All year round a team of gardeners works to preserve some of Sydney's oldest gardens, meticulously recreating them from 19th century paintings, photographs and snippets of letters.
Elizabeth Farm in Rosehill, which dates back to 1793, was originally owned by early settler and wool industry pioneer John Macarthur. Today's heritage garden is based almost exclusively on letters from Macarthur's wife Elizabeth to her family and friends in England, describing particular plants and settings.
![Todd Stark, head gardener at Sydney Living Museums. He's pictured at Elizabeth Farm in Rose Hill.](/web/20160926051741im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/d/9/x/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grbrh2.png/1474730715892.jpg)
"It's a heritage garden of text because there are no pictures," said Todd Stark, head gardener at Sydney Living Museums, which looks after 12 historic properties in NSW. "So we look at letters that say a particular 'rose looked really good when I looked over the garden' to know which flower to plant where."
"To me, although it's a garden of text, it's also a garden of feeling," Mr Stark said. "You don't write home to England about plants you don't really have strong feelings about."
![Rondeletia at Elizabeth Farm in Rose Hill.](/web/20160926051741im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/d/9/x/i/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grbrh2.png/1474730715892.jpg)
Recreating another historic garden in Sydney's east at Vaucluse House, which was owned by colonial explorer and politician William Wentworth from 1827, was made easier by Wentworth's careful documentation of the plants he cultivated.
"We still have the old nursery catalogues he would have used, so if we know he planted an azalea in 1850, we could know exactly which azalea," Mr Stark said.
The gardens provide a window into 18th and 19th century English tastes as well as displaying the fascination native plants that are now commonly seen held for the newly-arrived botanists.
"William Wentworth was one of the first to utilise Australian native plants," Mr Stark said. "When he would open up the house, people would stand around pointing at a plant that's everywhere now."
The heritage gardens highlight plants that may get lost in modern gardens, including lilly pillies, which were used to make jam, and clover, which is now considered a weed but was cultivated by the early settlers.
The rose gardens at the historic sites are also a little bit different.
"A lot of roses you see now are hybrids designed for the cut flower industry," Mr Stark said. "But we have a China rose, which we know very little about, but the flower changes colour as it gets older."
Elizabeth Farm also has two of the oldest olive trees planted in Australia, dating back to the early 1800s, while Vaucluse House boasts "some spectacularly old camellias".
While much of Mr Stark's day is spent researching the original gardens and sourcing specific, sometimes rare plants, one part of his job will garner the sympathy of all gardeners.
"No matter how big your garden is, the hardest part is maintaining the lawn, especially in the summer," he said.
"In the past, when you were wealthy, one of the ways of showing that was a good lawn."
Spring Harvest Festival will be held at Elizabeth Farm on September 25, 2016.