Drive past once, and you might not notice. Take a second glance and you might see the bright red torii (Japanese gate) at the front of Iain Hinde’s house.
The traditional Japanese entrance isn’t at a Shinto shrine, or even in Japan. It’s at Mr Hinde’s Melton South house whose surrounds he has converted to a bonsai garden.
Not only does the torii bring entrants good luck, Mr Hinde says, but it helps them leave their everyday worries behind as they enter an area that’s peaceful and beautiful.
Mr Hinde, who says he’s always been an avid gardener, has been working on beautifying his Blackwood Drive home for 12 months, potting and planting bonsai.
“That jade tree there,” he says, pointing to one of the hundreds of plants, “was once a houseplant and then a potted plant and then a forgotten plant. And now it’s a bonsai plant.”
There are 50-year-old olive trees, the size of saplings, lemon trees with fruit the size of 50 cent coins, and vine trees that have recently started shooting.
They’re living, breathing artforms, Mr Hinde says of the miniature world of bonsai.
And at 10am on Saturday, October 1, he will open the gate to his Melton South home at 39 Blackwood Drive for people to visit and marvel.
There will also be plants for sale.
