Monday - Thursday MID WEEK only $735 (value $835)
Stay THREE nights mid-week and enjoy chocolates & cheese platter on arrival, your breakfast basket for the first morning and the newspaper paper delivered daily.*
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why visitors return to jalbrook cottages ...
Kids at Jalbrook
Children are encouraged to help with animal feeding ...
Read more about what children can do whilst at Jalbrook
About Balingup and the local area
A destination for all seasons. Some things never change in this charming town. Friendly country people, great quirky shops, galleries, cafes, and antique shops to peruse and pick up a bargain...
Read more about what to see in and around Balingup
the jalbrook estate
Jalbrook, primarily a breeding alpaca farm and short term stay accommodation property is also the venue for the Jalbrook concert held each November.
Twelve years ago we started with a property totally overgrown with bracken and blackberry.
The first job was to get the local volunteer fire brigade to come in and burn the block to be able to establish contours and to locate and eradicate the rabbit warrens.
To establish parkland gardens we started with deciduous trees for autumn colour and added azaleas, camellias, roses, and hundreds of bird attracting natives to start the process.
The property today, still a work in progress, is now a myriad of colour and sound with hundreds of different birds flitting around.
Work continues and most of the trees have under plantings of bulbs for winter colour. Iris garden beds have been planted under the larger trees in the old alpaca paddock.
Roses have been transplanted this year to formal beds, with new plantings of Chinese pistachio trees to form an avenue leading to the cottages.
A giant outdoor chess set has been constructed linked by a wisteria walkway to a gazebo with an outdoor fire.
Some garden beds have been created by the lasagna or layering method rather than digging out garden beds and we use all of the “paca poo” as mulch straight onto the garden as compost or we dilute it in water to make it into a tea.
Hundreds of sedges and native plants have been planted around the Balingup Brook to encourage the water birds and we have more and more every year with many nesting in the havens created around the brook.
Jalbrook is an emerging parkland garden with some interesting old farm machinery pieces around the property.
A walled garden being created around the outdoor chess set with picnic tables and seats was severely damaged by frost this year and has been replanted with viburnum’s that will resist frost damage in the future. A covered area to encourage people to pause in their meanderings and enjoy the wonderful birdlife that is prolific at Jalbrook is a new edition along with an outdoor pizza oven. This area was previously used as a grazing paddock for the alpacas and the covered area was where the alpacas were shorn.
A three tonne piece of local Donnybrook stone is in situ and surrounded by Kangaroo Paws in a WA style garden. We have planted a red wattle adjacent to the bed to give the birds some extra shade.
Two new rammed earth cottages are currently being finished. We have added some stone walls in Donnybrook stone to retain raised beds and planted hyacinths, along with water wise natives and added some interesting sculpture in front of Corella cottage.
Teal cottage has been interesting and fun to landscape and we have created a privacy courtyard with brushwood fencing, a great rockery planted with succulents, a water feature and some interesting grasses and natives.
Selections of large trees have been ordered to plant around and adjacent to the new cottages when the machinery is no longer whizzing around the property.
The gardens on the property are maintained with the help of Sheena from "Queen of Spades" gardening company who comes once a week to help with maintenance and planning. Two new 'no dig' garden beds with water features and native plantings are planned for the slope in front of the cottages overlooking Balingup Brook and work will commence over the summer period.
Please feel free to wander the property and enjoy the ambience of the gardens and the wonderful birdlife that we have.
Keeping our water bowls and feeding trays filled is almost a full time job with so many of our feathered friends flying in daily.
Sheena and Jan have many new projects lined up and a have started to create a Japanese themed garden adjacent to Ibis spa cottage. Maple trees, along with persimmons, camellias and a water feature have been added to date. This will be an ongoing project.