1. Garroorigang Historic Home (Event Hub)

209 Braidwood Road, Goulburn

Guided tours through the lived in homestead will be available to Goulburn Spring Gardens ticket holders for the concessional rate of $10 per person.

Devonshire Teas and Sandwiches provided by CanAssist. Plant stalls provided by the Goulburn Argyle Garden Club and Glendilla Cottage, Fuchsia and Cottage Garden Nursery, Goulburn.

Garroorigang is a 170-year old historic property. The garden includes many mature trees in a park-like setting surrounding the homestead. Huge English elms, Deodar cypresses, Oaks, Poplars, Claret and Golden Ash, and a magnificent Canary Island palm, more than a century old, grace the grounds.

Spring will bring a host of bulbs in bloom including daffodils, bluebells, anenomies and irises throughout the rose beds and around the cast iron fountain. Other flowering delights include japonica, ancient lilacs, white and pink flowering cherries and poppies. Of particular interest is a 140 year old white flowering rose, Banksia fortuniana, at the front of the homestead.

2. The Summer Garden

4 Wran Street, Goulburn

(Saturday only)

This garden was featured by the ABC ‘s ‘Gardening Australia’ program in 2024. On this average-sized suburban block the owner has worked magic to create a garden both beautiful and functional. The front garden features plenty of foliage contrasts and great flower combinations, while the rear garden is mainly devoted to growing vegetables, fruit and herbs but not lacking in aesthetic value. While the owner refers to the garden as ‘The Summer Garden’ those seeing it in Spring can expect lots of colour from bearded irises, aquilegia, species gladioli, alliums, salvias and creeping phlox. There is a magnificent evergreen clematis, Clematis armandii, draped along the front verandah.

3. Birklees

220 Cowper Street, Goulburn

Notes for a fascinating self-guided walk of the surrounding Heritage Conservation Area, featuring 25 heritage listed cottages, villas and mansions, will be available to ticket-holders at Birklees.

Birklees, built in 1885, is a grand Victorian villa located in the heart of Goulburn’s Heritage Conservation Area and the owners have produced a smart town garden in keeping with the style of the house. Behind the decorative iron gate are formal lines of box hedging, with a series of circles being a dominant shape, filled in with erigeron and edged with standard roses. The iron fountain in the centre of the brick circle is a striking feature.

Japanese maples feature in the front garden. A large Crepe Myrtle on the boundary has been lifted to show off the beautiful bark. Further details create interest in the front garden such as the meticulously trained Camellia on a frame.

The rear garden features ornamental pears and lemon cypresses and the formality continues with box plants and tiered hedging

4. Rossiville Homestead

157 Range Road, Goulburn

(Saturday 10am – 4pm, Sunday 10am-3pm)

Rossiville Homestead has a beautiful garden, building on almost 200 hundred years of history, with stunning views of the Wollondilly River and beyond. The homestead dates from about 1838 and the current owners are doing a magnificent job bringing the garden into the 21st century, while respecting the history of the property.

Mature trees such as Plane trees, Oaks, Golden Elms, Yews, weeping Mulberry, Liriodendron and Liquid ambers amongst others frame the garden. Sweeping lawns down to the river allow extensive views across farmland.

The relocated pool now has a newly constructed pool house, built to emulate the rustic style. Planting in this area includes hedges of Rhaphiolepis, swathes of lavender, sedums, roses and dogwoods.

The two mature Canary Island Date palms, recently planted, are a masterful addition.

5. The White Garden

62 Rossiville Road, Goulburn

On Saturday, our roving expert, renowned landscape architect Michael Bligh, will be at The White Garden to answer your questions.

Once you step through the front gates at this beautiful 3 acre garden you will be transported to an oasis of calm and tranquility, reflecting the mature trees which make such an impression. There are towering Eucalypts, a huge London Plane, Liriodendron, graceful weeping Willows, Birch, Crabapples, Gleditsias, Claret Ash and many others.

A major feature in the garden are the sweeping lawns down to the large lily-filled pond. From the pond edge, there is a lovely view back up the garden towards the home, framed beautifully by the trees.

Planting around the house includes clipped box and teucrium hedges, gaura, penstemons, jasmine, agapanthus and liriope muscari. Deep beds of hydrangeas, both paniculata and mophead varieties brighten up shady areas.

6. The Weatherstone Garden

18 Nicole Place, Goulburn

In just seven years the owners have created a marvellous town garden on this half acre block.

The rather narrow and steep block has been terraced with retaining walls and then planted to create separate spaces.

The entrance to the garden creates a sense of expectancy as you pass along a curved path lined with box hedging. A pair of intriguing clipped Rhagodia spinescens (Saltbush) rounds make an interesting feature.

Further into the property there is a narrow garden, bounded by a meticulously clipped Teucrium hedge and beyond that a vegetable garden and a greenhouse with an interesting selection of tender beauties on display.

This garden will have much to admire in spring with clematis, aquilegias, euphorbia, escallonias, irises and Spring bulbs amongst many others.

7. Terry-Hie

3438 Braidwood Road, Lake Bathurst

The owners of Terry-Hie will be offering a plant table with proceeds going to Guide Dogs NSW/ACT. Tea and Coffee will also be available.

Terry-Hie is a classic 4 acre country garden with a strong design based on circles and squares to create garden rooms linked by hedging of Lonicera, Box, Elaeagnus, Spirea and Teucrium. Sweeping beds and lawns create internal vistas but allow glimpses of the paddocks beyond.

Tree lovers will appreciate the Canadian maples, Snow pears, Sweet chestnut, Holm oaks, Acer negundo, English elms, Gleditsia, Tortured willow and Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ featured throughout the garden. Among the owner’s favourites are River birch, Betula nigra, because of their beautiful flaking bark.

This is a garden in which to wander, pausing to admire distant rural views or appreciate the plantings which are generous and interesting.

8. Longfield

566 Thornford Road, Yarra

***‘Please do not use the Stillwater Road route, although it may be the suggested route on some GPS apps

(Sunday only)

Our roving expert, renowned landscape architect Michael Bligh, will be at Longfield to answer your questions.

A charming country garden surrounds the circa.1850 two storey stone dwelling and outbuildings at Longfield.

The house draws heavily on Irish rural architecture and the warmth of the stone and the rustic feel of the iron roof are a great backdrop to the plantings, most of which have been garnered from cuttings and slips from friends and family.

The Osage orange trees are of interest as are the row of gnarled Hawthorns which originally marked the edge of the garden.

Spring will bring colour with Snow-in-summer, irises, Aquilegia, Lambs Ear, Lavender and lilacs. At the bottom of the main lawn is a generous border with clipped box balls contrasting with swathes of santolina, roses and flowering shrubs. From here there are distant views of timbered hills and rolling paddocks.