Werai Nursery
Werai Nursery, near Exeter, has only recently opened and the Garden Group was keen to ‘taste' its wares. So for our first excursion in 2010 we drove up the hill to have a special guided tour of the home garden.
TAS Smethurst met us in their Tea House and first presented a slide show revealing the different stages in their development. The property is on 60 acres and actually covers the area once allocated as a village, complete with roads and house blocks, from nearly 200 years ago before the railway line was relocated. We then had a quick look at the nursery (soon to be enlarged) and on to the ‘home garden' where they have planned and initiated many garden features such as a vegetable plot, camellia garden, rose walk and silver birch avenue, although the home is still to come. It was pleasant wandering around this ambitious project and we look forward to returning in a few years and in spring when all the bulbs will be blooming.
Following this we all ate a delicious and reasonably priced lunch back in the Tea House.
One of the interesting aspects of this new development is that they have, twice a month, a Garden School. The courses are all for just one day (the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays) and cover such diverse gardening themes as organic vegetable gardening; bonsai; plant propagation; fruit trees -choices, growing and maintenance; designing with Australian natives; medicine, perfume and food - growing herbs. The full range of courses and details about the nursery can be found at http://www.werai.com.au/ or by calling TAS, Mandy or Paul on 4236 4664.