Our April garden visit was to the lovely Cumbalum garden of Ian and the late Elspeth Lacy .

Ian wrote:

We arrived here in May 2007.  The block is approximately two and a quarter acres (9000 sqm) and roughly triangular shaped. The garden was fairly well developed but on a small scale, almost a cottage garden style.  There were a number of small beds with plenty of plants growing to 1 metre tall and many of them were variegated.  We decided to bring some scale to the garden and divide it up into large beds and connecting avenues.

Over the years we have planted a wide variety of natives and exotics.  For natives we have an extensive range of lillypillies, grevillea, banksia, callistemon, tree ferns and ivory curls.  The exotics include frangipani, camellia, magnolia, gardenia, gingers, bat flowers. and heliconia.  In some areas there are extensive understories of bromeliads.  There are also numerous citrus and other fruit trees as well as a rather neglected vegetable patch. There are orchids and ferns scattered through the trees.

In early April, the camellia and gordonia are starting to flower and some of the banksia are forming buds. A number of the grevillea and some of the bromeliads are in flower .  There are also plenty of beehive gingers in flower.  We find that at almost any time of the year there is something in flower and creating interest in the garden.

The garden was knocked about quite badly in the recent cyclone.  There were some branches down and a lot of the foliage blown off the trees.  Most of this has been cleared up but the foliage is still recovering.

The Garden Club previously visited the garden in 2013 and in 2019.