Garden Retreat

As noted in the last post, there was a fairly impressive herb and vegetable garden at Jimbour, which visitors were encouraged to wander through.

Just flicking through the photos I took, I can see that I don't really have one that takes it in as a whole. This is probably the best I can do, looking back towards the big house:


In spite of the overcast skies, it's obviously still pretty dry in the area. Perhaps the best marker of that is the fairly slim looking bottle tree at the centre of the garden. Here's a closer look:


They tend to get fatter when there's more water to hold in their trunks. Although, maybe it's just a younger tree, since this one, below, which was along the path to the big house, seems to be holding it's shape quite comfortably.


But back to the centre-piece of the enclosed garden. I couldn't resist taking these $5 poster shots of the pumpkins that formed the boundary of the centre-piece.

Brace yourself for even more pumpkins a bit further on. Pumpkin soup was a key feature of the kitchen menu, so it was rather nice to see they were using the local produce.


I think I would characterise these next couple of shots as a bit Sidney Nolan in the sense of looking for figures to put in the landscape. (Did you groan out loud at that? I'm still a bit flushed from going to see Sidney Nolan: A New Retrospective at the Art Gallery yesterday. I hope you'll forgive such a clunky attempt to work that in. More on Sidney Nolan another day. Back to Jimbour).



It seems the garden wasn't so much of a retreat from death in a bygone era as I had anticipated. Still, these photos give you some more sense of the scale of the garden. Beyond the garden there were various stables and old buildings, as well as an aeroplane hanger, because there's a landing strip at Jimbour too.


Perhaps I didn't need to locate figures in the landscape as much as I thought. I think the sight of these vegetable growing is intrinsically of interest:


Don't these vegetables just make your heart glad?


I confess to experiencing beetroot envy when I saw these:


I think this post might be getting a bit long, especially with all the photos. It looks like the tour of the out buildings and even more pumpkins will have to comprise another post. Meanwhile, let me leave all the poultry lovers out there with this lovely vision, tucked away on the outskirts of the garden, which clearly they're not allowed to maraud:


Next: An Australian Hallowe'en