Perched above Port Phillip Bay in Dromana, Heronswood feels as though it belongs to another era. Meandering paths weave between cottage style botanicals and productive kitchen garden beds filled with rare and heirloom varieties, all unfolding around the historic Heronswood house.

The garden is home to The Diggers Foundation and has long been a place for preserving heirloom flowers and vegetables, with edible and ornamental varieties growing side by side. The planting finds a balance between the considered and the slightly wild—the kind of garden where there is always something new waiting around the next corner.

Make a morning of wandering the garden before settling into the historic house cafe for coffee or lunch, with glimpses of the bay never too far away. 

Few flowers announce the arrival of spring quite like the tulip. Each year, the rolling hills of Silvan transform into the Tesselaar Tulip Festival, bringing bright sweeps of colour to the Dandenong Ranges. More than a million spring flowers make up the display, with tulips taking centre stage in almost every shade, shape and size imaginable.

There is something wonderfully nostalgic about seeing flowers planted en masse—row upon row creating a rainbow of colour across the landscape. Wander between the displays, visit the fairy garden, grab a bite to eat at the dutch themed food stalls or simply take in the abundance of it all.

This year's festival runs from 12 September until 11 October, making it one of spring's more fleeting floral moments and all the more reason to catch it while you can. 

You don’t have to venture far from the city to find yourself surrounded by greenery.

Spanning 38 hectares on the edge of Melbourne’s CBD, the Royal Botanic Gardens have been part of the city for almost 180 years. Within them are thousands of plant species and more than 20 living collections, from roses and camellias to herbs, perennials and plants gathered from across the world.

In spring, we’re particularly drawn to the Perennial Border, a contemporary interpretation of an English cottage garden where colour, form and texture shift with the seasons. New shoots begin appearing in early spring before the display gradually makes way for the bolder colours of summer.

So on your next city visit, meander your way through, find a patch of grass beneath a mossy tree and let an afternoon disappear. 

A few streets back from the bustle of St Kilda, the St Kilda Botanical Gardens offer a quieter way to spend a spring afternoon.

The gardens are home to sweeping lawns made for picnicking and an impressive collection of trees to laze under. The perfect lazy Sunday if we do say so ourselves. 

There is a lovely sense of escape here without ever really leaving the city. Pick up a coffee from a nearby cafe, wander beneath the trees and take your time amongst the flowers before continuing towards the foreshore.

For those days when a trip to the country feels a little too far, consider this your suburban escape, a little closer to home. 

There is something particularly special about being invited into someone else’s garden.

Hidden away in suburban Ivanhoe is the flower filled world of florist and gardener Petrina Blooms. In spring, thousands of tulips emerge beneath blossoming Japanese cherry trees, joined by ranunculus, and cocooned in a fairytale-esque Wisteria draped canopy.

Unlike the permanence of a botanic garden, Petrina’s feels deeply personal. It is a garden shaped by years of collecting, planting and observing, with inspiration gathered from gardens and landscapes around the world and reimagined at home.

Petrina opens her garden for select tours and workshops throughout spring, offering the chance to wander amongst the flowers while learning a little about the thought, patience and inevitable experimentation that goes into creating a garden so abundant.

It’s perhaps the loveliest reminder that a garden is never really finished.

Come October, one of the Yarra Valley’s most enchanting spring displays begins to unwind.

At Alowyn Gardens in Yarra Glen, a long pathway disappears beneath cascades of Japanese wisteria, its trailing lilac blooms creating a floral wonderland overhead. Planted in 1999, the wisteria has spent more than two decades weaving its way across the structure and now flowers for just a few precious weeks each spring.

Beyond the wisteria, the garden unfolds into a collection of distinct spaces, from the symmetry of the French Provincial garden to English cottage gardens, an edible garden and quiet groves of birch trees.

Try to visit while the wisteria is in bloom in mid October and escape to a faraway place under the dreamlike purple florals. 

Perhaps part of our fascination with gardens lies in their impermanence. A flower that appears one week may be gone the next; a bed awash with one colour slowly gives way to another. No two visits are ever quite the same, and therein lies the beauty of the fleeting.

It’s something Bonnie knows well. Gardens encountered both close to home and on her travels have long found their way into her work—remembered through a soft brushstroke, a familiar flower or an unexpected pairing of colour. Fleeting moments, made permanent to be enjoyed in our homes.

Because perhaps the loveliest memories are those we can carry with us. Reimagined in print, they become the backdrop to new ones; long dinners gathered around the table, slow mornings beneath the covers, or a quiet corner of the house nestled amongst cushions and flowers.

Because long after we leave the garden, somehow, a little of it always finds its way home.