Talking about Susie’s Circuit (named after Susie Groves): we name our paths and secret places after our volunteers because not only do we know where someone might be working, it’s also a way of recognising volunteer efforts without which we would  be a wasteland.

This is a circuitous way of introducing Lois Wood, Lilac City Festival Citizen of the Year and volunteer extraordinaire. I can’t begin to tell you everything Lois gets up to but the pertinent thing is that she has two parts of the garden named after her - Lois Lane and Wood Walk. Lois Lane because in late June 2010, Lois, as convenor of We Love Goulburn Gardening group to which Lyn Wittenden and I also belonged at the time said: “Let’s get stuck Into the vinca girls”, which we did. Then Lois said; “I think there’s a path here, there’s a lot of gravel under the ground”, so we found the old 1980s map of the paths and garden beds. Then Lois, on hands and knees, painstakingly uncovered the gravel path now known as Lois Lane. Wood Walk isn’t nearly as exciting as Lois used battery-operated cutters to forge a path through the front garden to the post and rail fence.

Lois wasn’t the only winner at the Lilac City Festival, Riversdale also won the Heritage Garden Award for which we are thrilled. But more importantly, we were awarded the Betty Jane May Memorial award which means so much. Betty Jane was a special gardener who did much for Riversdale back in the glory days last century.

We have so much on! Devonshire tea, of course, on the third Sunday, then it’s the Garden Fair on November 5 and then the Goulburn Camera Club exhibition titled “In Your Garden” for around three week. Then there’s our annual house dress up – “Riversdale’s Victorian Christmas” – and there will be some more of the exquisite lace from the Richlands collection out on show. But the most important is the garden fair. The Iris will be Pooping.

Riversdale is open Mondays, Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays. For more information phone 4821 4741.