Heronswood throughout the seasons
Our gardeners skilfully maintain the Heronswood garden so that there is always something to see, no matter what the season, but the show is always changing such that there’s always something new to see. Garden visitors will be rewarded by several visits across the year to see how this ‘working’ garden changes through the year.
Heronswood Head Gardener
Whilst all our gardens echo the philosophies of The Diggers Club and The Diggers Foundation, and each is a living collection of the plants we trial, preserve and promote, each garden is carefully curated by a team of gardeners lead by a highly qualified Head Gardener.
Bill Bampton has lead the gardening team at Heronswood since 2011, following his previous role at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne for six years, including his role as Curator – NZ Collection. Bill came to Diggers with a passion for environmental horticulture and garden design. With a focus on creating a garden that is inspiring and achievable for home gardeners, Bill’s innovative approach to design and maintenance at Heronswood is centred around recycling and repurposing on-site materials. Bill’s seasonal displays connect visitors to an ever-changing landscape in the gardening year, featuring heirloom edibles and ornamentals skilfully interwoven to create a biodiverse and sustainable garden using organic principles.
Summer
It is through the warm summer months that Heronswood’s plantings really get into gear. Careful plant selection and management mean that the garden stands up to the blazing summer sun and still retains the form and colour of a show garden.
Sliver and grey-leaved plants in the dry garden combine with blue flowers and foliage to create a cool visual effect whilst the perennial colour wheel borders surrounding the Ash Tree lawn erupt displaying the full spectrum of flower colour. Look out for brilliant Dahlias, upright Cannas and other exquisite flowering beauties. Meanwhile, the vegetable and food gardens swell with fruit as the pollinators go about their work.
Autumn
Harvest time! As the sun’s power wanes and the days begin to shorten, the final flush of flower pushes on as the garden puts on it’s best show before retreating into winter. Fruits trees laden with fruits including apples, pears, avocados and feijoas, whilst the flower borders are at their fullest with dahlias, anemones, grasses and a fine display of late flowering perennials.
Winter
Winter at Heronswood is a time for rest, but only for a moment. It is the time of brassicas in the vegetable garden accompanied by splashes of violets and chard. The dry gardens feature a range of flowering aloes and garden activity takes the form of lifting and moving of plants, cutting back and editing the plantings to improve the display for next year.
Spring
Situated by the bay, Heronswood doesn’t ever truly go to sleep like cold climate inland gardens, so spring gets going early with the Ash Tree in the main lawn leafing out in early September.
This is followed by foxgloves and irises in the cottage garden, whilst the big flower displays of echiums, geranium maderense, clivias, wigandia and the stunning wisteria on the deck, come into full bloom in October. November sees the perennials fill out and the lengthening warm days see early flowering on shrubs and perennials throughout the garden.
