Helen Hayes has always been a keen gardener but a busy corporate career kept her from creating something on the scale befitting her imagination. 

But with retirement came the opportunity to realise her dreams in the rich volcanic soil of the Central Highlands. And recently the fruits of her labours at Musk Manor has captured the attention of other gardening enthusiasts.

Just recently she had a film crew spend 10 hours at her property gathering footage for an appearance on a future episode of the ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’. 

“I’d expect that I would have been a very unlikely candidate to be a gardener earlier on in my life,” says Helen.

“I worked 12 hour days pretty much seven days a week and I would have had to get up at 5am before I went off to work at 7 to get anything done.” 

Before relocating to Musk and starting on her garden Helen was an internationally recognised leader in business development and information management. She successfully coached and mentored senior executives for many years and was highly regarded as a trusted advisor and executive coach.

In 1999 Helen was recognised as the Victorian and Australian Telstra Business Woman of the Year and later worked at the executive level in universities in Australia and Scotland. That left very little time for creating a garden. 

But in 2017 Helen and her partner Michael came to the area to have a look at an old farm house in Musk. It sat on just over a hectare of land with a wonderful view north over the Wombat Forest and she sensed the potential to create a spectacular garden. 

“I saw the land and the 100-year-old barn and thought, ‘this is definitely it, I’ve got to move in here, I’ve got to make my garden here, I thought this will give me a reason to retire, I’ll have a project. It will be a big project but I’ll still do it’.” 

And now, seven years later the transformation of the site has been spectacular. At first there was very little when they moved in. Just an empty paddock save for a couple of established trees. Helen began with the preparation that needed to be done. 

She divided the area into 13 different sections and tackled one at a time until it was done. That task alone took six to eight months and filled 14 skips with weeds before anything was planted at all. 

Today, the place is a wonderful collage of trees and scrubs, evergreens and perennials. Gravel paths wend between beds of flowers of all sizes and colours and sumptuous lawns have replaced the dusty fields of 2017. 

Birds dart in and around a gorgeous array of native and non-native plants and bees and butterflies feast on nectar. Helen describes how she approached the arrangement. 

“The plants have been chosen for their attraction to bees, birds and butterflies.” Helen says. “Each area has a predominant colour. The two gardens on the fence line are mainly yellow so I have leucadendrons but also forsythia, buddleia, grevillea and hypericum in the yellow garden. 

“In the orange garden I have a long-flowering rise called ashram. I have mixed orange with deep purple plants. The plants that thrive in the garden are daphne, rhododendrons and camellias – mostly Bob Hope and black tie as I like the red against the dark green foliage. 

“I have added two hedges of plantation pink sasanqua camellias. My favourite trees are maples for their colour, particularly Autumn Moon. Autumn is my favourite time and the oaks, crab apples and red-stemmed maples are favourites. I have a special favourite that is a Himalayan strawberry tree. 

“Of the small plants, I love daylilies at this time of year and peonies although they are short lived. I have a lot of irises, especially midnight blue. Miniature irises border the yellow garden and a purple and blue mix border the main garden.” 

Like all labours of love, the work is never completed, it just evolves and Helen continues to work on developing her little patch of paradise and is looking forward to having another open garden day.

“I have had it open twice so far for fundraising events, once for the Musk CFA and then for the Spa Country Railway,” Helen says.

“I will do it again for the CFA next year. I like people to be able to come and walk around and enjoy what’s been created here.”

Words & main image: Tony Sawrey

Words and Image: Eve Lamb

Two of the region’s premier gardens are preparing to open their gates to visitors for a fundraising picnic day on Saturday, November 18.
Famed Musk Farm garden and neighbouring Musk Manor garden, located within cooee of each other, are opening as a fundraiser to support the Musk CFA.
Famed Musk Farm is the iconic garden developed by the late Stuart Rattle and features 15 “garden rooms” inspired by the grand estates of France and England.
Across the road, Musk Manor garden is opening to the public for the second time and the garden’s creator and resident owner, Helen Hayes, will be on site for the event, as will her part-time gardener Clare Dynon.
It’s hard to believe, but true, that Helen and her husband Michael Lynn have only owned this impressive garden for the past six-and-a-bit years.
In that time resident green thumb Helen has set about cultivating the site into something to delight garden lovers and local birdlife alike.
“The whole bottom of the garden was just empty and weed infested and we pretty much started from scratch,” she says.
But it was the intrinsic garden potential of the site that clinched their purchasing the property from the outset, Helen says.
Now the continual evolution of the Musk Manor garden is an ongoing labour of love for this passionate gardener whose plant choices are often informed by her wish to cater to the needs of local bird and insect life.
“I definitely work in this garden six days a week now,” says Helen who is a former University of Melbourne librarian and also a former Australian Businesswoman of the Year, with a background in the corporate and government sectors.
Coordinator of the upcoming Musk Open Gardens, Duncan Evans says visitors are encouraged to pack a picnic rug and catch the tourist railway out from Daylesford to reach the gardens – for several good reasons.
One of these is to avoid potential parking issues that emerged when the Musk gardens opened last year and the event drew some 500 visitors.
While limited parking will be available, Duncan says another good reason to jump aboard the tourist train is simply to support this local tourist attraction and enjoy what it has to offer.
“Last year we had a lot of people from Melbourne who said they loved catching the train, and a lot of children who really loved it,” Helen says.
Duncan also says a good array of food and specialty beverage stalls will be on site on the day selling refreshments including coffee, gin and wine.
Visitors can even pre-order a gourmet lunch box via the event’s dedicated website at muskopengardens.com.au and are encouraged to purchase food on site, although you can also pack a picnic hamper.
There will also be a silent auction and some attractive raffle prizes up for grabs. A main aim, Duncan says, is to have visitors make a real day of it, stay and have lunch on site and really soak in the two gardens’ beauty.
“For garden lovers it’s a fantastic opportunity to see two of the region’s premier gardens,” he says.
Plant sales will be an added attraction and Helen says plants on offer at Musk Manor are likely to include hellebores, irises, hebes, Christmas lilies and “a lot of bulbs”.
“The irises will be looking brilliant at that time of the year,” she says.
“And last year people really loved the peonies and the oriental poppies.”
“I think it’s a garden for using. I love to see people just enjoying sitting on the lawn and having a picnic. It’s a beautiful time of year.”