BLOOMING BEAUTIFUL: Lambley Nursery owner David Glenn proudly displays his winter crocuses and irises which are beginning to bloom.
BALLARAT residents are being asked to come and enjoy a display of colour in the middle of winter at the Lambley Nursery and Gardens.
Located at Ascot, the property is ablaze with purples and blues of Dutch crocuses and irises.
Lambley owner David Glenn said the nursery and gardens had been around for 20 years.
“People think in the winter there is nothing to see in the garden,” Mr Glenn said.
“This garden is in flower all year around and we don’t need a lot of water.”
Lambley, he said, had 1000 varieties of shrubs and perennials as well as 1000 types of bulbs including hoop petticoat daffodils and snow drops.
“I have got 20,000 Dutch crocus bulbs here and the iris comes from Turkey,” Mr Glenn said.
Open throughout the year to the public, the nursery also has a vegetable garden as well as a dry garden, that only needs watering three or four times a year.
“The dry garden flowers all the year,” he said.
Mr Glenn, who lives on the property with his wife, still-life painter Criss Canning, said he moved the entire nursery from the Dandenongs 20 years ago.
“We get a lot of visitors from overseas and interstate,” he said.
“We are better known in New Zealand and England.
“I am asking Ballarat people to come and have a look at what’s in their own backyard.”