Big Sick Weekend

This weekend there were too many events on. Ballarat Gardens in Spring. Creswick Garden Lovers Festival. Ballarat Show. Quilts in the Garden at Gordon. There was no way to see and do everything. And then I got sick, so could see or do very little.

I visited the Ballarat Show on Friday, but I snapped these two photos of the display this afternoon when I went to collect the quilts I had in the competition. It was nice to get shots without the reflections in the glass that normally covers the displays. My Berry Delicious came second in the "Traditional Quilt: no commercial quilting" category, and won the "Best machine quilting" prize:

The earth-toned quilt to the left of mine came first in the category, and won the "Best hand quilting" prize.

My En Provence was unloved by the judge. Her main criticism related to the fabric I used for the back, which I hadn't thought might be important. Oh, well! I'm lucky I wasn't competing against the quilt closer to the camera here:

That's the quilt which was viewers' choice runner-up at our quilt show last weekend. It is beautifully made and embellished, but was professionally quilted, so was in a different category to my quilts. It's not surprising that it won first prize in its category.

Yesterday I visited two of the gardens open for Ballarat Gardens in Spring. The first is one we drive past regularly, so I really wanted to see what was behind the hedges. Mt. Boninyong, as the property is called, is apparently one of the oldest surviving domestic gardens in Victoria, having been planted in the 1840s.

We entered the property just on 11:00am, so we paused for the minute's silence as a bell tolled from the house - not many houses have an operating bell-tower!

Lots of old-fashioned flowers in front of the house:

Several trees are on the National Trust register of significant trees, including a couple of 180-yr-old Magnolia grandiflora:

Fruit trees and gardens behind the house:

The second garden was quite a contrast. It was interesting to see what the owners have achieved in just 13 years.

The ceanothus "Blue Pacific" hedges are amazing:

Views to forever:

And enclosed spaces:

The garden is still developing, as can be seen in newly constructed sections:

A patch of Flanders poppies was appropriate for the day:

Today we visited a third garden. This one is on a grander scale, with garden beds metres across, a 4-hectare lake,

 an entire landscape (note the carved grass on the far side of the lake):

surrounding an amazing house of rammed earth:

It's not surprising that the owners are architects, who designed the house, landscape and planting scheme as a whole.

Our neighbours visited some of the other open gardens, and raved about one in particular as the best garden they'd ever seen. We'll have to hope that one is open again some time in the future, because I wasn't up to going to it today.