When Michael and Margaret Randle moved to their Crafers West property – known as Kinclaven – in 1996, the garden was mostly undeveloped.
A few mature trees – including a horizontal golden cypress that was planted in the 1880s the same year the house was built – some grass and a line of camellias along one fence were its key features.
It was, in part, that blank slate that drew them to the property.
“We both wanted to work tirelessly like slaves in the garden,” Michael jokes.
“Which we’ve done for the past 30 years,” Margaret adds.
The couple wanted to create four major levels on the sloping Waverley Ridge Road block, with something of interest all year around and a “miscellany” of plants.
But over the years the garden has evolved, inspired, in part, by the couples’ travels and Michael’s “crazes”.
“We’ve gone through a couple of crazes (mainly I have),” Michael says.
“I’ve fallen in love with succulents and cacti and created, I hope, some rather Mediterranean looking areas and then I flirted briefly with the tropics – and of course it’s not even remotely tropical here – so they’re plants that look the part that aren’t truly tropical.”
There is also a camellia walk along one side of the property, where the original line of camellias grew, a wisteria arbor, winding mossy paths, fountains, an English-style garden, bamboo grove and – the most recent installation – a five-metre waterfall that has replaced a “treacherous” set of stairs between levels in the garden.
“One always has a grand vision, but gardeners change things,” Michael says.
“You can go to a property that’s been professionally landscaped and it will remain exactly that way for 40 years or get worse because nobody maintains it, or you can go to a place where the gardener’s amateur and they can’t help themselves – they’re always coming up with new ideas because they love doing it.”
In the early days the couple put in back-breaking hours to develop structure in the garden – carrying rocks, bags of manure and sleepers down to the bottom of the property to build the stepped pathways that now wind through the two-acre garden.
Today Michael still spends about 10 hours a week working in the garden, with a little bit of external help as well.
It’s something that has run through his veins since he developed his first garden at age eight.
“Whenever we moved to another house, I established a garden and I guess, progressively I learned a bit more each time,” he says.
“Nothing like a few mistakes to teach you.”
I guess (the garden) does give pleasure and perhaps it really hasn’t got terribly much meaning if nobody ever sees it
Kinclaven’s garden was opened to the public for the first time in 2000 and has opened several times since.
Over the years the open gardens have connected the couple with several former residents of the house, which was built in the 1880s by Charles Austin Horn.
According to his obituary in the March 17, 1928, Adelaide Chronicle, Horn was a partner of his family’s sharebroking firm and a pioneer of the Horndale vineyard at Happy Valley.
“When he first came to Australia he was working in the copper mines in Burra – around that area – and the story goes that he had the fastest horse and he saw this property first and so he stuck a flag on it said ‘that’s mine’,” Margaret says.
The house has since changed hands about six times and was possibly abandoned for a period of time before it was renovated by the owners who eventually sold it to Margaret and Michael.
The couple has firmly fallen in love with the property and – 25 years after their first open garden – they still love sharing it with others.
“I guess (the garden) does give pleasure and perhaps it really hasn’t got terribly much meaning if nobody ever sees it.” Michael says.
