TONIA TODMAN Starting over
Tonia Todman fusses around the rambling cottage garden at her Victorian country home. “It’s looking a bit dishevelled at the moment,” she says of the sprawling beds of Australian roses, poppies and perennials, positively blooming to the untrained eye.
“We planted seeds before the fire to grow a wild English garden and it certainly is wild,” she says with a hearty laugh while tending to a Queen Anne’s Lace that almost towers over her.
“Apparently gardens don’t really like fire trucks, retardant and canon hoses! We’ve got a lot of work to do to get everything back in order but we’ll roll up our sleeves, it’s a new beginning.”
The much-loved television presenter, who was an endearing presence on our screens for more than two decades and earned the moniker ‘Queen of Craft’ for her frugal to fabulous cooking, craft and home decor segments on shows like Good Morning Australia and Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, is finally preparing to move into the house rebuilt after her historic bluestone home burned down in 2018.
Proudly showing the herringbone floor made of bricks salvaged from the devastating fire, and the sprawling laundry
