About Town and Country Gardens

Peta Trahar

Peta Trahar was raised in Tasmania, lived in Mosman in Sydney and now calls Woodgreen Angus Stud, at Bilpin, home. Peta is a graduate of Ryde School of Horticulture. Her experience includes working as a landscape lecturer, writer, garden judge and selector for Australia's Open Garden Scheme, now closed. Her career as a landscape designer has given focus to the development of her nursery, Town and Country Gardens. Time is now spent propagating and selling her interesting plants. Past memberships include the Australian Institute of Horticulture and the Australian Institute of Landscape Designers and Managers. Her garden is a wide collection of unusual plants displayed with an eye to colour and texture. The garden has featured on ABC's Gardening Australia and Channel Seven's Better Homes and Gardens as well as in several gardening magazines. They include Your Gardens, Better Homes and Gardens, The Garden Clinic Magazine and the ABC Garden Magazine.

She is often asked to speak to garden groups and associations. A speaker fee and travel costs are charged.

Peta was the co-founder of the highly successful Collectors’ Plant Fair. In 2005, together with Beth Stokes, Peta was awarded NSW Horticulturist of the Year and the National Award of Excellence “for promoting horticulture, particularly the use and conservation of rare and unusual plants through the organisation of the Collectors' Plant Fair.” She was awarded Life Membership of Garden Clubs of Australia in 2023.

Peta is currently a member of the Bilpin Garden Club and a member and past President of the Kurrajong Heights Garden Club.

The Garden at Woodgreen

The 2 acre garden within a larger property was established in the 1960’s by Justice Philip Woodward. Peta and Peter Trahar bought Woodgreen in 1986. Since then the garden has been developed and intensively planted. It is beautiful in all seasons and is open by appointment.

The Nursery – ‘Town and Country Gardens’

The Nursery is open by appointment. Garden and horticultural groups are welcome. Peta’s interest has always been in the more interesting and unusual plant species, including those with variegated foliage. The Woodgreen garden is a product of her collecting since establishing a first garden in the 1970’s. It is now the source of the plants in the nursery. The range offered includes perennials, shrubs and bulbs among others. Many are rare.