Leura Gardens Festival

Garden No 7 - Blue Mist, 26 Sublime Point Road, Leura
Courtesy of Anne & Don Munro

At Blue Mist Paul Sorensen has established a magical garden, one full of visual delights and surprises.  The gardens are protected from the street by flowering cherry trees and towering pencil pines.  The entrance is through a peaceful woodland,with mature birch, cedars and conifers shading a moss lawn and a weeping golden elm near a small pond.  Once past the cottage, sweeping views of the Jamieson Valley and the escarpment appear, along with a spectacular view of the Wentworth Falls.

A second pond with dwarf Japanese maples adjoins a meadow filled with daffodils, jonquils, snowdrops and hyacinths, protected by a massive copper beech for added colour and contrast.  There are more viewing platforms, one with an ancient gnarled cherry tree,another perched on a vast rock, before the terraced garden falls over the edge of the valley, reached via stone steps and gravel paths.  The plentiful, typical Sorensen walling is draped with violets.

Lower down sees a splendid display of camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons, interspersed wirh dogwood and maples.  A bed of lilly-of-the-valley fills the air with its perfume.  The orchard garden somehow flourishes in the cool climate, as do the roses.  Bird life abounds, with lyre birds frequently sighted in the undergrowth.  Below the bopttom path, the lush native vegetation resumes, with a line of tree ferns leading into a steep wooded area that disappears into the valley below.