MELISSA KING: With grand gardens and a wildlife reserve, this Mornington Peninsula estate took my breath away

Among the beaches and wineries of the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria is a garden on a grand scale that shows what you can achieve when you put your mind to something.

Once a cattle property with nothing but paddocks and an old shed, Panorama Garden Estate is a 55-acre garden and wildlife reserve featuring 19 different garden displays and over 50 native and farm animals – but it’s the vision for such a spectacular landscape that really sets this place apart.

When you look at the design and scale of the garden it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t planned, at least on paper. The concept simply popped into the mind of designer and creator Nick Smith, who developed the garden over a 20-year period. “It was sparked off by a small creek and fernery and evolved from there,” says Nick. Unrestrained by space, he was able to let his imagination run wild, creating a different garden each year.

If you stand at the top of the hill and look down, you get a sense that you are witnessing something bold and brilliant. It takes extraordinary vision and a big can-do attitude to create a garden of this size and make it all work together.

Wander down the stone terrace, lined with pencil pines and past the sculpture of a little girl reading by the pond and you’ll likely forget where you are. It’s a garden that you might expect to find in Italy, not Boneo, and yet here it is carved into the hill, surrounded by tall cypress hedges, which make you feel like you’re in a secret garden.

Clever use of stone is an overriding design feature, showcased in nearly every garden room. Rock walls are used to define spaces, stone steps and patterned pathways take you on a journey through the garden and stone archways give the garden’s structure a natural look.

“There’s over 8000 tonnes of rock in the garden” Nick says. Most of it he moved himself.

The formality continues through into the rose garden, where old fashioned favourites mingle with modern varieties like the apricot flowered ‘Just Joey’ and lavender toned ‘Blue Moon’. Around the edges ground covering roses cascade down retaining walls. There’s even a Moroccan style mosaic pond at the centre.

The rose garden leads into the ballet garden, where a formal pond is juxtaposed with cottage style planting. Dancing in the water is a bronze statue of a ballerina, a focal point of the design, which draws your eye through the garden.

As you would expect, the planting in this area is elegant with clipped hedges and neat edges. As for flowers, wonderful dashes of colour are provided by 10,000 dahlia plants which pop up in spring and provide vibrant colour through summer and autumn.

You have to wonder what was going on in Nick’s head when he created the Universal Garden.

At the heart of the garden is a rusted metal sculpture that looks like it could be at home in a science museum — concentric rings that represents solar system.

Around it you’ll find spiky plants like cactus that symbolise “stars” and masses of Yuccas, which create a strong visual pattern and bring drama to the space.

Continue on through the kitchen garden, filled with edible beauties, along the rainforest path to the lake, so grand it looks like it could be at home in any one of the worlds Botanical Gardens.

Visit the Crater Garden and you’ll get a real glimpse into Nick’s extraordinary mind, so astronomical was his vision for the place. Like an inventor, he has ideas that he just has to get out of his head and into the real world. So, after a visit to the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania, the Panorama Crater Garden was born.

Standing on the viewing platform, looking down at the canyon-like walls and thousands of tonnes of rock, you can really appreciate the amount of time and muscle that went into creating this garden — a bold response to such a large space. Here, year-round interest and low maintenance are the cornerstones of Nick’s philosophy. They’d have to be in a landscape this big, where thousands of plants mingle together.

The surrounding garden beds read like a who’s who of dry tolerant plants, with Kniphofias and Echiums taking centre stage, alongside tough Yuccas and Leucadendrons.

Nick also had to rely on plants with immense visual impact like Canary Island Palms to bring height and scale to the design. While you’re there take a moment to appreciate the panoramic views of Bass strait and Port Phillip Bay – for which the estate was named.

Nick’s partner Annemaree is the brains and love behind the wildlife sanctuary — the other half of Panorama. She hand-reared most of the animals herself, including miniature goats, alpacas and a herd of rare albino kangaroos, which roam the paddocks — a big drawcard for kids and adults alike.

Panorama Garden Estate has been decades in the making but it’s forever growing and changing.

The newest addition is a private magnesium hot pool spa, Azure on Panorama, the latest thing in the journey to good health. So, you can now combine a visit to the garden with a relaxing soak in the spa overlooking the ocean and countryside, for a truly healing nature experience.

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