• Parking on left side of road before entrance gate

• Locally grown flowers for sale at gate by Louise Alison Flowers (Sat & Sun from 10am until sold out)

Set on six acres with a beautiful French provincial homestead at its centre, Linden was love at first sight for owners Millie and Massimo Di Maio, who bought the property in May 2020. After temporarily relocating from Sydney to the Snowy Mountains at the start of COVID-19, they fell in love with the idea of moving to regional NSW.  “We came to inspect the property and decided to buy it before we’d driven out the gate!” says Millie.

They inherited a sprawling garden with impressive granite entry and retaining walls, 100-year-old pine trees, a perimeter of poplars and Japanese quince, and a birch-lined driveway leading to the two-storey rendered home.

Much of the current garden is the work of previous owners Heny and Leigh Fletcher, who added a riot of colour to the garden’s original palette of white, yellow and green. Leigh, a self-confessed “tree enthusiast”, planted groups of dogwood, ginkgo, olive, Japanese maple, katsura, davidia, nyssa, willow, various cedar and oaks, among others.

A square garden bed full of brightly coloured flowers is known as ‘the jewel box’, andcontains a hidden treasure – what is believed to be the original foundation stones of the old Jembaicumbene schoolhouse, built around 1900 when Jembaicumbene was a thriving goldfield village. Towering radiata pines and an ancient pear tree nearby date from the same era.

A more modern feature of the garden is ‘the ring’, a semi-circle planting of low-lying shrubs that surrounds the property’s 120 solar panels which provide the Di Maio’s with all their power needs.

Although Millie and Massimo modestly refer to themselves as “just the caretakers” of the gardens, they are putting their own stamp on the property, with the help of gardener OrrenWhite. One project is creating weirs in the waterway that runs through the property to slow the flow of water and create more diversity. Planting of more natives there is also planned for the near future.

As we wander through the picturesque gardens, German Shorthaired Pointer Tilly sprints across the lawns, enjoying the freedom and space. She obviously feels at home there too. “It’s definitely all Miss Tilly’s garden, I’m just the unpaid help” laughs Millie.