OPEN Gardens Victoria will open stunning Lakithi, a large country garden located in Terip Terip, Murrindindi Shire, on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 May 2024.
Set on a 130-hectare property, the Lakithi garden sprawls across three hectares of undulating land and is named for the Zulu word for ‘our home'.
Originally from South Africa, owners Gail and Brian van Rooyen purchased the property in the late 1990s.
Nearly 30 years later, passionate gardener Gail has transformed a bare paddock into a stunning country garden.
Keen for the house to nestle into the landscape, Gail enlisted the help of a local excavator and stonemason at the outset to create a large dam fed by a natural spring and construct 250 metres of stone walls and steps to link the different zones.
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“The garden has continued to evolve,” says Gail.
“It is a balanced blend of formal and informal areas with hedges and stone walls creating several ‘garden rooms’ and open parkland spaces.
"In designing Lakithi, I have always been mindful of our wonderfully expansive vistas, which I have strived to maintain and enhance.”
From the main stone gate, a long driveway of Lombardy Poplars is followed by an avenue of pin oaks, flanked by rose- and clematis-covered post and rail fences.
A copse of crataegus carrierei leads visitors into the garden proper.
The marquee lawn is bordered by a dense planting of perennials in varying shades of purple and blue.
A large pin oak and scarlet oak shade the turning circle, which is flanked by espaliered royal gala apples with Altissimo roses at every post and purple clematis
climbing throughout.
A rose-covered arbour leads visitors onto the cool green front lawn, which is edged by deep shrub and perennial borders filled with Gail’s favourite plants.
An iron gate leads to the summer house, an area planted with a profusion of orange roses (Pat Austin, Mrs Oakleigh Fisher, and Summer Song), along with blue caryopteris and salvia azurea.
From here, the paddocks can be viewed through a window of grasses, including Karl Forester.
Autumn at Lakithi is one of Gail’s favourite times of year.
This opening will ensure displays of leaf colour, including the fiery reds of acer ‘October Glory’ and ‘Autumn Blaze’, medlars, and ‘Ukon’ cherries that line the walk down to the dam and summer house.
And the arrival of her beloved autumn berries, including rosehip, crabapple, Viburnum ‘Notcutt’s Variety’, hawthorn (Crataegus) and elderberries (Sambucus nigra).
And if there’s been some rain, keep your eye out for the large grove of silver birch with a carpet of fairytale red and white spotted toadstools underneath.
The most recent addition to Lakithi is a picket-fenced picking garden.
It is always a blaze of colour, with seasonal flowers constantly providing much pleasure and a lovely source of flowers for the house and friends
