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00:26Hello and welcome to the
00:29Gardening Australia.
00:31I'm on Wurundjeri Country
00:33checking out the stunning Chelsea
00:35Australia Garden at
00:37Alinda in the Dandenong Ranges.
00:39And it's the perfect
00:41place to be because this
00:43week we're celebrating
00:45Australia's great gardens.
00:47I'm talking about
00:49those gardens that take a big
00:51swing and knock it out of the
00:53park. The ones that
00:55stop you in your tracks.
00:57The ones that make you go, hold the phone.
00:59I need a bit of that in my life.
01:01Here's all the other greatness
01:03we've got coming your way.
01:07A tropical garden never stops.
01:09I'm meeting gardeners in far
01:11north Queensland who take joy
01:13from the labour of constant renewal
01:15through the swings of the seasons.
01:17I'm visiting one of the most playful
01:19and innovative gardens
01:21that I've ever seen.
01:23It's been designed to thrive in
01:25the very beautiful but harsh climate
01:27here in central Victoria.
01:29And I cannot wait to share it with you.
01:31Join me in South Australia's
01:33beautiful Eyre Peninsula
01:35as I tour a coastal garden
01:37full of colour and whimsy.
01:39We all derive some kind of meaning
01:41from our gardens.
01:43I'm visiting a garden
01:45that reveals so much
01:47about the person who dreamt it up.
01:49My garden is the most important
01:51thing in my life.
01:53It's like breathing really.
01:55Dense, delicate, spiky, soft, ancient, colourful, and dramatic.
02:25I love everything about the plants of the Australian bush
02:29and I'm visiting a new public garden
02:32designed by someone who obviously feels the same way.
02:37They're from our country.
02:39It connects me to this amazing place
02:41and I just want to see them everywhere.
02:45I'm in the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden
02:48where the relatively new Chelsea Australian Garden
02:52is already looking well and truly established.
02:57This is Phil Johnson's upsized adaptation
03:00of a garden he and his team designed and built
03:04for England's famous Chelsea Flower Show
03:07back in 2013
03:09when he and his team won gold and best in show.
03:13A huge achievement that shared Australian flora and design
03:18with the world.
03:20Guys, what's today been like?
03:22Oh, the most incredible day, second to having a baby.
03:24Watching it with my baby.
03:26Well, 12 years ago we won gold and best in show
03:30with a unanimous decision
03:31at the centenary year of the Chelsea Flower Show.
03:34To get here it's taken another 10 years to get funding,
03:37the planning, the design and then to build it was epic.
03:43While the original show garden was squeezed
03:45into a concentrated 220 square metre plot,
03:49the new one can afford to stretch out a little more.
03:53Built on what was once part of the Elinda golf course,
03:56the garden spreads over a much more generous 6,000 square metres
04:02and even gets a bit of borrowed vertical real estate
04:05from the region's iconic mountain ash.
04:09And the plants are the backbone.
04:14I'm a horticulturist and I'm all about plants.
04:19Now we have over 400 different species
04:22of native plants in this garden.
04:24Wow.
04:25And it's actually quite sad to say,
04:27we actually have close to a hundred
04:29threatened and endangered species in this garden
04:32as a collection, which is pretty humbling
04:35and pretty devastating to actually realise that.
04:38But I think it's a wonderful natural encyclopaedia
04:43for people to come enjoy, learn about plants
04:46that we can grow in our urban environment.
04:50And it's like a speaker.
04:51It's like an amplifier of these stories.
04:54For people to come and share and learn.
04:58Oh, that's endangered.
04:59But look at it in this context.
05:04How did you choose your palette of plants?
05:07I wanted plants from throughout the country to represent all different areas of Australia,
05:11like the Blutheminder, which is just such a beautiful plant.
05:15These transitional wet and boggy areas for our Swamp Banks years.
05:19Another favourite one is my Meebaldina.
05:21But hey, you must love the Qualops.
05:23They're looking fantastic, aren't they?
05:25Look at the colour.
05:26The lime green drifting into the pinky red.
05:29It's spectacular.
05:30Extraordinary plant.
05:35Tell me a little bit about the layout and the design choices that you made.
05:40So really, I wanted garden beds that had good depth.
05:43So we could create layers and layers of planting,
05:46from small shrubs to ground covers to the architectural Xantheria glaucas,
05:51and just creating these focal points, these views, the vistas,
05:55like looking through to the Queensland bottle tree.
05:58We've got like combinations.
06:00We haven't just got one.
06:01We've got big ones right down to the little juvenile little baby ones.
06:04So plant a couple together.
06:05They look great.
06:06And then look at this view line we've got,
06:08this focal point looking straight down to the Waratah sculpture
06:12that was designed by Dylan Brady.
06:15Tell us about the build.
06:17Let's think about the worst weather you could possibly build anything in.
06:20On top of the mountain, red soil.
06:22That's what we built in.
06:23It was full on.
06:24Mud, mud, mud, more mud.
06:26We're building on a slope.
06:28We're building on a substantial level change.
06:31We had to make it wheelchair accessible.
06:33So that was our number one driver.
06:35Then if we excavated substantially, like six metres into that hill,
06:40it allowed us to create depth of garden beds.
06:42It allowed us to create the size of the build upon it
06:45that works with the space around this natural amphitheatre
06:48of a big, massive mountain ash.
06:51What would you say is the key feature
06:55of this garden, the building block?
06:58As a designer and very much conservationist,
07:01passionate about conservation
07:02and the importance of connection to nature
07:05is really the soul is the billabong.
07:08The billabong fluctuates seasonally.
07:11And I think that's something really important in this country.
07:14We know it's an extremely dry continent.
07:16We need to design for climate change.
07:18We don't have these bodies of water that are always static,
07:21always up at the top of the coping.
07:22We've designed this to purposely fluctuate seasonally.
07:26Guess what?
07:27My favourite part of this is this beautiful stormwater engineered drain.
07:33That stormwater drain has allowed us to create this incredible habitat ecosystem.
07:41And it's great, isn't it, that the word drain is saying drain it away,
07:45but you're actually doing what nature wants, which is slow it down.
07:49Slow it down.
07:50Capture it.
07:51And then, of course, that quality is upheld by the plants.
07:56So these are local plants to the local area.
07:58That's what cleans our waterways.
08:00Every single waterway, creeks, billabongs across this country
08:04has these pallets of plants, or once did have those pallets of plants.
08:08We've got some of my favourites.
08:10You've got your nardu.
08:11It's got that four-leaf clover.
08:13Even it's got some droplets of water on it right now.
08:15Balmy is another lovely plant.
08:18Great habitat for frogs and things.
08:21And one of my favourites is your water ribbon.
08:25It's a bush food, has a beautiful flower spike as well,
08:29and it's a great habitat again.
08:34The focal point of the billabong is the five-metre rock wall.
08:38It not only gives multiple solar-powered waterfalls
08:42an impressive height to fall from,
08:44but this side is deliberately south-facing,
08:48which creates a microclimate for the spectacular tree ferns
08:52to shelter from the sun.
08:54Phil's design style celebrates light, texture, contrast,
09:06and spatial harmony,
09:08all informed by the way he perceives the world.
09:11Actually, I'm colour-blind. Did you know that?
09:15No.
09:16I never told anyone until, like, a few years ago.
09:20When someone says, see the red flower over there.
09:22Where?
09:23I can see the foliage and the structure,
09:26but I can't see the redness against the green.
09:28And then purples and blues and mauves and pinks and reds,
09:33and, yeah, there's a bit going on in there.
09:36But what an incredible thing.
09:37As a landscape designer, most people are thinking,
09:39oh, plants, flowers, colour, colour, colour.
09:43Yet you've got this different angle.
09:45I think it allows me to see things in a different light,
09:48different textures.
09:49Yeah, that reminds me.
09:51My dad was an incredible photographer
09:53and he did it in black and white.
09:55And he saw light.
09:57It works really well.
10:00But over in London, after I won the Chelsea Flower Show,
10:02I started telling people that I was colour-blind after that.
10:05And I encourage everyone to be proud of being colour-blind.
10:07I'll tell you that.
10:10You've dedicated a large chunk of your life
10:13since the success of Chelsea
10:15to getting this garden up and going here.
10:20What is it that you want people to take away
10:22from this effort and this space?
10:27Not everyone had the opportunity to go to London.
10:30Now you can come here and actually experience that.
10:33Quite moving to be in this space now
10:36and to see the joy it brings to people.
10:40What is it about the connection to plants
10:42that you want people to feel like you do?
10:47To be proud of what we have.
10:50Not always search for Tuscany, search for Europe.
10:55Be proud of what we have here.
10:57We have the most extraordinary pallet of plants to work with.
11:02I love just hearing people being inspired by that plant
11:07and actually then going and buying that plant.
11:09That's done... I've done my job.
11:11That's amazing.
11:12That's them getting on board
11:13this little revolution that we need in this country
11:17to connect people back to nature.
11:29If you've been waiting for a moment to grab a cup of tea,
11:33now is not that moment.
11:35It's not every day we travel to tropical cans.
11:39But when we do, we go straight to the top.
11:42You're about to see one of the warmest, luscious, greenest,
11:48greatest gardens of the year.
11:50So sit back and enjoy without that cuppa.
12:04I'm in Freshwater, a leafy suburb of Cairns
12:06in far north Queensland.
12:08The 16-year-old garden I'm visiting today
12:10is on a fairly average sized block
12:12and there are tropical plants in rounded beds
12:14spilling out onto the street.
12:22Gardening in the tropics is not for the faint-hearted.
12:24This garden gets over two metres of rain each year
12:28and in winter the average top temperature is still 24 degrees.
12:35Just two good reasons why equatorial tropical plants
12:37absolutely love it.
12:42It's been over a decade since we last visited
12:45so I'm catching up with Mark and Fairley
12:47to see how their tropical paradise has grown.
12:52Well it's a lush collection of rare and exotic tropical foliage plants.
12:57I mean there's flowers too obviously
12:59but it's a lot of plants that look fantastic
13:02but they're iconic to the tropics.
13:05People come and they just feel they're in the rainforest
13:09even though it's not rainforest
13:11it's actually a collection of plants
13:14and it's got beautiful winding paths
13:16and it's just very lush.
13:18It's really inviting I suppose
13:20and it's cool in the heat.
13:22It's a bit of a haven really isn't it?
13:26Huge lush green leaves are a hallmark of the tropics
13:30and philodendrons and palms
13:32add big structural shapes to the garden
13:34with the large round fans of Likawala Grandis
13:37a reliable standout.
13:40So I can see a lot of work has gone into this garden
13:42it's all terraced and it's well planted.
13:45What did you first do?
13:47I did a massive amount of earth work.
13:50You know we needed a little bit of a level area
13:52so we flattened things out, we created a pool area.
13:56Most of what you see here now was created.
14:00The defined areas were probably representative
14:04of particular plant varieties
14:06some that required sunny areas
14:08some that required shady areas
14:10we've got a beautiful lychee tree up there
14:12that had this fantastic dappled light
14:15so that was always going to be an area
14:17that had shade loving plants in it.
14:20Mark is a horticulturist and landscape designer
14:23while Fairley is an interior designer
14:26and they approach the garden as a combined creative force.
14:29So Mark you're the gardener
14:31and with your design skills
14:33how do you find that complements each other?
14:36Well I probably bring the horticultural expertise
14:39being a plant lover and collector
14:42I just bring in the principles of design
14:45using balance, the texture, colour
14:50particularly say colour
14:51you would use a bright colour in a shaded area
14:53so that you've got a focal point.
14:58Bright golden yellow of sacred barley bamboo
15:00almost glows against the green
15:05with bursts of pink from aglaonemas
15:07alongside the ultraviolet leaves of strobilanthi.
15:11It's nice to enjoy the individual plant
15:12but the individual plant needs to be
15:14positioned with other individual plants
15:17so that they form a cohesive
15:19interesting look to it
15:21as you would do dressing up a lounge room
15:24you put pictures on the walls
15:26and you put the flowers over here
15:28and you create your vistas
15:29and your focal points
15:31and we do it with plants.
15:33I suppose one of the principles of design
15:36is always create an area for its function
15:38so you know we've got flat areas for sitting
15:43lovely paths to wander through
15:47and with a vista at the end usually
15:50which will draw your eye into the area
15:53so we sort of like to create areas that you want to go to.
15:56So I can see you've got lots of things planted en masse.
16:03I love using mass planting because it creates a lot of visual impact
16:07you know using selaginellas and schismatic lotus bromeliads
16:12always give a great look.
16:13Yeah I mean the selaginellas look great just like draped and cascading down the stairs.
16:20They do they form a lot of visual interest I think filling in all the gaps I guess
16:24and that's what mass planting does is filling in gaps isn't it.
16:27Yeah and do you typically choose plants I mean how do you, what's your process?
16:30Well a plant that has to grow together well in a group is always going to work.
16:38It's usually got some very interesting leaf form
16:41so that creates a lot of visual impact.
16:44It's got to be an interesting looking little ground cover really.
16:56So your garden is on quite a steep slope.
16:58How do you manage all the water during the wet season?
17:02Yeah the rain is something to consider.
17:05There is a lot of overflow but I've swaled the paths so they direct water away
17:09and all the foliage and the hip thick plantings will often slow water down.
17:14But I still lose paths every year.
17:17You know there's so much rain coming in I have to replace the surfaces.
17:20Every year.
17:22Pretty well.
17:23I guess water would wash away a lot of the organic matter and whatever you're adding to the soil.
17:26A lot of leaching with so much rain so lots of dolomite.
17:31I would fertilise four to five times a year.
17:34That's quite a process then to feed multiple times a year.
17:38Yeah you have to do it.
17:40You know you've got such rapid rates of growth with some of the plants that nutrient uptake is like nowhere else.
17:47So I'm quite happy to apply fertilisers a lot just so I keep the rapid growth happening.
17:53So your toolkit is probably a lot different to mine here in the tropics.
17:58It's a pretty powerful toolkit.
17:59I need tools that are really going to work strongly on very fast growing lush plants.
18:07Things like machetes, ginger knives.
18:11I've got a special banana shovel which gets down deep into these big fleshy banana roots.
18:16You know plants like heliconias which are super fast growing really need to be pruned you know sometimes four times a year.
18:25Wow.
18:26With the heliconias once that stem grows and flowers which is only a year generally I need to prune that whole section out.
18:33Throw it away and that allows new growth to come through.
18:35So gardening in the tropics sounds incredibly challenging. Is it worth it?
18:41It is. I love it. It's a you know a great passion. It's a huge amount of work. Super fast growth.
18:47But I get a lot of pleasure out of it. You know 15 hours a week, 20 hours a week.
18:52To me it's a really enjoyable pastime. Keeps me in reasonable condition.
18:57But it's a very good thing. I really like it.
19:00And what's your collaboration process like? Do we need to seek approval from each other before a plant goes in or before it comes out?
19:11You know we both got to enjoy it so we have to, it's important that we both listen to each other's ideas.
19:18So rarely does something happen without the both of us agreeing. You know ultimately.
19:24You make it sound so smooth.
19:26No it's usually easy.
19:31Well we have very much the same style.
19:33You know Mark will have a favourite plants and I'll have favourite plants but we sort of combine both quite well really.
19:40We both like the same things.
19:42Yeah it's quite easy really.
19:44And two heads are always better than one.
19:46Yes.
19:57For the most part when you're gardening you're limited by your conditions.
20:03But what if you could change those conditions and build a little slice of something green that's completely different to the world outside.
20:13Millie's checking out a total undercover Eden.
20:18I'm in Elevated Plains in central Victoria and here up on a ridge there's a remarkable house, farm and garden all designed around the owners passions for food, gardening, design and self-sufficiency.
20:42The 110 metre long Daylesford Longhouse is home to partners Trace Streeter and Renan Gorin.
20:50Renan's stuck at work today but Trace, who's the household's main gardener, is here to show me around.
20:57Oh wow Trace, veggies with a view.
20:59Yeah, exactly. You want to have a look at it?
21:00Yes.
21:01Come on.
21:12Trace, you've got a great view here but I imagine that brings a lot of challenges for gardening.
21:17Yeah, well originally, you know, because there was no shelter belt there and we're pretty windy in central Victoria on top of the hill.
21:25So, we did a big shelter belt around here of olives and Texas D.
21:30So, that's moderated enormously so now we don't really have any problems with wind for the garden.
21:35They are impressive carrots.
21:38You could win a competition with that I reckon.
21:40Yeah, some of them are pretty good.
21:42I noticed that about a third of the garden is actually planted with perennials.
21:45Yeah, so that's been a new introduction to the garden just to bring all your birds and pollinators in and it's been working beautifully.
21:53The increase in small birds in particular has been amazing.
22:03Wow, every central Victorian gardener's dream to have a hothouse.
22:07Yeah, yeah, exactly.
22:08In this sort of climate we really need to sort of start things early.
22:11Yes.
22:12Otherwise you just don't get it.
22:13Tomatoes in particular, you know.
22:15We've got a short season.
22:16Short season.
22:17Yeah.
22:18This allows us to sort of plant really early and start eating tomatoes before Christmas.
22:23Wow.
22:24The big goal is to get a tomato by Christmas, isn't it?
22:26Yes. And melons.
22:27And melons.
22:28And then things like the capsicums, chillies, all those sorts of things can really happen up here as long as you've got a polytunnel but without it.
22:35You're wasting your time.
22:36Trace and Renen bought the nine hectare block in 2010.
22:45While the productive gardens outside are impressive, it's the unique gardens indoors that are the main event.
22:51Oh, wow.
22:53Wow.
22:55There's plants dripping from everything.
22:58Everywhere you turn.
22:59Oh, I love it.
23:00It's burdened as.
23:02Forcund, as Timothy calls it.
23:05It is forcund.
23:07Especially since the bamboo's come into the building, it's turned into a real jungle feeling.
23:11And that's a dwelling up there?
23:13It is.
23:14That's the space that we stay in.
23:16But there's multiple dwellings throughout the whole building.
23:19So multiple dwellings, kitchen in the middle.
23:22Yeah.
23:23All sorts of areas to spend time in.
23:24Yeah.
23:25But gardens throughout.
23:26And gardens throughout, yeah, to marry it all together.
23:28It's been described as like a village inside a shed.
23:31It is, yes.
23:32That's the way we see it.
23:33It's definitely as a village.
23:34And so, was the garden always going to be part of that?
23:38Definitely, yes, absolutely.
23:39The garden was as integral as the architecture itself because both sort of pushed against each other to create the environment.
23:46Windows to the world.
23:47Look at that.
23:48Yeah.
23:49So the idea when you have a big building like this, you're going to need to make it breathe.
23:52Otherwise, it's too problematic because it's too long to have as a greenhouse as such.
23:57So these big sliders always breathe.
23:59But if the wind's really strong, I can just take them across and break the wind.
24:03So you can grow stuff like this in here.
24:09And as you know, you really need air movement with gardens.
24:12And so that allows air movement within the building.
24:15And I love that even though this isn't a floral garden, the smell of walking into this building, it smells like life.
24:22Yeah.
24:23The fruiting things like the fig in particular really give a, and as it heats up through the day, even more aroma comes from it.
24:30So it becomes really aromatic.
24:36The enormous roof harvest rainwater, but ball water is also used on the indoor gardens in dry times.
24:44And with a working farm on site, nothing goes to waste.
24:48Prunings become fodder, mulch or compost.
24:51Trace, tell me about this amazing building.
24:56Where did the idea start?
24:58The idea began for the building when Renan and I got together and we wanted to combine our lifestyles successfully as older men.
25:08So it's like, okay, what are our passions?
25:11Renan's passion was cooking.
25:13My passion was self-sufficiency.
25:15And so we sort of brought that together.
25:18We knew we wanted to live here.
25:20It was such a great area.
25:22Dallas was a really gay friendly area.
25:24It felt so different.
25:25It felt so inviting to sort of be in a community like that.
25:35Self-sufficiency for me when I first started out thinking about it was really just growing food and animals,
25:41because animals have always been something that I've been really interested in as well.
25:44Productive animals in particular.
25:46I love the whole thing of going out and the idea of milking a cow.
25:49And it just seemed so idyllic to me.
25:51It ticked so many boxes that I thought were important in life.
25:53You're always up to bat.
25:55What about you?
26:00I can see even in this courtyard productivity is a big part of the planting.
26:05Yeah, it is.
26:07When we started off, we planted our trees throughout.
26:10So, you know, locat, almond, apricot, you know, avocado, etc.
26:15But then as it became more verdant and the greenery got to the roof, we got a lot more shade.
26:20So I've now been swapping over into more ornamental plantings.
26:23You are managing to fruit an avocado indoor, like in central Victoria.
26:28Yeah, yeah.
26:29And almonds inside and various things like that that you wouldn't be able to do outside.
26:33That's right.
26:34Like this is not something that you could ever easily imagine you could grow outdoors in this climate.
26:38No.
26:39And also the size at which they get.
26:40Yes.
26:41Outside, they sort of creep slowly up, you know, but in here, they just take off.
26:46Everything kind of draws you through, including the garden.
26:49Yeah.
26:50So you have little discoveries all the way through.
26:51That's the idea of it.
26:52It's such a beautiful foliage, isn't it?
26:54Isn't it great?
26:57Oh, wow.
26:58The heart of every village.
26:59Yep.
27:00The kitchen.
27:01The kitchen.
27:02Absolutely.
27:03This is where we all gather.
27:04And you also run classes here.
27:05Yeah.
27:06So it's a cooking school as well, but also our kitchen and living space.
27:09So everything sort of gets used for multiple purposes.
27:19Oh, that's the apricot.
27:20Yeah.
27:21Look at the size of it.
27:22Yeah.
27:23Hits the ceiling every year.
27:24It's humongous.
27:26Does it fruit?
27:27It does fruit heavily.
27:28But I've literally brought out wheelbarrows full of fruit out of this tree.
27:31Amazing.
27:32And given it to the pigs because we just could not process any more.
27:35Tell me you didn't just say you give apricots to pigs.
27:37I love it.
27:38Yeah.
27:39I can see you've got a lot of productivity in here.
27:40Yeah.
27:41And the fajar this year has almost doubled in size.
27:43The finger limes do really well every year.
27:45Wow.
27:46And some lemon sorrel there.
27:47Yum.
27:48The chickens love that.
27:49Do they?
27:50They're feeding the pigs, aren't they?
27:51Yeah.
27:52They're feeding the chickens sorrel.
27:57And finally we've come to the end of the building.
28:00Wow.
28:01This is where we're living in here.
28:03It feels quite a bit cooler here.
28:05It is.
28:06I think there's a number of factors.
28:08One, I think the bamboo is creating another layer of shade for us that we're not really
28:12aware of because of the diffused light element of this whole building.
28:16There was a really nice addition to the building as well was the little stream that we put
28:21in because you get sound running through the building and it creates this feeling of coolness.
28:26And also it started to bring frogs in.
28:28And with all the little birds that we have coming into the building, they've got somewhere
28:31to go and drink.
28:33Prior to this, I really wasn't a gardener.
28:35So this was going to be my big learning curve on how to garden.
28:38And I came at the right time because the internet was just there for you, you know.
28:43So anybody can do just about anything they want to do these days.
28:46And then I had the luxury of being able to make mistakes as I went along.
28:49This is my dirty little secret over here, Millie.
28:52It's a euphorbia, so tough as old nails and it likes dry shade.
28:57And so I thought, oh, perfect plant and I put it right through the building.
29:00But what I didn't take into account was the other plants around it enough
29:05because they really require more water.
29:07So I think the extra moisture has been the problem for these ones.
29:10But in this perfect environment, perfect for growing bamboo,
29:14I think it's quite perfect for pests.
29:16Yeah, yeah. So that's what's happened.
29:18So you're replacing these?
29:20I have replaced them throughout the other part of the building.
29:22This area here, I'm going to try and nurture.
29:25And so I think I'm going to just try to maybe just put some pyrethrum
29:29or something along those lines on them.
29:31You're a true gardener because you know that it's probably not going to work,
29:34but you're still going to try.
29:35I'm going to give it a go. One more go.
29:37When I first started here, I was doing hairdressing during the day.
29:46Then I'd come and I'd set up floodlights and I'd garden at night.
29:50And you know, it literally just needed all those hours to put into it.
29:54But it didn't really matter. It didn't feel like work.
29:57It just felt like passion. It felt like indulgence, actually.
30:01That's a better way of describing it. I felt indulged.
30:04And you can do a lot when you're feeling indulged.
30:06It's true. It's a great motivator.
30:08It's a great motivator. Yeah, exactly.
30:10And I can just really get a very zen thing going on as I'm walking around the building.
30:15Yeah, the quiet moments.
30:17When you reflect on the journey then and you reflect on what you had to put into it.
30:22And there's definitely like a pride in that you have worked hard to do it.
30:26That hasn't come easy. It's every day has been applied to make it happen.
30:30So it's been literally a labour of love.
30:42Still to come on Gardening Australia,
30:45Sophie checks out some coastal colour.
30:49Josh finds some Venezuelan flavour.
30:53And we meet a landscape designer living the dream.
31:04Gardening on the coast is no walk in the park.
31:08You're up against the wind, the soil, the salinity.
31:11It's hard graft.
31:13But when you can garden through all of this and produce something that's full of colour, life and heart,
31:20you've done something great.
31:22Sophie's in Coffin Bay with more.
31:25This is beautiful Coffin Bay on the southern end of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.
31:35It's an area known for pristine beaches, beautiful bushland and of course, seafood, especially the oysters.
31:43But what's not so well known is in Coffin Bay's rocky hillsides is a garden full of life and whimsy in spite of incredibly challenging conditions.
31:54This is Fiddlesticks created by Helen Bowyer and her husband Mike.
32:07Wow, what an entrance.
32:09I guess this is a taste of what's to come.
32:11It is a taste of what's to come.
32:12Okay.
32:13Come and have a look.
32:22So Helen, there's just so much colour.
32:24Yes.
32:25And you've got them mixed in with everything else from daisies and palygoniums and annuals and poppies.
32:31There's no rhyme or reason to the colour, Sophie.
32:34It's just whatever comes up and whatever flowers will do me, I just love the colours, all the different colours in the garden.
32:41They're stunning.
32:50So where did the name Fiddlesticks come from?
32:52Well, I wanted something that was quirky.
32:55I remember back when I was a little girl, my mum used to say, oh, that's Fiddlesticks.
33:00So I looked it up in the dictionary and Fiddlesticks means stuff and nonsense.
33:05And there's heaps of stuff and there's heaps of nonsense in this garden.
33:09So I thought that was just the perfect name for it.
33:12And it's a fun name.
33:13It is.
33:14The garden's random and I think it's a happy place to be.
33:17So Fiddlesticks is perfect.
33:19And it makes you smile.
33:20I love it.
33:21It does.
33:22Let's go exploring.
33:24Helen's a retired nurse and Mike's an ex-farmer.
33:28They've lived in Coffin Bay for more than 30 years and moved to this property and started the garden a decade ago.
33:35So Sophie, this is the wine garden.
33:38This is my favourite place in the garden.
33:40It's beautiful.
33:42Yes.
33:43Stepping down into this sunken little oasis.
33:45Yes, it is gorgeous.
33:47So there's lots of wine drunk down here.
33:54So it's good times.
33:56Yeah.
33:57It's a good spot.
33:58I bet.
33:59How do you work out what plants, you know, thrive and what ones don't?
34:03Well, it's a bit of trial and error.
34:05I do a lot of cuttings myself.
34:07So that's pelargonium, salvia.
34:09So I use a lot of those.
34:11But in here I wanted to build it up so that there was a bit of protection from the sun.
34:15So I put the hibiscus in behind us and we've got the gabion wall.
34:20So it's quite enclosed now.
34:22I can hide out here and Mike has no idea where I am.
34:35So tell me how the garden came about.
34:38Because you've been here for 10 years.
34:40Where did you start?
34:42Well, Sophie, I started in the top corner.
34:45For the first time in my married life, I didn't have a garden.
34:49And it was a pretty stressful time in our life.
34:53And I really struggled without a garden.
34:56And I must admit, I did get a bit down in the dumps about it.
35:01And Mike suggested that I start up here in the top corner of this land that we own.
35:06There was absolutely nothing here.
35:08No water, lots of kangaroos, emus, rabbits, weeds and the limestone.
35:15Lots of limestone everywhere.
35:18So Helen's decided she wants a new plant here near the bottle wall entrance.
35:23And this is typical of what it's like to plant a new plant.
35:26So you can use a crowbar, but it's not very effective.
35:30Because we've got about only 50mm of soil until you hit the limestone layer.
35:36And then my good old mate Jack comes along and makes it easier.
35:45So even with a jackhammer, it can take sometimes an hour to dig a hole 300 to 400 deep.
35:55Welcome to Coffin Bay soil.
35:58Time to plant this little geranium.
36:01There's some tuna compost in this soil.
36:04We'll pop the plant in here.
36:08Loosen the roots off a little bit.
36:10Look at that.
36:15Looks pretty good.
36:16So now we'd better give this a decent water and it might grow.
36:21So you can see that's how to plant a plant in Coffin Bay.
36:25It's pretty harsh conditions here and we have to do that for every plant basically that we plant here.
36:31That is huge.
36:32It is huge, but we have done the worst of it.
36:36It's amazing when you see everything that's growing.
36:42But as well as the stones, it's hot, it's dry, it's windy and the soil was awful.
36:49So I've had to build up the soil as well.
36:51Yeah, you know, for just a small hole, you end up with a wheelbarrow full of stones.
36:55But, you know, it's like what you put in is what you get back.
36:58So you appreciate every hole that you've dug, that there's something growing there,
37:02and you think, well, well, it's pretty good.
37:04Yes, and we've had to do something with the stones.
37:06You can't just put them out for the rubbish truck to pick up.
37:09We've lined the garden paths.
37:11We've done gabion walls.
37:13We've done sculptures.
37:14We've just had to use the rocks.
37:16We've had to work with them.
37:19So how do you describe this part of the garden?
37:23Well, this is the really dry area.
37:25We don't water here as much.
37:28It's a lot harsher.
37:30There's a lot of rock just on the surface.
37:37I love this sign.
37:39The point of a maze is to find its centre.
37:42The point of a labyrinth is to find your centre.
37:45Let's go and find our centre.
37:52Also, over this side, we have the great wall of Coffin Bay,
37:55which is made out of planks from the Coffin Bay Yacht Club jetty
38:00when it was demolished.
38:03Also, there's the veggie patch and the chook house.
38:06The property adjoins the stunning Coffin Bay National Park on the southern side
38:15and includes an area of native bushland.
38:19In dry seasons, there's an influx of wildlife from the National Park
38:24seeking food and water.
38:26Luckily, we've got our boar.
38:28That has helped.
38:29But we try to plant things that aren't going to use too much water,
38:33like natives and more of the Mediterranean-type plants.
38:39And how is the garden laid out?
38:41Oh, there's...
38:43There is no plant.
38:44There's no plant.
38:45It evolved.
38:46It's evolution.
38:47It was where the rocks led us.
38:49It's a very quirky garden,
38:50but everything that we've made,
38:53we've used recycled materials
38:55or gear that we've picked up from the dump.
38:59Who creates the sculptures?
39:00Well, Mike does that.
39:02He's done what he calls the micosphere
39:05that's been done with my dad's old tools
39:08and some coloured bottles.
39:10And then some friends donated a hand basin and a toilet,
39:14so we've potted it up as an outside dunny.
39:20Well, the mosaicing adds nice colour as well.
39:22It does.
39:23Yeah.
39:24Even when the flower's not flowering,
39:25you've still got colour with the mosaics,
39:26so that's great.
39:27Yeah.
39:28Yeah.
39:29Helen's always said,
39:30when you're walking along the path,
39:31every time you turn a corner,
39:32there should be something different that you see
39:34that's, you know,
39:35whether it's a plant or, you know,
39:38something we've built
39:39or just a different angle on it.
39:41It's very calming
39:42and it's great for our mental health.
39:44We feel pretty proud
39:45that we have created this from virtually nothing.
39:48Yeah.
39:49So it's...
39:50Yeah, it's a good feeling.
39:51Yeah.
39:52You're a good team, I think.
39:53Well, we are
39:54and it's good to talk about what we could do
39:56and then work out,
39:58get a bit carried away about what we can do
40:01and then you sort of bring it back,
40:03tone it down a little bit and...
40:07Or tone it up.
40:09But, yeah, it works well.
40:13We work well together.
40:26Mmm.
40:28They are nice, are they?
40:29They are.
40:30Cheers.
40:31Cheers.
40:32Thanks for coming, Sophie.
40:33Yes.
40:34Thank you for having me.
40:35These guys are so big ones.
40:44Great gardens don't all have to be large.
40:47Small spaces can be just as inspiring
40:50when cleverly designed and planted.
40:53Josh has found a fantastic example in Bicton
40:58with a surprising South American flavour.
41:09For most of us, the connection to where we were born
41:12transcends distance and time.
41:14Photos, music and food all take us back to our origins.
41:20But gardeners?
41:21Well, a gardener is going to garden.
41:27Gardening is things that give me peace.
41:30It's a place, how can I remember South America?
41:36Hi, Daniel.
41:37Yeah, how are you?
41:38Oh, good.
41:39What a beautiful verge.
41:40Daniel Antonio McLean is a garden designer
41:43and landscaper by trade,
41:45and Venezuelan by heart,
41:47who began building his patch of jungle
41:49near East Fremantle back in 2016.
41:53What was the garden like when you first started?
41:56Well, before it was just lawn.
41:58And I have in mind to do mixes of native plants
42:03and succulents,
42:04and then I decided to remove all the lawn.
42:06And then from there I start to put the plants,
42:09the grasses, all the native.
42:11The native.
42:12And then I started also to make the path in here.
42:15Yes.
42:16And then everything is go step by step.
42:18And then we got so inspired to do it.
42:26You've really made the most of this front courtyard too, Daniel.
42:29What crops are you growing in here?
42:30Well, I grow in a silver bit.
42:32I grow in my coriander.
42:34So many herbs are using for cooking.
42:36And for me this is how I can save money in here.
42:39And you get plenty of sun here?
42:41Yeah, plenty sun.
42:42Yeah, plenty, plenty sun.
42:43And I just put a little bit of seed in here.
42:46I want to level it to roll a little bit more higher
42:48and make it a little bit more shade to this area there
42:51because there's a lot of sun in this area here.
42:53Yeah.
42:54And also something very important I have in there.
42:57You see the tree in there?
42:58This is my custard apple that I wait in one day having fruit from there.
43:06A productive veggie patch.
43:08A standout verge garden.
43:10So far, so good.
43:12But the best of it is tucked away out the back.
43:19Wow!
43:20Isn't this special?
43:25What inspired you to create this garden?
43:27First of all, because it's a place that I can meditate every morning.
43:33When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I can see is all green.
43:38And green means for me life.
43:41And why has it been important to create that connection back to Venezuela?
43:46It's because when I was a kid, I used to go to the Binocle River with my dad fishing.
43:53And then this always just remind me the bush, the jungle.
43:59I remember all this beauty that I miss from tropical plants in Venezuela.
44:05Can you share a little bit about your journey from Venezuela to Perth?
44:09That's happened in 1997.
44:12I left my kids in Colombia with the care of the Santa Teresa Jesus Child nuns.
44:19And I come into Australia to get a protection visa.
44:22I never thought I was going to see my kids again.
44:25But it was something that I had to do for them for the future.
44:30And I say, my kids, we're going to reunite again.
44:34And that happened.
44:35My kids, they come in six months after.
44:37And then I decided to get involved in gardening.
44:41Big size bananas.
44:44And did you do all the landscaping yourself?
44:46And if so, where did you learn how to do that?
44:48First of all, I went to TAFE.
44:50I did horticulture, aquatic plants.
44:53I learned the basic things first about how transforming this soil in good soil for tropical plants.
45:02When I was a kid, always I liked making little waterfalls.
45:07And this gave me just the idea.
45:09Combination of tropicals and the logs, all the bromelais, all the plants.
45:16How important has this garden been for your health and wellbeing?
45:20A garden for me is like a medicine.
45:23I had a post-traumatic stress disorder from my past.
45:27And I found out that getting involved in gardening and plants, take care of the plant, put music to the plant, water on the plants.
45:37This gave me so peace and relaxing.
45:40This gave me purpose.
45:42Each plant needs something, attention.
45:45You get motivation for what you're doing.
45:48And you are happy.
45:49And every day is happiness for me.
45:51What was this area like before you started?
45:53Well, before it was just all bricks, especially in summer, that's really hot.
45:58What I did was, was removing all the bricks and also make the design for tropicals.
46:05It's very important to have shade, humidity.
46:09Soon I put the ponds, the water, I got the humidity and I start to introduce all the new plants, new tropicals, all coming all together.
46:20Why is it important for you to share what you've done here with your garden?
46:30I want to inspire people.
46:31Garden can give you so much love, so much pleasure.
46:36I want to tell the people that you can get so much benefits for gardening.
46:41This garden is Daniel, Daniel McLean.
46:44This is me.
46:45A person who likes to have peace.
46:48And it is a space to see that I create this and I can share with people.
46:53That is the meaning that is everything to me.
46:56Have you ever dreamed of moving to the country and letting this gardening thing off the leash?
47:13Well, our next story is with a horticulturist and landscape designer who's created a stunning country garden.
47:21It's full of colour and intriguing plant choices.
47:25And the results are the stuff that gardening dreams are made of.
47:29My garden is the most important thing in my life.
47:47It's like breathing really.
47:49It is my love and my passion.
47:52Don't tell Mr Treer.
47:54But no, he's my love and passion too.
47:57But it is, yes.
47:59My name is Peter Treer.
48:11I'm a landscape designer, a passionate gardener and a horticulturist.
48:18Woodgreen is heaven.
48:22Woodgreen garden is in the centre of a property where we run cattle.
48:30Woodgreen is a mix of beautiful old trees, garden beds that hold most interesting perennials, little bulbs.
48:43It's a place that I feel at home and where I work really.
48:48It's every day.
48:51I know every plant in this garden intimately.
48:55I really do.
48:56And it's important to visit them regularly.
49:00Here is a really beautiful plant, commonly called the Apostle Plant.
49:06Now I'll tell you why.
49:07Because it won't flower until the clump gets 12 leaves and then it will start flowering.
49:14Botanical name, Neomerica cerulea, from South America.
49:20Now I'm really fortunate here in Bilpin that I can grow a wide range of plants
49:26because we've got deep, rich, black volcanic soil.
49:30But I can't really succeed with natives that come from sandstone country.
49:36But this one from South America does beautifully.
49:39Having four seasons is helpful because it gives me a range of plants I can grow.
49:58And so there's always something happening.
50:00It's like an orchestra.
50:02And that's why I love the Blue Mountains.
50:06In summer, our garden is full of colour.
50:10The hydrangeas are wonderful.
50:13Dahlias, lilies.
50:15I love my roses.
50:17And I like to collect the older ones, the heritage roses.
50:21And so that's summer.
50:23Autumn in the mountains, look, you don't have to do anything.
50:26It does it for you.
50:28When we planted our trees, we did select a lot of deciduous trees
50:33that would give us that lovely, rich colour.
50:37Winter is the time when the treasures come out.
50:41I'm crazy about galanthas or snowdrops.
50:44And I've become a galanthophile, which is a disease.
50:48And it's incurable.
50:50I've been collecting them.
50:52Spring is another season that it just does its own thing.
50:57The blossom, the rhododendrons are fabulous here in the spring.
51:05Tasmania is always in my heart.
51:08My family were great gardeners.
51:11I love gardens, but I never did it.
51:14And I left home when I was about 21.
51:17So when I came to Sydney, it was a bit of a shock.
51:20I'd never seen a hibiscus in my life before.
51:22So I learnt to grow things.
51:25I made mistakes in my Sydney gardens,
51:28from a little flat to a semi to a house.
51:31But I wanted more.
51:33And I wanted to get those four seasons.
51:36I wanted space.
51:37I was greedy.
51:38And so Peter and I, my husband and I, got to a point where we wanted to move to the country.
51:48Never thought of Bilpin, but we were shown this very property.
51:54I didn't even want to look at the house inside.
51:59I just want to look at the garden.
52:01And we just fell in love with it.
52:03Now, it was a working property, but we started planting trees.
52:08We knew that trees were very important.
52:11I probably started with small garden beds.
52:15So I would finish a garden and then, when we had time, we'd start another one.
52:21It's not a formal garden.
52:24I would describe it as informal.
52:26Trying to use colour and texture in foliage is very important too.
52:30And to get the different layers.
52:32And I love curves.
52:34I'm really not heavily into straight lines.
52:36I'm a curvy, curvy lover.
52:39I think it's also very important to try and use things like water in a garden.
52:44Now, water can be a birdbath or it can be, I have got a large-ish pond.
52:50And if I win the lottery, I'm going to put in a big, big reflective pond just over the stone wall.
52:57But that's if I win the lottery.
53:00I like to be able to make parts that will be vistas, where I can frame the view through.
53:08And as you can see, this tree here, the liquid amber, provides a beautiful ceiling.
53:14And then you've got colours behind, you've got pinks, you've got different foliage.
53:20I think contrast is wonderful and I love the idea of a vista.
53:25If I can achieve this in several parts in my garden, I'm very happy.
53:29Being a collector of rare and unusual plants is totally important to me.
53:36And I think when I first came here and I was able to collect plants, I was very protective of them.
53:43That was mine.
53:44And I wasn't willing to share.
53:46I bought a lot of stuff from little specialist nurseries and I still do.
53:52I still love collecting, but I'm much better now at sharing something with a friend in case you lose it.
54:01Because I've certainly learnt that by a bad experience actually.
54:06We're not allowed now to just bring things into Australia willy-nilly.
54:11A very well-known nurseryman said to me once that what is in Australia,
54:15and I'm talking about exotic things and natives too, is like gold.
54:19So we must, you know, look after what we have.
54:24This is only very tiny.
54:27It's an Oregonum dictamnus, or Dittany of Crete.
54:34Very, very rare.
54:35Only grows on the island of Crete and on cliffs, sheer cliffs.
54:40And the young men of Crete will try and climb the cliffs to picket,
54:47to give to their lady friends because it's an aphrodisiac.
54:50And many of these gentlemen lose their lives too.
54:52Very, very rare.
54:58Here is an Anasodontia el-rao.
55:01A shrub from South Africa and an absolute bee magnet.
55:07The bees love it and it's so important to have bees in the garden.
55:10Here we have, I think, a beautiful little short-lived perennial,
55:17and it self-seeds itself around the garden.
55:19It's called a tweedia.
55:21That blue is really quite something.
55:23And they just pop up, but you won't find them in nurseries,
55:27and this is why it's special to me.
55:29But just look at this.
55:31Look at the seed.
55:33And it's often quite the prettiest part of the plant.
55:38So I don't mind when things like this pop up in the garden and self-seed.
55:42A very unusual and rare plant.
55:48My garden is what I love and what I've developed.
55:52And it's grown with me.
55:55But it is heaven.
55:58If I die, I want to come here.
56:03I don't want to go anywhere else.
56:16Now, if you're a Gardening Australia tragic,
56:18you're not going to want to miss next week's show.
56:21I can promise tears and laughter, a big announcement,
56:25and some precious memories.
56:27So don't miss it.
56:28I'll see you then.
56:32We're visiting the Australian Drylands Garden.
56:35And we're highlighting plants that will flourish in hot and dry conditions.
56:41I'm visiting a beautiful, sprawling garden in the Dandenongs.
56:45It was designed by famed Edna Walling in the 1940s,
56:49and now it's being lovingly restored back to its former glory.
56:54And we've got a big announcement from a gardening icon.
56:58CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
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