(GENTLE MUSIC)
JANE: Arthur Streeton is one of our best-known and most-loved artists.
He was one of the Australian impressionists,
part of the movement known as the Heidelberg School.
He adored the beauty of the Dandenong Ranges,
just east of Melbourne.
In the 1920s, he bought five hectares here,
named it Longacres,
and went on to establish a beautiful garden.
Used to say, "I can almost not pull myself away from the garden
"to do a bit of painting."
(LAUGHS) It was as music.
You know, a triad of great loves in Arthur Streeton's life.
Julie Dodds-Streeton is the current owner of Longacres.
Her late husband, Roger,
was Arthur's grandson.
Julie knows the history of the property
and the Streeton family,
including Arthur's Canadian wife, Nora.
She was a child musical prodigy,
an excellent violinist,
and as an early teenager
she was sent to Germany to study.
She studied with the very famous teacher Joachim,
and she was independently wealthy.
Played for crown heads.
She knew Tchaikovsky, she knew Debussy.
She was a remarkable person. Wow!
Nora was a bit reluctant to settle in Australia
and they settled in Toorak
in a rather grand house that Nora had funded.
I think it rather irked him
that his wife was financially the one who provided all.
And in 1924,
he sold his great picture 'Golden summer' for 1,000 guineas,
then a record price,
and he spent every penny building this property, the main house,
in a Canadian lake style
to appeal to Nora,
and, in particular, the linden walk,
to remind Nora not only of North America,
but also of her time in Germany.
Where there are avenues of linden trees.
Exactly! Yes.
And I think it's rather moving,
because in a way you can see the garden
as a kind of love letter written in foliage and flowers and plants
that Arthur Streeton created
to lure his sophisticated wife to the Australian bush.
(DREAMY MUSIC)
It's all done to his own design and with his own participation,
and it's free-form,
as you would expect an artist's garden to be.
Arthur was always looking to make a bit of money if he could.
He had the idea of planting
a cash crop of Douglas pines for yacht masts,
but he really couldn't win,
because, you know, just as they were coming into maturity,
yacht masts changed to metal,
so it still stands there
as a beautiful haven for the birds and...
It's lovely. It is.
After Arthur's death,
Longacres changed little,
until Julie's husband, Roger Streeton,
took over in 1996.
He was an engineer, a mayor of Kew, and a keen gardener.
And Roger put in the apple walk, which grows heritage apples.
Wonderful. If you can protect them from the birds, well and good.
No, you never get to eat any of them yourselves.
You share them with the birds. It looks good.
And you must enjoy working here.
It's an absolute privilege to work...
Since Roger passed away,
the garden is cared for by nurseryman and gardener Craig Wilson.
This is my copy of what I'd imagine Streeton would have planted.
The agapanthus, look, they're a shocking weed.
Everybody knows that.
But if you dead-head them and they don't self-seed,
then they're something that can be controlled.
That's right. Yeah.
And then you've got the wonderful bulbs of the liliums at the back.
The lilies, of course, Streeton adored, and painted.
Oh, did he? Which is why we've planted them.
That is an enormous size! Great height to it.
Yes, 'Leslie Woodriff'. It's a good one, isn't it?
Big, strong grower. It is.
And then this lovely yellow one. 'Conca D'Or'.
That's a magnificent one. Yeah.
And they'll get much bigger than that.
Oh, it's wonderful. Aren't they extraordinary?
So, amongst other plants, they do very well, don't they?
They like to be, yeah, scrambling in amongst things
and supported, yeah.
That really is picture-perfect, isn't it?
It's a very cute building, isn't it?
What is it? It's the gardener's cottage.
Oh, dear. Now, you don't live there, do you?
Not yet. (LAUGHS)
Wishing and hoping. (LAUGHS)
And then the rockeries - that's got a history to it too.
The rockeries, I think, have a conservation order on them
because Streeton made them.
And he would have planted them up with lots of different plants.
He would have been growing alpine plants.
As they did. Yeah. Yeah, that's right, yeah.
And then the hydrangea up there is... that's a spectacular one.
That's paniculata 'Grandiflora'.
It's a beauty, isn't it? Yes.
You've pruned it so it's sort of more lifted up.
That's right, and also I prune it every year
so that you get the big flowers, 'cause it flowers on the tips.
And it's quite an avenue of hydrangeas, this, isn't it?
Aren't they magnificent? Yeah, we love the hydrangeas.
And then because of the acid soil, it's so blue.
And you have to keep them pruned, though.
They get pruned every year, yes. Wowee.
They're really electric blue. Yeah.
Explain about this tree, though.
This is the New Zealand red beech which got lonely and died.
No, they like to be squashed in.
Look, a seedling popped up.
Oh, isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful?
It's doing very well. (LAUGHS)
There are some spectacular trees here.
The trees are unbelievably beautiful.
The robinias are absolutely my favourite.
There's not a straight line on them.
They're so curved. They are.
The trunks are here, there and everywhere.
That's right, yeah, and the bark is so beautifully cracked.
And magnificent-looking oak trees.
The oaks were really... Phwoar!
The English oaks were all from acorns
collected from the botanic gardens.
Spliced by Arthur Streeton.
Really?! Yes.
Put some in his pocket and brought them here.
That's right, and off they went. Fantastic.
It's really a lovely, lovely spot.
It's the dream job, isn't it, for a gardener.
I hope that Longacres always remains as it is,
you know, a place of beauty and peace.
And I hope all people are able to enjoy its beauty.
One last thing.
You remember 'Golden summer, Eaglemont',
sold in 1924 for 1,000 guineas?
Well, in 1995,
the National Gallery of Australia
bought it for $3.5 million.
Wouldn't Arthur have loved to be able to tell Nora that?