Armidale Open Gardens
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Garden No. 1 - 112 Eathorpe Rd
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Garden No. 2 - 'Wejalee' 86 Lynland Drive
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Garden No. 3 - 53 Translator Rd
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Garden No. 4 - 4 Karina Place
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Garden No. 5 - Micklegate - Micklegate Rd
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Garden No. 6 - Saumarez - 230 Saumarez Road
Open Gardens Trail
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Tenterfield - Wednesday 28 October from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
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Glen Innes - Thursday 29 October from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
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Guyra - Friday 30 October from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
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Armidale - Saturday 31 October from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
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Armidale - Sunday 1 November from 9:30 am - 2:00 pm
Note: the bulk discounts allow one entry to each of the open gardens in the relevant town.When buying tickets and signing in to our Open Gardens, you acknowledge and accept personal responsibility for the various risks incurred in visiting a private garden.​​
Garden No. 1 Sheree and Vince Williams
112 Eathorpe Rd
When we moved here 40 years ago there was nothing but stringy bark trees and dandelions.
I started the garden while Vince built the house and I have been gardening ever since.
There was no plan - the garden just evolved over time and today it occupies about 3 acres with many mature trees, antique machinery and colourful mosaics. It has been created entirely by myself and Vince and so reflects a lot of our personalities.
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There is an old ute with a waterfall in the back which flows underground into a larger pond.
There is a fairy garden with houses that were made by my 5 granddaughters.
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There are animals made from old metal and machinery parts and there are lots of mosaics to give the garden some colour in winter.
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The lawn areas are mowed paddock grass and the garden edges are rocks which I have collected from around our property.
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It is definitely a quirky, informal garden which we share with ducks, bantams, guinea fowl and 2 dogs.
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As with most gardens it changes over time. Some plants die, others are destroyed by extreme weather events, some outgrow the space they are in and some simply are not happy and must by relocated.
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My garden keeps me busy and active and I hope everyone who chooses to visit finds it enjoyable and relaxing. It has given me a lot of pleasure over the years and hopefully will continue to do so.
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Morning and afternoon teas available
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Harp music will be played at various times throughout the day
Garden No. 2 - Wejalee Di and Geoff Leedham
“Wejalee” - 86 Lynland Drive
Welcome to our garden. We purchased the property in August 2003, it has an area of 10 acres and was a paddock overgrown with hawthorn. We selected the block for it’s undulating character, views of the rural countryside, and also for the existing stands of mature Eucalyptus viminalis and Angophora floribunda.
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The first plantings at ‘Wejalee’, in November/December 2003, was a native line along the western boundary. A mixture of native and exotic trees and shrubs including abutilons, rhododendrons, Davidia, magnolias, camelias, hydrangeas, ornamental pears, oaks, elms, tulip trees, salvias, hebes, eptospermums, callistemons and grevilleas have been since planted throughout the garden. The pond commenced in May 2005. English and Japanese box hedges and topiaries have been established, these were all propagated by Dianne. Many of the other shrubs have also been propagated at ‘Wejalee’ from seeds and cuttings.
The ‘Wejalee’ garden is predominantly a Spring/Summer garden. Di has over 100 varieties of Irises and are extremely colourful in the spring. The 200 odd roses are a feature of the ‘Wejalee’ garden contributing significantly to the colour throughout Spring, Summer and Autumn.
Geoff is more into natives and has planted many varieties, mainly at the eastern and southern sides of the garden. Scattered outside the garden area, through the remaining 10 acres, many varieties of eucalypts were planted and survived, however many met their match in the August 2025 snow storm. Very disappointing!!
We have enjoyed what we have achieved to date, we get much pleasure out of watching the stages of transformation as the garden progresses towards maturity.
Enjoy the garden, but be careful there are some steep and unstable sections in the garden, so please watch your step.
Garden No. 3 – Del and Robyn Parker
53 Translator Rd
In the first year of the New England Garden Festival, in 2023, a garden competition was held. The Parker’s garden was joint winner of the Country Garden section. It is a garden with a very relaxed feel, with an outer area of mostly natives that blends well with the local natural vegetation. There are also informal beds of colour, a courtyard and a vegetable garden with a number of fruit trees. NEGF is delighted to be able to open it to the public.
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Our 2-hectare garden began forty years ago as a bare paddock that had horses on it.
We gradually built our house, our family and our garden all together.
The bottom half of the block has been planted up with natives which we bought as tube stock from the Armidale Tree Group. It’s now home to kangaroos and a myriad of beautiful birds – as well as some beehives.
The top half is a mixture of natives and exotics. The vegie garden has 4 large wicking beds which we built ourselves. The flower beds are closer to the house and full of tempting things that I bought randomly and then had to find a home for.
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Central to the area close to the house is a cubby/tree- house that has also been central to family activities for all of those forty years – firstly for our children and now for our grandchildren.
Its now such a peaceful place – my little patch of paradise.
Garden No. 4 – Ingrid and Surrender Chaku
4 Karina Place
This garden is on an average-sized block in town and is a great example of working with a reasonably steep slope. Visitors can meander from the street up through is an area of mostly native plantings to reach the main level area at the front of the house, which contains some more formal plantings. Behind the house is a productive area with fruit trees and vegie beds that include some vegetables less often seen at the nurseries. The owners eat from their garden every day.​
It was 2019, a severe drought year, when we acquired our house and a half acre garden which was essentially large dried up lawn areas with a dozen trees, a few exotic bushes and several razed callistemons. Given the highest-level water restrictions, planting natives was the obvious as well as our preferred choice, especially after our exposure to the incredible variety of native plants in WA.
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Having come from the sandy soils and mild-hot temperatures of Perth, it was a steep learning curve to cope with basalt clay soils and frosts and to select appropriate plants. Amazingly our native tube plants survived and in the ensuing years have filled out our garden providing splashes of colour in different seasons and food and protection for a large variety of native birds.
Adding fruit trees was important to us as was growing different vegetables especially lesser-known ones. By converting some of the vegetable beds to wicking beds we have substantially improved yields and reduced watering. Bulbs and small perennials have added to the variety of flowers and colour especially in narrow and shaded beds.
We continue to experiment with new plants, both natives and exotics, to infill some areas and to continue to attract a wide variety of birdlife and insects......and so our garden is continually evolving.
Garden No. 5 - Micklegate Marg Wolfer
'Micklegate' Micklegate Rd
We have been blessed as a family to have lived and loved our home at ‘Micklegate’ for nearly 50 years. Original documents trace land transfers back to 1857, the house was built in the 1880’s, a similar time frame to Saumarez homestead. When we arrived, there were few gardens as such, but we had the privilege of mature trees as well as trees recently planted. I love that Armidale has four distinct seasons bringing a wealth of colour to our gardens, as I write this at th end of winter, with my hellebores brightly nodding, having survived the heavy August snow fall, the first Spring blossoms appear as a welcome prelude to Spring I rely on our deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs including Camellia’s, Sasanquas, Choisyas, Daphnes, Diosmas, Salvias, Penstemons and the ever-present Alyssum, Sea daisies and bulbs etc. I notice that the Forsythias are showing their first yellow flowers. We planted the rose garden in 1990’s, the paving is from the original bricks taken from the edge of the front veranda which we found discarded in the paddock!!! The wall that you see as you enter the garden was built by my husband, Mike, from our basalt rocks and seems to help to contain the garden. The Olive tree on the west of the house was planted by the Italian prisoners of war, I love the gnarly trunk and exposed roots, the word gnarly seems to describe them perfectly. As I get older, (or am older!!!!!) I tend not to plant many annuals, especially in summer when the soil dries out so quickly.
Mike and I always felt that gardens were meant to be shared and there are many pieces of Micklegate garden scattered around Armidale!!!
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The kiss of the Sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
You are nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth
Garden No. 6 - Saumarez Homestead Gardens – National Trust
230 Saumarez Road, Armidale NSW 2350.
Open Garden - Saturday 31 Oct 9:30am - 4.30pm; Sunday 1 Nov 9:30am – 2:00pm (tickets online or cash at gate)
Homestead tour - Saturday 31 Oct only - 11:00am-1:00pm (tickets on site from Saumarez Centre)
© Jarrad Stevenson
We are pleased to announce that in collaboration with the National Trust, Saumarez Homestead Gardens will be open especially for the Festival on both Saturday 31 October (9:30am - 4.30pm) and Sunday 1 November (9:30am – 2:00pm). Tickets are available on this site or in cash at the NEGF stand at the gardens. Visitors may also be interested to have a short highlights tour of Saumarez House between 11:00am and 1:00pm on Saturday 31 October. Tickets for the house can be purchased on site at the Saumarez Centre.
Pastoral settlement in the region began in the 1830s led by civil servant and pastoralist Henry Dumaresq. In those early years Saumarez had a well-stocked store, with tools, clothing and food provisions for those moving north ‘beyond the boundaries of civilisation.’ The property takes its name from the Dumaresq’s Estate in Jersey in the Channel Islands. After Dumaresq’s death, Saumarez Station was sold to Henry Arding Thomas, whose family lived in the original slab homestead overlooking Saumarez Creek.
The White family purchased Saumarez station in 1874 and developed the land and its associated buildings into one of the largest and most successful rural properties in New England. The White family worked the property until they gifted the 10 hectares that included the historic precincts to the National Trust in 1984. The 2ha (4.4 acre) gardens at Saumarez Homestead, Armidale, were planned and constructed by the Saumarez Whites at the turn of the 19th century to complement and provide a setting for their significant Late Victorian-Edwardian house. They were planned on the model of an English prototype, but included plantings of trees, shrubs and exotics from the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Scandinavia. Mary’s Garden was inspired by Jocelyn Brown. The Heritage Rose Garden at Saumarez Homestead, has been established on the site of the old homestead orchard with the nucleus of the rose collection donated by Miss Catherine MacLean, a long time Armidale resident and dedicated rosarian. The main collection includes over 600 roses representing each of the major rose cultivar groups, mostly bred before 1930. Adjacent to the formal garden are rose beds that recognise the contribution of important rose breeders both nationally and internationally.
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Explore the Gardens at: Saumarez Homestead Gardens – National Trust
By car: Saumarez Homestead is approximately a five-minute drive from Armidale airport. Head down the New England Highway, turn right past the Armidale Airport and follow the signs to Saumarez Homestead.