About the Waldorf Garden 2011 to mid 2017

My name is Liz Riley and I have been the head gardener at Waldorf Leura Gardens Resort in the Blue Mountains from early 2011  to mid 2017. I  gardened here with a trainee doing Cert III in Horticulture at TAFE.  My trainees have been Hayden Cosgrove, Jesse Campton, Lexie Collier and Thomas Kennedy. The oldest part of the garden dates from 1927 and was established by Lady Mabel Fairfax and her gardener Hector Hood. There is also the remnants of a garden established in 1966 by Margaret Stevens. Lady Mabel asked her gardener to make her a garden “in the English style” while Margaret Stevens was influenced by Japanese gardening after a trip she and her mother made to that country in 1959.

There have been many changes of hands in these spaces since both these women gardened here; changing fashions, new plants, and changing expectations in regard to inputs – most obviously in regard to water use.

In my blogs up until the end of June 2017 I relate how we managed and renovated the heritage gardens within the current gardening paradigm including water wise gardening, a focus on the soil food web and the use of beneficial insects.