Cloudehill - Olinda

Spring and I have a love hate relationship. I love the flowers that that blooms during spring but I don't like the hay fever that comes with it. I used to brag about how immune I was to hay fever. Not any more.

So when Gaz and I visited the Spring Festival at Cloudehill Gardens, Olinda last weekend for some flower gazing, I made sure to bring lots of tissues to cope with my runny nose.

Cloudehill is a private garden, and entry fee is $10 per visit to the gardens or restaurans. Or you can join as member at $49 per annum and get free entry to the garden all year round in addition to discounts to products, free gardening advice, some free seeds and club magazine every two months. But if you have a non-member friend you'll like to go with, they'll have to pay or join as member too unless you bought them a gift membership for the same price, or if it is a family member, a family membership for $18 as long as they live at the same address.

We saw many unique plants at the gardens. There were flowers that look like little polystyrene balls, dark maroon tulips, and peonies. If you wanted heirloom plants, or unique plants then this is one of the places to get them. The Diggers Club which provides seeds and plants for sale in the garden sells many plants which are not available at the mainstream stores like Bunnings.

Flowers were grew at Cloudehill for the florist trade in the 1920s by the Woolrich family who first bought the land in 1890. In those days, the flowers you buy for your home were whatever flowers were in season. These days, with more sophisticated growing methods and imports, one can get almost all types of flowers all year round.

One of the main attractions in the garden was two Japanese weeping maple trees. They were brought from Japan, and may have been growing for a thousand years.

Peonies are also grown in the garden. We met a specialist grower at the festival who shared his tips of growing peonies with us. Peonies may grow wild by the roadside in China where it originated from, but in Australia there is not enough lime in the soil for the flowers to grow. So, in order to grow peonies one must add a thick layer of lime and once the roots are established in around two years, the flowers will follow.

We bought lunch at the deck, where there were only two options - hot dogs with gourmet sausages for $10 or paella for $12. We got one of each and went very hungry because there was only one small scoop of paella. Look at the picture below... The rice didn't even fill half of the bowl.

Nevertheless, we had a great time at the garden, saw many unique plants, broadened our knowledge of gardening (did you know there are such things as $5 seeds, yes one seed for $5, and F1 seeds?) and enjoyed the sun while doing so. But next time if we do return, we will pack a picnic.