The garden has wonderful contrasts of light and shade. Under plantings of hellebores, classic bergenias , azaleas are interspersed with maples under golden elms and robinias. New Dawn roses adorn the column walk with Ice Berg and David Austin ‘Graham Thomas’ roses around the pool bordered with hedges. Bearded Irises and Louisiana Irises also feature.

Inspired by a recent trip to France and Italy, Peter designed and built a vegetable garden with a partere’ style layout however incoporating a rustic feel using old railway sleepers. Jenny can be found most mornings tending to her veggie patch and arms full of produce heading back to the kitchen.

Owners Jenny & Peter Guest were avid gardeners prior to purchasing their acreage in Arcadia. Their first home on a leafy quarter acre block in West Pymble was the start of their passion for landscaping and gardening.They were drawn to the Arcadian property from a photograph in the local North Shore Times real estate magazine that advertised the land with a view across the lake sized dam towards the house. However in the photograph you could not see the house as it was masked by gums, maples and conifers. Peter remembers Jenny saying “I don’t care if it has a house or not we can live in a shack, look at that dam and those beautiful trees”.That was 30 years ago. The property was originally owned by the Catts family, famous for their wholesale roses and as such several acres were taken up with the nursery business along with all the infrastructure, pots and irrigation. When they cleared out Peter & Jenny were left with a large vacant parcel of tiered land covered in blue metal stones. Not a blade of grass or plant to be seen. The house however was surrounded with a mature Oak, gardenias conifers and maples providing some relief from the bare landscape where the nursery was.Peter refers to this section of the property as a “blank canvas” and his pallet from which he could start to create his vision for the design and layout as you see today. They worked as a team with Peter drawing a master plan and pencil sketches of how he envisaged key elements, features and how the various garden rooms should look. Jenny was the plant selector, interpreting the shapes and sketches that Peter had drawn and researching plants, types, colours and varieties that would best fulfil the design and work in certain areas.