“Wild, rambling beauty with a rainforest-meets-genteel-cottage-garden vibe”. This is how Kirsty Kendall describes the mood she and fellow landscape architect Emily Simpson encountered when they began working on the sprawling estate of Greyleigh. Endemic figs and palms were flourishing alongside weathered stone walls.
There were neglected, woody hedges teeming with birdlife. They found heritage fruit trees, interesting bulbs, old aloes and, behind one particularly overgrown planting, a “secret” garden with a bowerbird nest. Everywhere they turned there was both dilapidation and delight.
The Greyleigh garden, which has just taken out an award from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. Credit: Owen Hall All of which is to say there was nothing regular about this historic property on the NSW South Coast, which won an award of excellence in the gardens category at the 2024 National Landscape Architecture Awards last week. But what Kendall and Simpson did with this garden – which the institute described as harmonious, ecologically diverse, thoughtful and clever – provides lessons for all gardeners.
Even those with small urban spaces can glean ideas from how Simpson and Studio Rewild’s Kendall amplified what was already at this property, which was established as a dairy in the 1880s. While most gardens don’t come with such atmospheric starting points as Greyleigh, Kendall’s advice to all gardeners is to closely observe your patch and, when relevant, con.
