The Digger's Club

The Digger's Club is Australia's largest gardening club, with over 85,000 members. They were established in 1978 to ensure access to diverse seeds and plants which were disappearing from circulation and became champions of the heirloom fruit and vegetable revival in the 1990s. The club has been a staunch advocate for public control of our seed supply and against its corporatization through GM foods. In 2011, The Blazey family gifted the Diggers Club and its two historic gardens public gardens – Heronswood and The Garden of St Erth – to the charitable Diggers Foundation to ensure the Digger's legacy will continue to inspire and educate Australian gardeners into the future.

Gardens

Heronswood

Located on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, Heronswood is the home of The Diggers Foundation.

Showcasing the best flowers and plants for Australian conditions, the garden changes throughout the year and peaks in summer with wonderful planting combinations of summer perennials and heirloom vegetables.

Visit Heronswood for garden inspiration year round, dine in the cafe housed within the historic Heronswood House and shop for the best range of heirloom seeds, plants and more in our garden shop.


Heronswood is listed on the Register of the National Estate.[1] It is also listed in Oxford Companion to Gardens as one of only four gardens in Victoria, alongside the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, Mawallock and Rippon Lea.[2]


The first law professor at Melbourne University, William Hearn, employed Edward Latrobe Bateman to design Heronswood's main house in 1866. The house, which is of an asymmetric Gothic Revival design, was completed in 1871.[3]

The Garden of St Erth

In 1854 Matthew Rogers, a Cornish stonemason, left Sydney in pursuit of gold discovered near Mount Blackwood in Victoria. In the 1860s he built a sandstone cottage, naming it "St Erth" after his birthplace in Cornwall now restored and forming the centrepiece of the gardens.

Just one hour from Melbourne, not far from Daylesford and Ballarat, The Garden of St Erth is a secluded getaway.  Each season has something to offer, including carpets of daffodils in spring, long-flowering flower borders in summer, an espalier fruit orchard and magnificent autumn garden colour.

During the Gold Rush, the site was a town of 13,000 people and feverish activity. Now, 160 years later, you can visit the last remaining stone cottage as the home of our garden shop. Here you can browse a wide range of incredible edibles, hardy perennials and shrubs and stock up on the full range of Diggers heirloom seeds for the vegetable and flower garden.

Relax over coffee in the cafe and stay on for lunch, morning or afternoon tea, or even overnight in our Garden Beds glamping.

References
  1. "Heronswood Estate (listing VIC339)". Australia Heritage Places Inventory. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
  2. Oxford Companion to Gardens, Oxford University Press, 2006.
  3. "Victorian Heritage Register listing for Heronswood House (listing RNE5799)". Australia Heritage Places Inventory. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Retrieved 28 July 2016.
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