penelope
curtin

Penelope Curtin moved from Victoria to a house in Rosewater with a relatively small garden space – but a huge amount of concrete. In the front ‘garden’ were a couple of native frangipani, a Gleditsia and a horrible Cyprus pine – which she had removed almost immediately. Having previously had very shady gardens, Penelope decided that she’d attempt to convert the front garden to an English ‘perennial border’, which needs lots of sun. She planted lots of old-fashioned roses, mostly apricot-coloured (including Anna Olivier), ‘Paul Ricault’ being the very fragrant exception, interspersed with perennials of varying colours (including of foliage) and sizes. After around six months and a great deal of planting, she decided that she like to create a ‘graded’ effect, meaning that one end of the garden would begin with white flowers, for example, white oakleaf hydrangea and white dwarf agapanthus, transitioning through apricots, oranges and reds, and, on the other side of the stepping-stone path,  to pinks, purples and blues, ending up at the Gleditsia, which is underplanted with hellebores of various colours.

Penelope has many, many pots and tubs, containing hydrangeas, camellias, fruit trees – five citrus, a peach, a plum and a fig – and some brightly coloured annuals. She’s gradually having some of the concrete removed and has extended a garden out the back to create a ‘golden garden’, containing yellow and orange roses (Peace, The Poet’s Wife, Graham Thomas, Pat Austin), a yellow clematis and assorted yellow perennials such as Coreopsis and Rudbeckia and a couple of apricot Digiplexis.  Another strip of concrete has been removed recently and here she’s transplanted from pots a dozen or so hydrangeas.

For a tiny garden, she has to do a lot of watering!