BODALLA gardener Kelly Kershaw has won the ABC’s Gardening Australia show gardener of the year award for 2014.
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“It was a total surprise,” Kelly said. Ï knew they were coming to film in my garden, but I had no idea that I had won.”
Kelly had entered her 1.2 hectare garden in the popular gardening show months ago and it was ages before she heard from them.
“Ï was notified that I was one of 15 potential finalists a while ago,” she said.
“Then they got in touch with me and said I was a finalist and arranged a time that they could come out and do some filming of the garden.
“They told me that the show’s host Costa Georgiadis wouldn’t be able to get there until the next day, but he arrived earlier than I expected, Kelly said.
Meanwhile Costa was outside the garden preparing to present Gardening Australia’s Gardener of the year award, a golden spade to Kelly.
“I love surprises!" Costa said.
Kelly’s magnificent garden appropriately called the “All Saint’s Garden” is located across the highway from Bodalla’s historic All Saint’s Church and surrounds the former church rectory built around 1864.
Kelly and her husband moved into the old rectory nearly 10 years ago and after extensive renovations to the home it was time to attend to the non-existent garden.
“I thought about getting in a landscape designer, but a girlfriend asked my ‘why… you know what you want, why don’t you do it?’ so I decided to,” Kelly said.
"The house was built in the Victorian era so I guess this is my version of what a Victorian garden may have looked like, or a country garden.”
Kelly started the front garden first and planted a Cyprus leylandii hedge to create a sheltered site. There are a lot of hedges throughout the garden that help to divide the garden into a series of rooms, each one different.
"There are certain elements in each room intended to create a bit of a surprise when you come to them," Kelly said.
One of the surprises in Kelly’s garden is the chook pen aptly named The Hen Hilton, complete with stained glass windows and its own lawn.
“My chickens are too well fed to eat the grass in their pen,” Kelly said.
Behind the hen house are two huge water tanks full with collected rain water.
“The garden is quite sustainable with normal rainfall, I only have to water if it’s summer and we haven’t had any rainfall for about four weeks,” Kelly said.
Stone sculptures created by Kelly and her husband add interesting features to areas of the garden.
In one garden room there is a huge pear sculpture made from stone, stacked solid and finished with river pebbles that took eight weeks to complete.
Kelly has also espaliered some of her fruit trees ‘so they are easier to net on your own’ and espaliered jasmine decorates some walls of the buildings.
Keeping the garden beautiful with its sweeping lawns and variety’s of hedging is a full time job for Kelly.
“It’s great for keeping me well exercised and a way that enables me to express myself artistically,” she said.
The All Saint’s Garden is open to the public Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm from October to May. Entry is $6.