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When gardener Cass Hooke moved to the Hay Plain, she faced a challenging climate, but has created a beautiful oasis for her family.
WORDS VICTORIA CAREY PHOTOGRAPHY EMMA CROSS
With a cloud of golden blond hair and a mischievous smile, Jack has his hands full with a few other trophies from the kitchen garden: a shiny cucumber, a baby eggplant and one perfectly ripe ruby-red tomato that matches the cotton work shirt he clutches it to. Bluebelle stands quietly watching him.
“Jack does not let anything in his way stop him,” explains his 32-year-old mother fondly. “He is a very happy, healthy, active and exuberant little boy.”
But it wasn’t always so. In October 2019, Jack was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer of the eye called retinoblastoma. “He was only 18 months old at the time and it was a very surprising and shocking diagnosis. We have no family history of it and Jack showed no obvious signs of illness, but he started chemotherapy a week later,” says Cass.
After several complications, Cass and her husband Marcus, 33, had to make the decision for Jack’s right eye to be removed and today the little boy, who recently started preschool in the nearby township of Hay, is cancer free.
The family live on Nyangay, an 8100 hectare sheep station, at Booroorban on the Cobb Highway between Hay and Deniliquin. The farm is part of a large parcel of open-plain country across two adjoining family properties: Warwillah to the south — which is home to Marcus’s brother Tom — and Elmsleigh, where their parents Bill and Diane live, in the middle. Together they run 10,000 ewes across the entire 26,000 hectares as part of the family’s East Loddon Merino Stud.
“I remember the first time I visited Warwillah: the usually dry swamp on the highway opposite the turn-off was full of water and I naively asked Marcus if they could kayak on it. His response was, ‘Don’t get used to it; it’s about a foot deep and it’s probably the only time you’ll see it full in your life’,” explains the former teacher, who is expecting their second child in May.
Planning the building of their new house and garden was a welcome diversion during the young family’s regular four-hour drive down the highway to The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. “It was a great positive distraction for me during Jack’s cancer treatment. I spent many hours on the design and management of the build,” explains Cass, who worked with local builder Peter Mullins and architect Kate Sleigh.
Cassandra talks to Graziher’s Life on the Land about her love of gardening. Article continues below.
But she needed no design help with the garden. A stint as a teenager working for renowned landscape architect Robert Boyle had put her on the right path early. “I learnt many tricks and design skills from Rob that I was unaware of at the time, but they have stayed with me and influenced my style,” she says.
Cass, who grew up as the youngest of five kids in the outer Melbourne suburb of Eltham, has always had a passion for plants. “My Polish grandparents were avid gardeners and grew all types of vegetables and fruit trees as well as ornamental gardens. The apple does not fall far from the tree, and I only wish I could relive some of those early days spent next to my Nan or Grandpa picking cucumbers or pruning fruit trees,” she says.
The Riverina district’s arid climate makes it a challenging environment to establish a new garden. Tired of seeing the lush green New South Wales Southern Highlands plots and the magnificent estates in the cooler areas of Victoria upheld as the ideal, she decided to start an Instagram account called Outback Gardens in 2020.
“It was creating unrealistic expectations for our local gardeners,” she says. “Where we live can be incredibly discouraging as a gardener and I want to share some of the lessons I had learned to make it less so for other people.”
With a background in botany — Cass has worked on vegetable variety trials and now works at Riverina Local Land Services in natural resource management — she is clearly not a novice when it comes to growing things.
Her advice for others starting out? “Start with a few plants you like or that are recommended to you, and build from there. Repeat planting of successful plants is the fastest and most enjoyable way to achieve a healthy, established and cohesive garden. It does not need to be complex to be beautiful.”
But her main garden mantra is that gardening should be manageable and something you enjoy. “If you don’t, scale back and make any changes you can to make gardening a more rewarding task for you. At the end of the day, the garden is there to be enjoyed and lived in.”
And what is she going to do next at her place? “It’s always evolving — and it’s certainly nowhere near complete. I’m still adapting to the new conditions here!”
Follow Cass on Instagram. Her Planting Guide for the Riverina Region ebook is available from outbackgardens.com.au
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