Peta-Lyn Nosatti
Peta-Lyn was born and raised in Swan Hill, and grew up on her father's dairy farm, the block that is now the family garden. She has gardened in the Mallee her whole life, and she knows what grows in this region and what doesn't.
Our story · Swan Hill, Victoria
Rooted in the Mallee.
Peta-Lyn was born here. John arrived in the 1960s. Between them, they've spent a lifetime learning what this country can grow.
Gardening here since 1981A 3-acre garden on salty groundPart of Swan Hill for 20+ years
Our story
Forty-five years in the growing
Peta-Lyn Nosatti grew up in Swan Hill. Her father ran a dairy farm on a flat, cleared block just out of town: open Mallee country, big sky, hard summers and cold winters.
In 1981 Peta-Lyn and her husband John took on that old farm block and started planting. There was no grand plan, just the wish to make something grow, and they began with barely a dozen trees.
Forty-five years on, the block is a 3-acre garden. It didn't come easily. The soil is salty, as it is on plenty of blocks around Swan Hill, and they've spent decades learning to work with it. Today the garden shows what's possible in the Mallee when you understand the land and choose the right plants.
That's the knowledge Peta-Lyn and John bring to the nursery every day.
The old dairy block
1981
Peta-Lyn and John take on her father's cleared farm block just out of Swan Hill and start planting.
About a dozen trees
That's how it began. The soil was salty and the summers were hard, so they learned what works the slow way.
3 acres today
A garden that proves what will grow here, and where the advice you get at the counter comes from.
Our garden
Where our knowledge comes from
Most nursery owners know plants. Peta-Lyn and John live with them, in the same soil, under the same sun and through the same seasons as their customers.
A WORKING GARDEN
Four decades of trial and error
Their garden just outside Swan Hill is a working piece of Mallee country that they've coaxed, challenged and learned from for more than four decades.
PROOF IN THE GROUND
What does well here, and what won't
It holds the plants that prove what will do well in Swan Hill, and the lessons from the experiments that showed them what won't.
SALTY SOIL
A long fight with salt, largely won
Salty soil affects plenty of properties around Swan Hill, and few people in the district have more hands-on experience planting through it. When they recommend a salt tolerant plant, they're speaking from their own soil.
The nursery
Swan Hill's specialist nursery for the Mallee
Rhimahden has been part of Swan Hill for over 20 years. It grew from a simple idea: people in this region deserve a nursery that understands where they live.
The Mallee isn't like the rest of Victoria. The summers are fierce, the winters bite, the rain is unreliable, and in many parts of the district the soil carries salt. Plants that look beautiful at a garden centre in Melbourne can struggle here, or fail outright.
So we specialise in plants suited to life in the Mallee: natives, fruit trees that do well in this climate, drought tolerant plants and plants that handle salty ground. We buy from local growers and the best nurseries in Victoria, and we choose every plant knowing what it will face once it goes into a Swan Hill garden.
You don't learn that from a catalogue. You learn it from forty-five years of growing in this country.
The people
Meet Peta-Lyn and John
Two lifetimes of Swan Hill gardening behind every recommendation we make.
John Nosatti
John first came to Swan Hill in the 1960s and has called the Mallee home ever since. Alongside Peta-Lyn he has spent more than four decades turning the old dairy block into the 3-acre garden it is today, and what they learned along the way is behind everything Rhimahden recommends.
Why locals choose Rhimahden
What keeps them coming back
Over 300 five-star reviews from Swan Hill locals.
Mallee specialists
We know this climate: the heat, the frost, the salt and the dry. Every plant we stock is chosen with Swan Hill conditions in mind.
Forty-five years of local knowledge
Peta-Lyn has called Swan Hill home her whole life, and John since the 1960s. That's a lifetime of watching what grows here, and what doesn't.
Experts in salty soil
We've dealt with salt on our own block for decades, and we can help you deal with it on yours.
Sourced from the best
We buy from local growers and the best nurseries in Victoria, so you get plants that are used to conditions like ours, not trucked in from interstate.
Family owned, part of the community
We've been part of Swan Hill for over 20 years. We're not a chain. We're your local nursery, and we'd love to help.
If we don't have it, we'll find it
Can't see what you're after? Just ask, and we'll do our utmost to track it down for you.
Open 7 days
Come in and have a chat.
We're at 11-15 Sea Lake-Swan Hill Road, Swan Hill. Whether you're planning a whole new garden or just after one plant that will survive the summer, we're here to help.