Carolyn Robinson has learnt through the years from developing her own and other people’s gardens to work with the prevailing conditions and embrace all the plants available.
Tenterfield garden designer and plantswoman Carolyn Robinson says there’s an element of “do as I say, not as I do” when she advises her friends and clients to “learn to live with the limitations of your climate, soil and self”.
As well as working on numerous gardens all over northern NSW and southern Queensland, Carolyn has developed two showpiece gardens of her own. The first was Glenrock Gardens, an eight-acre (three-hectare) site north of Tenterfield that Carolyn and her husband, Peter, bought in 1989 and gradually developed through the years until they sold in 2016. Their current home is Eagle’s Bluff, south-west of Tenterfield, which they bought in 2008 and have been working on the five-acre (two-hectare) garden ever since.
“I loved the idea of starting again,” Carolyn says. “Glenrock was built up over time in dribs and drabs and, at first, not planted with a firm plan in mind. With avid study of plants and gardens both here in Australia and overseas, within a few years, I had enough knowledge to plant my gardens with a planting scheme in mind. I also developed a perennial nursery which further increased my plant knowledge and gave me a plant source for myself and my clients. Here, I knew what I was going to plant from the start. I had learnt so much in the intervening years and I was much better at choosing the right plants for the site. I knew, for example, that if you want to establish a woodland, with plants under the trees, you have to establish the understorey first. The trees will commandeer the whole space if you plant them first. Visiting other people’s gardens and helping people with their gardens taught me so much, so I was much better qualified the second time round.”
There had also been a paradigm shift in Australian attitudes to plants. “I’m not a purist,” Carolyn says. “I love all plants, natives as well as exotics. In the 20 years between starting the two gardens, there had been increasing acceptance of incorporating natives into Australian gardens, so I had more choice. Natives tend to flower at the end of winter and early spring when most exotics aren’t flowering, so it means bees and pollinators have flowers year-round. Equally, it doesn’t make sense to exclude plants that have been grown in Australian gardens for generations, just because they are exotics. I think they add a lot to each other, and it gives a much broader palette when you mix them up.”
Carolyn adds that the differences between the two locations also influenced her approach to the design. At Glenrock, it was too cold to grow as many natives as she has at Eagle’s Bluff, while at her current home, the landscape is much more integral than it was at the first garden. “You can’t ignore the mountains and open grasslands and the views down to the river at Eagle’s Bluff, whereas Glenrock was more self-contained,” she says. “Also, at my new garden, I had to be much more aware of drought tolerance as when it’s dry, even though I have a 50,000-gallon tank, the river can dry up, so I have to resort to hand watering with a hose.”
The 2019 drought sorted the hardy from the not-so, and Carolyn says it weeded out difficult-to-maintain plants such as roses, which have been reduced to larger, well-established bushes. They have been replaced by less-thirsty plants including salvias, rosemary and lavender, as well as native grasses, which she says connect a garden to the landscape, are low-maintenance, catch the light beautifully and add movement.
Carolyn grew up in a family of gardeners on a farm in Queensland’s Granite Belt. The experience taught her that “drought and flooding rains” are normal in Australia, so you might as well prepare for both. Having said that, she adds that learning to live with the local soil and climate is essential for a successful garden. “The soils at Eagle’s Bluff are granite-based, so I need to use a lot of organic matter to improve them,” she says. “I’ve long ago given up covering plants to protect them from frost. One day you’re going to forget, so you might as well let them fend for themselves. You’ve not got much chance of growing a jacaranda if you get frosts, so you probably shouldn’t try. I think the really important thing is to own your mistakes and try not to repeat them.”
Carolyn adds that winters were much colder back in the 1990s than they are today. “When I was starting out at Glenrock, minus 10°C to minus 12°C was commonplace,” she says. “These days, it’s more like minus 6°C,” she says. “We’d experience up to 75 heavy frosts in a winter, but this year I could count on one hand the severe frosts we’ve had.”
Carolyn is proud to be able to say she planted practically every plant at Eagle’s Bluff herself. “I used a bobcat and an excavator, but I’ve always done a lot of the physical work,” she says. “Another constraint I have to recognise is that I’m not getting any younger and I have to accept my limitations.” She adds that while Pete is a great supporter, and he’s always happy to visit gardens with her, he’s not a gardener. “In my experience, there’s often discord in families where there’s more than one gardener,” she says.
Stone walls are a favourite feature and Carolyn says she’s loved building them since she was taught the art by now-retired stonemason Adrian Bloomfield, who was responsible for lots of walls in the Guyra and Inverell districts of the New England region. “The capping stone is cemented on,” she explains. “That’s mainly for stability if people or animals might be climbing on them.”
Tenterfield nurseryman Dave Johnstone, who has worked with Carolyn through the years, says her encyclopaedic knowledge of plants from all over the world means gardeners who follow Carolyn’s recommendations are more likely to have success. “She’s learnt from her mistakes and successes and it’s as though she’s done all the groundwork to make it easier for the people who want to follow in her footsteps,” he says. “I always listen to her, because she knows from experience what will and won’t work. And she’s incredibly generous with sharing that knowledge.” AC
