FUN OVER FIFTIES

On Sunday 2 November it was my pleasure to escort through my garden the first of three tours this season brought to me by Toni Brennan of Fun Over Fifties Tours. Toni has been bringing tour groups to my garden and to enjoy all the other attractions of Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt in November, for several years.

http://www.funoverfifty.com.au

As with every tour group I positioned these thirty visitors on the veranda of the apartments at Das Helwig Haus B&B where they could overlook the garden while I answered their questions.

Veranda of Das Helwig Haus apartments.

Toni’s tours are punctual and never hurried which means the visitors are happily laughing and have the time to question me in detail as we proceed down through the vegetable and herb gardens.

At the herb garden I gave them leaves of lemon verbena, my favourite herbal tea, to rub in their hands to enjoy the fresh lemon aroma.

Visitors in the herb garden of Das Helwig Haus.

We entered the front flower garden where many of the deciduous shrubs are fresh with green leaves and spring flowers. I directed them to take the front path to the iron gate. This antique gate and brick path was here when we purchased the farm in 1992 and a photographer friend, Errol Walker, advised me to never have it painted. He liked its weathered appearance. Since then others have shared his opinion and I have seen it beautifully replicated in water colours by the artist, Diane Elsden.

Patches waits near the garden gate.

In every crowd there will be someone who shares a personal story with me. The woman who posed for the camera before moving down the brick path, told me that her father had served at Gallipoli and in France.

The brick path at the front of Das Helwig Haus

This is what they had come to see. The Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies, hedged with the herb, Rosemary.

The Remembrance Field at Glen Aplin

I invite my garden visitors to walk into the field, to be photographed in the field and to photograph the poppies. This sight is unique within the southern Hemisphere and many of them will never have the opportunity to visit Europe to see such a sight during a northern Hemisphere spring and summer.

A visitor photographs Flanders poppies in front of Das Helwig Haus.

It is time to move on and the group meander through another gate and up the paths on the northern side of the garden.

Through shrubs and past Californian poppies the group again enter the Das Helwig Haus gardens.

Their path takes them for a stroll past a spectacular fig tree growing beside the Mondo grass lawn and on to the veranda leading to the Gazbo overlooking the rose bowl.

Fig tree, Mondo grass, conifers and roses.

Their garden tour has come to an end, but now they have the opportunity to purchase jams, marmalade, pickles and relishes made from the organically grown fruit and vegetables grown in the garden they have admired. There is something to suit the taste of everyone.

A happy shopper holds a jar of mustard pickles and a bag of jams.

Two more Fun Over Fifty tours will visit my garden again in November, as will other tours organised by the RSL, Rotary and garden clubs.

The garden and Remembrance Field will remain open to visitors by arrangement until the end of November.

In this way, by opening my garden and preparing the Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies, I perpetuate the memory of those who gave their lives in service of their country.