Stirling Autumn Garden Festival and more

Today we had a huge garden day, starting out at the Stirling Autumn Garden Festival. It is an annual festival celebrating seasonal gardening, the outdoors and sustainable living.

The wider angle view!

The displays included plants, herbs, edible gardening, regional food, wine and local produce, outdoor living products, garden tools, equipment and garden sculptures. Plus live entertainment from buskers and a children's group called Rebound Music. See my photo of them in Blipfolio Misc and click left. Also see them on YouTube here.

Last year the 2012 Festival was the largest and the most successful, and was awarded Community Event of the Year in the Australia Day Awards by Adelaide Hills Council.

Next stop was an amazing Open Garden at Crafers called NIWAJIRI. It is the result of a large team effort, with Steve Hailstone as the primary designer and gardener.
From a vacant block of land in 1988, they have developed a magnificent garden and micro-farm of many layers. Steve has been designing and building gardens professionally since 1980.

For my favourite shot from this garden for the Misc Blipfolio, I chose a photo of one of their Alpacas who had his eye on me as I took the photo. Nanzy recently asked me to consider blipping one of our local alpacas, so here he is Nanzy - in the folio.

Final stop was a garden which is an old favourite of mine called The Chestnuts, also at Crafers. I took many interesting photos of this very diverse garden and the best one is in my Blipfolio Misc showing a garden bed at the front of the house. The owner had a chat with us and was most friendly, rounding out a fantastic day.