blackwood Youth Action to help fund their programs, a decision they had undertaken since they began participating. “That came about with our participation and we thought we could bring the money for someone,” Mr McNamara said. “BYA’s Sarah Youngson was brought up and we knew nothing about the youth, and then we contacted her and now we raise money for them every year.” Blackwood Youth Action representative Rebecca Jones said the organisation was grateful for their donation and believed their contributions would benefit their programs. “We are given a donation every year to help build on our services that we’ve got going on every year, with Blackwood Youth Action,” she said. “Now that we’ve got the BYA House, we’re putting on art programs, music programs and Teresa and Wallace’s money helps contribute to that.” The festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year, which Ms Weaver says is generating a lot of interest from both those wanting to visit and wanting to participate. “Lots of interest from gardeners and people over the weekend asking them when the festival will be on next year,” she said. “I’m definitely looking forward to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the festival next year.”