Red Cow Farm in Sutton Forest NSW is one of those grand Southern Highland gardens that overflow with flowers every spring. But it’s not all roses and perennial cacophony. Red Cow Farm is a garden of spectacular vistas and intimate courtyards, as well as shady avenues and crisp, clipped hedges.
What I really loved about Red Cow Farm was seeing well designed plant pictures in both the macro and miniature scale. Not many gardens are large enough to make plant pictures with full sized conifers and mature trees and shrubs. Red Cow Farm’s 2.5 hectares (6 acre) of garden shows off brilliant combinations of colour and form, with blue conifers, red maples and golden and variegated trees woven through rich green foliage.
Ali Mentesh and Wayne Morrissey have been developed this garden around its 1820s cottage into a series of 20 garden rooms, each with its own mood and planting scheme, but they’ve also managed the transitions from one to the next so it all feels quite inevitable. There are woodland, bog, kitchen, rose, cottage and monastery gardens and beech, hazelnut, crab apple and camellia walks.
Red Cow Farm’s visiting season begins on September 21 and runs until May 2014. These photos were taken in late November but I know there would always be something wonderful to see.
Click on any photo to see a larger image slideshow. You can also click the photos in the slideshow (top right corner) to see a full-size version.
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I need a privacy buffer on my property. what is the shrubs on the bottom left one row up from the bottom?
Catherine, thank you for bringing this garden to our attention. It looks wonderful and I have read some very encouraging reviews and it is now scribbled on our chalk board for a visit once it reopens in September. Having been born in UK, I find the Southern Highlands to be my little reminder of my childhood years.
It is certainly one of the great gardens of NSW and well worth several visits through the spring to autumn period.
I was just wondering what the trees were in the second from bottom left hand side as I would love to plant them in my garden?
Hi Debbie, I think they are silver pear trees – Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’. If you are in Australia, learn more about them at Flemings http://www.flemings.com.au/ornamental_details.asp?CULT_ID=SALIC
Hi Dawn – I’m not really sure which plants you’re asking about. Do you mean the silver pear trees? (see Debbie’s question above). Or maybe the hedge behind them? It is clipped beech.
Gorgeous! In the 9th pic from the top, what are the tall skinny trees planted in a row in front of the evergreens? This is just what we want to do in our yard. 🙂
Hello Kendra. Catherine is away at the moment so I’ll reply on her behalf as I think the photo you are referring to is the same one as Debbie enquired about above. See Catherine’s response there.
Thanks, Louise
Dear Catherine, This is a garden that I love, but it is all the more impressive because of your beautiful photographs! A delightful presentation that makes me want to drop everything and rush off there soon! Hugs, Bernard
Hi Catherine
could you tell me the plants that are in the bottom left hand Corner? Many thanks
Hi Sophie – Ali tells me that the trees are Sorbus Aria Lutescens and the plants under the trees are herbaceous peony.
Hi Catherine, could you please also advise what the screening hedges behind these trees are called. Thank you! Alana
Hi Alana – I’m pretty sure that’s a beech hedge