After two years of cancellations because of COVID, organisers are delighted that the Leura Gardens Festival will be returning in 2022.
The first Leura Gardens Festival was held in 1965 and since then the festival has grown to be one of the Mountains’ most loved events, attracting visitors from Australia and overseas.
It’s a labor of love as each year more than 400 volunteers support the Leura Gardens Festival and help make it an outstanding success.
The 2022 Festival will be held for four days over the October long weekend from Saturday, October 1 to Tuesday, October 4 2022.
On display will be a feast of new growth, masses of flowers, gorgeous bulbs and an amazing variety of cool-climate plants including azaleas, rhododendrons and peonies as well as magnificent deciduous trees such as dogwoods, magnolias and crab apples which will just be coming into their full flowering glory.
Don’t miss the two magnificent gardens new to the Festival, Avila and Karoola.
Avila, which is about 12 years old, is a wonderful example of what can be achieved in smaller spaces using a careful and informed plant selection.
Featuring some impressive flowering bulb displays, a camellia and rhododendron walk, and a street verge lined by Ginko biloba trees,
Karoola is a garden on a larger scale and includes both formal and rambling bush settings and is remarkable for its extensive wisteria plantings. With its interesting history selling fresh produce to the community through two World Wars until the 1970s, Karoola features a modern house designed to sit harmoniously within its gardens.
There are formal terraces and plantings of autumn and spring flowering trees. A century old rhododendron harbours a woodland of hellebores and bluebells. Paths and steps lead down the terraces to an enclosed rose garden fringed by lavender and white wisteria.
For the more adventurous there is a walk to paths across the creek via a bridge to explore a stand of rainforest, a Wollemi pine, and the regenerated bushland with filtered views back to the house and garden.
Several other favourites will return, including Ewanrigg, Fairways, Hill of Grace, Seasons and The Braes which puts on an impressive show across its vast, varied and ever-changing acreage. Do make sure to allow enough time to explore this very large and spectacular garden.
In addition, the beautiful gardens at Everglades and Fairmont will also be on display.
All tickets are valid for the four days of the Festival and will be available on the Festival website from 1 August 2022.
Prices are: Single garden $10; Three gardens $20; All gardens $40
The Festival ‘hop on, hop off’ bus service runs between all gardens approximately every 30 minutes, with the cost for an all-day ticket being $10. The first bus leaves Leura Station at 9.30am each day and the last bus departs the station at 4.30pm for the final circuit.
Musicians including the Heathens Choir of Blackheath, the Katoomba Jazz Band and the Wombats Crossing trio will be performing during the Festival.
All proceeds go to support the Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital and other local health-related organisations. Since its inception, the Festival has raised more than $3 million making our hospital one of the best equipped for its size in the state.
Festival details are available on the website or call 0431 095 279. You can also follow the Festival on Facebook and Instagram.
