Education is at the heart of the Diggers Club’s mission. We run regular workshops and seasonal masterclasses with gardening experts from around Australia as part of our Learn with Diggers program. The following Spring sessions are now taking bookings. Come and learn from the experts in a stunning garden setting.

LEARN WITH DIGGERS WORKSHOPS:

Sept 8: Start Your Spring Vegie Patch
Oct 5: Permaculture at Home & Backyard Chickens
Nov 2: All About Tomatoes
Nov 3: Backyard Berries

The Diggers Club’s celebration of Spring at the stunning Cloudehill Gardens in Olinda is almost here.

The bulbs are blooming, our gardening experts are on hand for a series of exciting free workshops and Cloudehill’s creator, Jeremy Francis is ready to take you on a tour of this spectacular garden and its substantial garden art collection in the heart of the Dandenong Ranges. Pack a picnic and bring the family for a weekend of fun in the Spring garden.

FREE ACTIVITIES INCLUDING:

Mini workshops on both days
• Garden tours each day at 11am & 2pm
• Fresh produce, preserves & demonstrations from stallholders including Fowlers Vacola
• Peonies display from the legendary Ronnie Boekel
• Children’s activities

FREE MINI WORKSHOPS – NO BOOKINGS REQUIRED:

• Tips & Tricks on Growing Tomatoes
• Perennial Workshop ‘This Goes With That’
• How to make Preserved Lemons
• Sensational Sauerkraut
• Designing your Spring Garden with Bulbs
• Growing Dahlias

This October ‘letter cutter’ Ian Marr will be coming to Cloudehill to carve a piece of South Australian slate. The completed piece will be installed beside our Upper Meadow in the gardens. Now, watching a letter cutter at his craft is amazing and everyone is welcome to come along and see. Ian will be working on this piece (plus one or two other) in the days leading into the weekend of October 26th & 27th when he will also be running a letter cutting workshop. Anyone who might like to try their hand at this ancient craft (letter cutting goes back to the Romans and the Greeks) can come and try for themselves.

Ian will supply all tools, and stone (slate or sandstone) and for just $400 everyone will go home with the fundamentals of this craft in hand (so to speak) and with a souvenir appropriate for some prominent spot in their own garden. The class will consist of just eight participants, so it is vital to be quick. I might add – this will be the third of these workshops we have hosted and I can say they are an absolute joy for all concerned.

Please speak to Jeremy Francis on (03) 9751 1009 to book, or for further details.

The Archibald Prize paintings will be on display at Tarrawarra from September 14 to November 5 altogether. During this time I will be conducting FREE tours of 'Cloudehill and its Art Works' to everyone seeing 'the Archies'. Throughout the show every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 2.30 pm everyone with a ticket to Tarrawarra will be entitled to pop in to Cloudehill and join the tour.

Tours will be over some 45 minutes and will concentrate more on design philosophy and the logic of using art in the garden than is usually the case with my garden tours. They should be fun and, as mentioned, free to Tarrawarra ticket holders (after the ordinary $10 admission is paid) so even more of a reason to do both the Archibalds AND Cloudehill in one very pleasant day out.