Today we visited  a Heritage listed property that had an open garden. Woolmers Estate.  This is an exerpt from an Australian Government website explaining a little bit of the history.

'Woolmers Estate in Tasmania is one of the most intact 19th century homesteads in Australia. It was continuously farmed by six generations of the Archer family from its settlement around 1817 to the death of the last heir in 1994. A range of significant buildings, interior features, and artefacts survive from every period of the Estate's history to the present. The Estate is also significant for its association with the use of convict labour through the assignment system, which provided labour to settlers in exchange for food and clothing. Situated on Woolmers Lane, 7 kilometres from the town of Longford and 20 kilometres from Launceston, the Estate is open daily to the public.
Woolmers Estate was included in the National Heritage List on 23 November 2007."

It was a beautiful day today as well. The sun was streaming, gentle breeze, a thousand people visited the garden today and there was an air of festivity.  Heaps of stalls selling handmade things, digiridoo playing, the aroma of  sausages and onions in the air and the smell of the thousands and thousands of roses that were in bloom. What an absolute spectacle it was !

Here are some photos from this beautiful garden.  

Leon my friendly nurseryman was also there selling his potted roses today.  He also happened to have a weeping Japanese Maple tree that was five years old that followed me back home.

We can't plant it just yet, it will start to get hot here in a few weeks (or so I am hoping) so he advised us to wait until the cooler months, till about March to plant it out.  I am going to have to walk around the garden to see where best to put it. At the moment I am considering moving the Magnolia tree that doesn't seem to be doing too well in the middle of the rose garden. Maybe, the Maple will look nice there and an added bonus would be that I could see it from my craft room, the office and from the kitchen. 


Today, was such a busy day at Woolmers, I really wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to have. So, I think we will be making another trip there this summer, before the roses die off.