TUCKED away in a pocket of bush in Barkers Creek, "Lixouri" reveals itself to be a stunning Mediterranean oasis bursting with life, character and terracotta-coloured earth.
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Visitors are greeted with a limewashed mudbrick home, garage, shed and studio surrounded by exotic and native trees and small plantings and sandstone terraces leading down to a dam full of yellow water iris.
It's the sort of place you could easily imagine yourself tied up in a book and a hammock for hours on end. Completely charming, incredibly personal.
The established 20-acre garden is one of 22 featured in the Castlemaine and district Festival of Gardens this year and home to Margaret and Max Beyer, a couple who fell in love with Greece after several trips there and decided to create their own piece of paradise.+
Max said the roots of the idea really took hold after the couple returned from a six-month trip to the Greek islands with their two daughters in 1979.
"Margaret and I lived in Athens back in 1964 for about nine or 10 months and just loved Greece, and so we took them and when we came back, we just loved the lifestyle and the olive trees and food and we thought maybe we should create our own little bit of Greece," he said.
It's really nice having people coming to the garden, we meet the nicest people.
- Margaret Beyer
"We looked around for a good piece of dirt, and found this place. It was a bare bit of dirt when we bought it."
The name Lixouri was borrowed from its namesake; a village in the Ionian islands.
Max said after they originally bought the property in 1980, they spent weekends coming up from Melbourne to work on it.
"We planted 100 olive trees in '81, anther 100 in '82 then started the house in '83," he said.
"We then spent the next 25 years up of a Friday night from Melbourne, then back on Sunday.
"We had longer holidays, but we were up and down a bit. It was a labour of love."
A decade on, the fruits of that quarter century of hard work certainly seem worth it.
"I love the view to the dam through the potting shed when I’m working in there," Margaret says.
"The birds are amazing around here, I’m recording all of them. There's ones that come here on a seasonal basis."
Bits have been added to the house and garden over the years, with current plans to build another gazebo-type structure behind the house and main gardens.
Margaret says her work was cut out for her ahead of the next month's festival, which runs from November 1 to 9.
Lixouri is no stranger to visitors, the Beyers have been taking part in the gardens festival and the Open Gardens program for many years.
"We have been part of the festival for a long time and part of the Open Gardens Australia program too," Margaret says.
"Hilariously, we were one of the five finalists in the Open Gardens garden of the year awards last year, only because our daughter put us in.
"It's really nice having people coming to the garden, we meet the nicest people."
Another garden in the festival this year, the Mica Grange gardens, offers visitors an expansive garden experience.
Perched high on one of the foothills of Mount Alexander in Sutton Grange, Mica Grange's view is stunning and its diverse gardens a feat given the rocky terrain on much of the property.
Home to Mary and Bede Gibson, Mica Grange’s gardens are about a decade old and feature a number of different themed gardens.
There's English, Australiana and South African-themed gardens, an orchard, rose garden and rockery as well as blue, red, yellow, white flowering plant sections.
Mary said the gardens were something the pair had always wanted to do.
"We were going to do it on the south coast of NSW and then our daughter asked us to come down here for two weeks. And we're still here," she says.
"But there’s a lot of things I can't grow here because the climate's just too hot. It's very different from what I've had before."
She said the difference in climates was striking and meant establishing the garden involved more than its fair share of luck.
"Rock goes all around the property, you’re guided by the rock, you're very restricted about what you can plant.
"You could dig 15 holes before you find one which takes roots because you hit rock all the time."
The garden was planted in 2004, during one of Australia's longest droughts, and the trees and gardens survived largely due to water being pumped from a spring fed dam.
Mary says she was surprised a couple of things from Sydney had survived, including some delicate looking orchids.
"You just don’t know what's going to work and what doesn't," she said.
Mary estimated she probably spent about 25-30 hours a week gardening.
"It’s quite a heavy maintenance garden. I love doing it, I find it very relaxing."
Mica Grange is relatively new to the Castlemaine Festival of Gardens – this will be the second year it has been part of it - but Mary said it was something to look forward to this year, especially with the inclusion of a sculpture exhibition.
"I think it's lovely too for the sculptures, a lot of people don't know what to do with their work," she said.
Bede said the sculptures on show were from artists from Bendigo, Castlemaine, Mia Mia, Malmsbury, Woodend, Maldon and NSW.
The exhibition features 50 exhibits and will run for the entirety of the festival.
"We did it for Open Garden and it was quite successful, but a lot of effort for one weekend, so it's better to have it run over long period of time."
Mary enjoys watching people getting inspiration for their own gardens.
"It's funny what you see people photographing, because they can go home and say, I can do that. It fascinates me what people take photos of," she said.
"We opened it (the garden) to share it. We thought we're lucky to have it, so we should share it."