My love of the country had developed as a child,  searching for wildflowers and visiting my parents farm.  So whilst my children were young, I was fortunate to purchase a small “hobby” farm, at Toodyay,  approximately 90 km from Perth.

The farmhouse was a hundred year old mud brick cottage, that had been built by early settlers to the area.  It was dilapidated and in desperate need of repair and required hours of loving restoration.  In keeping with the era in which it was build I scoured old warehouses that sold windows,  doors,  old wash stands and cast iron baths.  Also necessary was learning how to make lime wash to protect the mud bricks.

Initially there was no running water or electricity!  A definite challenge, but following repairs to the roof & gutters the run off water could now be stored in a large tank that was added to the side of the house.  So as to keep with the integrity of the building, copper pipes were discreetly added and directed under the old “Early Kooka” cast iron stove –voila!  There could now be hot water flowing to the small bathroom that had been added.

As much as I loved restoring the old cottage, I also fell in love with gardening there.  Except for a few old almond trees there was nothing left of the original garden. It was appropriate to have a “cottage style garden”, overflowing with old fashioned plants, roses and herbs.

Many of the rose bushes I would transplant from old abandoned gardens.  An Edna Walling book was my constant companion in planning & designing.  As Toodyay is an area covered with lichen covered granite rocks, I had the perfect building blocks to outline the garden beds. In these I filled with multiple bulbs, geraniums, herbs, may bushes and many slips and cuttings from friends gardens.
There were little stone pathways and archways created from old discarded timbers on the property, the perfect support for climbing roses to ramble over.

During this busy time of bringing up 5 children, restoring the cottage and creating the garden, I always manages to find time to paint.  Oils were my chosen medium and I loved transporting little parts of the landscape onto canvas.

One of these paintings, of the cottage before its restoration, won first prize in the local country shire show.