Spring bursts into life at Loch Village
ENTHUSIASTIC gardeners and those keen to enjoy a relaxing spring event will mix at the Loch Village Garden Festival, which features open gardens, artworks and garden photography on the weekend of October 29 and 30. The festival was first held around...
ENTHUSIASTIC gardeners and those keen to enjoy a relaxing spring event will mix at the Loch Village Garden Festival, which features open gardens, artworks and garden photography on the weekend of October 29 and 30.
The festival was first held around 16 years ago, and the Loch Village Garden Club is delighted to return it to the calendar after being unable to hold the event the last couple of years.
Festival goers will enjoy seven gardens, with location maps available to buy at the Loch Public Hall.
The garden club’s Howard Booth’s Lochchester garden is one of those featured.
It is a woodland garden full of interesting plants, with a range of trees including hazel, Manchurian pear, viburnum, crazy filbert, mulberry and silver birch.
It also features many climbers and a kitchen garden.
Howard explained his passion for gardening.
“It’s relaxing and rewarding and it’s lovely to be able to look out on the garden and share it,” he said.
Witsend is an attractive cottage garden attached to an 1890s cottage, being another of the delight’s attendees will enjoy.
“The owners have added an additional block to the original garden and created a pear walk, rose garden and mixed shrubbery, and there’s a magnificent 100-year-old eucalyptus Strzelecki,” Howard said.
A more recently planted section of trees includes white cedar, Chinese elm, Japanese maples, silver vein maple and golden ash.
The works of seven artists will be displayed in the Public Hall, with Poowong Garden Club’s garden-themed photographic exhibition also on show.
While more a community event than a fundraiser, a raffle will be held to raise money for the village.
“We buy trees and council plants them for us,” Howard said.
He outlined why the Loch Village Garden Festival appeals to people.
“It’s a relaxing, low-key event,” Howard said.
Those keen to add to their own gardens will have opportunities to buy plants during the festival.
“Over the years we’ve had plants for sale in the street, we’ve had them in the hall, or we have plants for sale in some of the gardens,” Howard said.
That helps boost funds for the Loch Village Garden Club.
Loch Village Garden
Festival details:
Where: Loch Public Hall and seven local gardens as shown on map available to buy at the hall
When: Saturday October 29 and Sunday October 30 from 10am until 4pm
Cost:Entry at the Loch Public Hall is $5
