Landscape designer Rick Eckersley has listed Musk Cottage at Flinders on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula through RT Edgar.
It is Eckersley's 12-year labour of love on Musk Creek Road, having paid $2 million in 2006.
Rick, who grew up on a cattle and wool grazing property in Macarthur, in the Western District, studied at Burnley Horticultural College as a mature-age student.
He worked for Berwick City Council for three weeks, before leaving to start his own landscaping business.
The four hectare weekender was bought when it was almost entirely mown lawn with Eckersley wanting the garden "to look like a Fred Williams painting".
Using mostly Australian plants, it is a low-maintenance private garden, but also the test bed for his business, with Scott Leung and Myles Broad having shared credit for the garden's design.
Open Gardens Victoria's spring season of events launched last weekend with the opening of the garden at Musk Cottage.
The four-hectare spread includes dramatic sweeps of contrasting plants - think black-trunked ironbarks under-planted with wave-pruned privet and linden trees juxtaposed with lomandra.
it is both the private garden of leading designer Rick Eckersley and the test bed for his Melbourne practice.
In establishing Musk Cottage in 2008, the aim was a sustainable, low-maintenance, quintessentially Australian.
Scott Leung, who with Eckersley and Myles Broad, shares credit for the garden's design.
"Rick calls it 'the mongrel garden' as it's such a mix of ideas," laughs Leung.
The garden evolved from bare paddocks and a dam. The original kit-style home and studio were given an internal refit and a red roof, while a new art studio, painted lime green, was added for Eckersley's painting and sculpture work.
Scale is key to the garden's impact - the generous swathes of grasses, the vast organic-shaped deck and high, vine-clad pergolas seem a perfect fit with the big skies and rolling hills of the landscape.
Sinuous paths and a snaking boardwalk over the wetlands offer avenues of exploration as one area flows into the next.
One of the signature plantings of the garden is a geometric grid of black ironbarks (Eucalyptus sideroxylon var rosea) whose trunks punctuate wave-pruned sweeps of Tuscany privet (Ligustrum vulgare "Buxifolium").
Closely planted lemonscented gums (Corymbia citriodora) flank the path leading to a hilltop area that is one of Leung's favourite spots to look over the valley garden.
Another is the sunken fire pit, where a seat-height wall is studded with empty bottles and LED lights.
This article first appeared in The Weekend Australian.