The Charmed Garden at Broughton Hall

Book excerpt: The Charmed Garden at Broughton Hallis a celebration - of natural landscape, of human connection and endeavour, and of the sheer beauty of plants. It is also a story of transformation - of urban life to rural, agricultural land to cultivated paradise, humility to awe. The book traces, in words and photographs, the passion and toils of a physiotherapist and a garden designer working in harmony to transform the blank canvas of a Gippsland farm into a place of breathtaking inspiration. Broughton Hall is the residence that Philip Hunter and David Musker, designed as a sumptuous and stylish home. But it is the home's gardens and vistas that are the true hero of this beautifully illustrated book. The garden at Broughton Hall - an embodiment of the famous Aristotelian adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - is a feast for the eye, a place of horticultural wonder, and a charmed oasis capable of transporting even the weariest of souls to a level of previously unimagined vitality.