Whale watching in Leura
Every region has its own institutions. Some are intimately personal; the old milk bar where you’d buy your mixed lollies as a kid, the bike shed where you shared a first tentative kiss. Others come under the heading of local landmarks. Here in the Blue Mountains, we certainly have more than our fair share, from our Art Deco, heritage-listed buildings to the geological masterpieces thoughtfully provided by Mother Nature.
One very specific, seasonal fixture is Leura’s famous Craigend Street Whale. Its arrival heralds the start of Spring and the commencement of the Leura Garden Festival. Perhaps more importantly, the first whale sighting of the season creates a sense of anticipation of the warmer weather to come; it injects much needed humour just when it feels that winter might last forever.
Owners Bryan Hardy and Chris Smith have lived at ‘Glenhaven,’ on Craigend Street, Leura for over forty years, moving in on Anzac Day of 1972. They relocated from Bondi for the same reasons that so many of us find ourselves mountainside today; property and land were simply more affordable – their block cost only $800! Once their house was built, Bryan was compelled to create the garden, saying that it was “terrible, it was just a house on a vacant block and it looked horrendous.” Despite having never gardened before, he took a wander around the neighbourhood, came home inspired, “and I started digging – I had never even lifted a shovel before!” By the Autumn of 1978, the garden of Glenhaven had been invited to participate in the Leura Garden Festival – a wonderful compliment and no mean feat for a self described novice gardener.
The Whale hedge was one of Bryan’s first projects and his original intention in planting the golden cypress was to soften the bulk of the house. Fast forward 10 years, he concluded that left unchecked the now rather hedge-like border planting had the potential to completely engulf both the footpath and the house. Though not afraid to be ruthless when a tree or shrub that isn’t working, in this instance hard pruning was the only option. Soon after, he noticed tourists taking snapshots of the hedge and when he asked why, they pointed out the Whale. The next time Glenhaven was open to the public, Bryan had shaped it a little more and with tongue firmly in cheek, added the eyes and teeth.
Glenhaven is a garden that perfectly demonstrates the power of a well established hedge. Not only does a hedge create privacy; it also acts as a windbreak, creating a sheltered micro-environment for the garden beyond. In the language of gardening, it functions as a type of visual question mark. A hedge that dominates from the street makes you wonder just what might be hidden behind.
In the case of Glenhaven, you’ll find the type of perfectly executed, cold climate garden that the Blue Mountains are renowned. Entering down the driveway, a terrace of tulips inter-planted with english daisy and polyanthus acts as a retaining wall for the sloped Hartley Esplanade side of the block. The other side of the drive mirrors this planting scheme and leads you to the entrance of the formal lawn of that extends alongside the house.
Bryan used a blend of english bent, kentucky blue and fescue seed when the lawn was originally sown. Over the last 40 years, rather than aerating or over sowing, Bryan has become a firm believer in fertilising his lawn. Mid August, he starts with a light fertilise, followed by a stronger solution 10 days later and again in another 10 days. “What happens is that the lawn just becomes so thick that no weeds grow,” says Bryan.
This luscious lawn is sheltered by a canopy of magnolias, manchurian pear and my new favourite tree, weeping elm. When I visited Glenhaven last, it was altogether too easy to imagine myself stringing up a hammock in this corner, whiling the summer away with a good book and perhaps a mint julep in hand.
Enviable lawns aside, it’s behind the home that the true magic of this garden is revealed. Bryan has created a wonderland structured around two ponds joined by a softly, tumbling waterway fringed with weeping maples and azaleas of every possible hue. “It has become quite Japanese without me really realising it,” says Bryan. A stone pathway meanders in and about, leading you up to the back boundary of the property and then onto the gazebo for a stunning overview of this exquisite garden.
This is an element of landscape design that is often overlooked. The layout of a garden should be considered as an exercise in three dimensions. It’s easy to forget to create vantage points that the whole garden can be appreciated from when you’re busy on the purely horizontal plane! A sense of depth and height are elements which are just as important as the width and length of your beds. In Bryan and Chris’ garden, camellias, rhododendrons and prunus are used to complement the more mature trees and lend height to this landscape.
For me, despite the fact that Winter is only just truly upon us, I’m already looking out for my first sighting of the Craigend Street Whale. It’s not that I want to wish away the cold or hurry the passage of time. I love the fact that Bryan and Chris take the time each Spring to carefully position the wooden eyes and teeth on their magnificent hedge; that this visual gag is so at odds with the very formality surrounding Leura and the Garden Festival. Most of all, I love that my kids are already as enamoured with this small celebration of the place we live in as I am.
WORDS by KERIS MACARTHUR / IMAGES by CAMILLE WALSH and KERIS MACARTHUR
i dont remember the craigend street whale? I have, however, tried (and unfortunately failed) to forget my interlude with the bloom park flasher, circa 1984 :(
Flashers do have a way of staying with you, it’s true! My own memory of the Rawson St flasher in Epping is indelibly etched in my mind, me unable to make haste from the scene as I choked with laughter (a stress response that continues to this day) and my best friend vomiting when we got back to her house…
Hope you’ll visit us again soon, Robert Smith’s Tears!