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00:05Hey!
00:06Hey! Hi!
00:11Whoa!
00:17Hey!
00:19Hey, mate!
00:21Hey!
00:33Hello and welcome to Gardening
00:36Australia. This week
00:38we are absolutely loaded
00:40with ideas, inspiration,
00:42insights,
00:43analysis, hacks, tips,
00:46tricks, techniques
00:47and good old-fashioned advice.
00:50Anyway, take a look
00:52at what we've got lined up.
00:53I know, you're gonna love it.
00:57Some gardeners
00:58have that extra special something
00:59and Dolores Milak is one of them.
01:02Wow, you've trained these figs
01:04into archers.
01:05The garden is a celebration of her Maltese culture,
01:08family and friendship.
01:09To believe in a garden is really to believe
01:11in tomorrow. It's part of my
01:13own feelings, my own nature
01:15I suppose.
01:17When it comes to form, structure, privacy
01:19and creating space in gardens,
01:22our gardening minds often turn
01:23to thinking about hedging and screening.
01:25I've got some top tips
01:27on the perfect natives to use.
01:29Can pools be a safe space
01:31for humans and wildlife?
01:34I'll be finding out
01:35how to make both things possible.
01:40And we meet a couple
01:41turning their inner city location
01:43into a real menagerie.
01:45When they're really little,
01:48they are actually bottle fed
01:50five times a day.
02:01Campbelltown is a thriving city in Sydney's southwest.
02:05And I'm meeting up with well-known
02:07local identity, horticulturist
02:09Tim Pickles at the park
02:11on the main street.
02:13His passion for trees is next level.
02:16There's some nice
02:18established trees in here, Tim.
02:21Absolutely magnificent
02:22shade trees in this park.
02:24Costa, I love it.
02:25What have you contributed?
02:27Well, I planted that
02:28Gerilderie red over there,
02:29which I absolutely love.
02:30I planted a grafted white jacaranda.
02:33And then in front of the church
02:34up there, there's a grafted
02:35Brachiochiton, which is going to be absolutely
02:38huge. It's going to be like a dinosaur
02:40of the forest.
02:41In the past,
02:43Tim has been a bit of a gorilla gardener,
02:45not something we condone.
02:47But these days, his work
02:49has the support of the local council.
02:53At his garden centre in the heart of town,
02:55he's sharing a few favourites
02:57for your own tree haven at home.
03:00Costa, I've got this amazing tree,
03:02Australian native evergreen tree.
03:04It's called a Queensland Firewheel tree.
03:07Gets these incredibly arty,
03:10firewheel-like flowers.
03:12It flowers in summer.
03:13The birds absolutely love the nectar
03:15in the flower.
03:16Fast-growing tree only grows about
03:18six or eight metres high by four metres wide.
03:21So it's a perfect tree for these
03:23modern courtyard-sized gardens.
03:25You can prune the lower branches off it.
03:27You'll be able to sit a table and chairs
03:29underneath the tree, and you'll get an extra
03:31room in your house, sitting outside,
03:33listening to birds and nature.
03:45This has become one of my favourite trees.
03:49Buckinghamia salissima.
03:50I've actually planted one on the other
03:51side of the fence, just outside
03:53I'm nastering here.
03:54It only grows about four to six metres high in Sydney,
03:56and it should be famous.
03:58Everyone in Australia should have one of these
03:59in their garden.
04:00Look at the glossy green leaves.
04:02Beautiful glossy green.
04:03You know, coppery-coloured new growth.
04:05And it gets these flowers, huge,
04:07ivory-coloured flowers.
04:08They're massive.
04:09They're almost 30 centimetres long.
04:11And it smells.
04:13The fragrance is incredible.
04:18Where did this mission for trees begin?
04:21Well, it happened accidentally.
04:22What happened was both my children
04:24were born at Campbelltown Hospital.
04:26And then I was leaving the hospital,
04:27and I noticed that the car park was devoid of trees.
04:30It was seriously like a moonscape.
04:33So to start with, I tried to get local council
04:35to plant trees there.
04:36Then one Sunday, I decided,
04:38well, why don't I go and plant some trees there?
04:39And I planted them myself.
04:41And then I had to water them for six months
04:43to get them growing.
04:44And they grew beautifully.
04:45And then, of course, the hospital got redeveloped.
04:48And now they've planted trees, which is great.
04:50But you won't believe it.
04:51Two of my trees are still there.
04:52Manchurian pear and a jacarana tree.
04:54And two of my boys were born in that hospital,
04:56and there's still two trees that I planted.
04:58And recently, I was visiting a friend
04:59who was in hospital who was very sick.
05:01And I looked out of the window of the room,
05:03and there was my jacarana, covered in flowers,
05:06looking absolutely magnificent.
05:08That made me feel so good.
05:12Tim sure does walk the talk.
05:14His own large garden on the semi-rural outskirts of town
05:18is tree-lightful,
05:19growing an eclectic mix of exotic and natives.
05:28What I love about these trees, they're big shade trees.
05:31And you notice yourself,
05:33as soon as you walk underneath the shade of these trees,
05:35the temperature drops dramatically.
05:37All of a sudden, your body feels relaxed and calm,
05:40and your body just goes,
05:42oh, that is so nice.
05:46But the grass is still growing
05:48under quite a shade-giving tree.
05:50Yeah, absolutely.
05:51So the trick is, what you've got to do
05:53is you've got to underprune,
05:54you cut all the...
05:54They call it uplifting.
05:55You remove all the lower branches
05:57that hang down over the grass.
05:59That lets the sun in.
06:00Once the sun comes in underneath your tree,
06:02your grass grows,
06:03because grass needs sunshine.
06:05Now, you've got this beautiful hedge here
06:08that I imagine gives you great protection
06:10from the wind and privacy.
06:12It does, Costa.
06:13It's absolutely fantastic.
06:14It's actually a tree.
06:16It's a waterhousie, a floribunda,
06:18or weeping lily-pilly.
06:19And what I've done is I've pruned those trees
06:21and turned them into a hedge.
06:23It's an Australian native plant.
06:25It grows really, really quickly.
06:27That's what I love about it.
06:28It makes the perfect hedge.
06:29And then over here,
06:31we've got this darker green of the ornamental pear.
06:35Costa, I love green.
06:36I love green in my garden.
06:38Seriously, it just relaxes you.
06:39It makes...it's so soothing.
06:41And this is actually a Manchurian pear tree.
06:44You can see how glossy and green they are.
06:46In spring, they're covered in the most beautiful
06:48white spring blossom.
06:49Summer, you get the gorgeous green leaves,
06:51which give you the shade.
06:52And then in autumn,
06:54the autumn foliage is spectacular.
06:56They are great trees,
06:57and so hardy and fast-growing as well.
07:00Next, Tim's showing me a tasteful addition
07:03to his collection of colourful trees.
07:06I love persimmon.
07:08One of my favourite fruits of all.
07:10Yeah, I love the tree.
07:11I'm not as excited about the fruit.
07:13This is the crunchy one for you.
07:16I have planted the tree
07:17because persimmons get the most magnificent autumn foliage,
07:22the most amazing colours,
07:24and I decided that I had to have a persimmon tree
07:29just for the foliage, nothing to do with the fruit.
07:32I pruned this tree in winter when they lose their leaves.
07:35This is about five years old, this tree,
07:37and you wouldn't believe it.
07:38It only started growing after I pruned it.
07:40You can see here where I chopped the top off it.
07:42Yeah.
07:42And you can see it sent out the branches here, here, here.
07:44All of a sudden, it woke up.
07:46It was like this tree needed to be pruned to make it grow.
07:51And then in spring, I put some cow manure around
07:53and then it's just taken off.
07:57Pruning trees is essential,
07:58and Tim's undertaken some strategic snipping
08:02of one of his big beauties.
08:04So when did this magnolia go in?
08:07Well, Costa, that got planted about 25 years ago.
08:11And I noticed one side has been hedged.
08:14Well, it has, Costa.
08:15It's a big tree, and what it was doing,
08:16it was leaning right over the pool and it does drop leaves.
08:19Even though it's an evergreen tree,
08:21it drops its leaves in spring to be replaced with new leaves.
08:25And those leaves are like cardboard.
08:27They fall in the pool.
08:28What I've done is pruned it on one side,
08:30reduced the size of it,
08:31so I can still see a beautiful tree,
08:33but without so much upkeep as in netting the leaves out of the pool.
08:37I've got regrets about how big it's grown,
08:39but I've fallen in love with it.
08:42There's no way I could ever remove it.
08:44I should have been a little suspicious with the name Grand Aura,
08:48but it just gets the most amazing white flowers on it.
08:50They have a beautiful lemony fragrance,
08:53so they smell delicious.
08:54The bees love them.
08:55And then it gets these fruit, which almost look like an avocado,
08:58and the parrots, the cockatoos especially,
09:01love eating them, so I'm feeding nature as well.
09:04Growing in all shapes and sizes,
09:07there's a smaller species of magnolia near the house.
09:10This one's called Magnolia denudata.
09:12I've planted this tree in this small space
09:15because this tree fits in here.
09:17You can see it fits beautifully.
09:18You can see it grows about eight metres high
09:20and about six metres wide, not too big.
09:23This one does lose its leaves in winter,
09:25and then in late winter,
09:27it gets covered in the most magnificent white tulip-shaped flowers.
09:32Absolutely covered.
09:33It has a perfume as well,
09:34and it's one of those trees that heralds the start of spring.
09:38But you've also got the views out through it, which I like,
09:41and it frames this view out that window.
09:44This house was designed to have no curtains.
09:47Every window you look out,
09:49you look out onto trees and gardens.
09:51How nice is that?
09:54And later in the program,
09:56Tim and I will be digging into his tips for planting trees.
10:05What's a quick-growing vine for your garden?
10:07I'm a big fan of the native Macquarie vine.
10:11This one's less than a year old,
10:13and it's smothering this archway.
10:16We're training it through some Rio mesh,
10:18which is really tough and strong so I can hold it up.
10:20It's an evergreen vine,
10:22and from late winter all the way through to spring,
10:25has a beautiful white flower,
10:28meaning it's gorgeous to look at year-round.
10:31Why are my lady beetles yellow?
10:33Well, there are lots of species of lady beetle,
10:36and many of them are native to Australia.
10:38Behind me, I've got a pumpkin that is at the end of its life.
10:42It's got powdery mildew on it,
10:43and it's attracting the mildew-eating lady beetle.
10:46They're literally there to eat the fungus off the leaves.
10:49First, you see the little juveniles,
10:51which look like these fantastic little black-and-white armadillos,
10:55and then they evolve into that classic beetle,
10:58but it's yellow and black, not orange or red.
11:00And I think the big thing to know
11:02is whenever you see something you don't know,
11:05don't reach for a spray bottle.
11:06Reach for a guidebook.
11:08Work out who it is that shares this amazing place that is our garden.
11:12Can you recommend an edible plant to grow in shade?
11:17Turmeric.
11:17I've been growing this in shade for 20 years.
11:21It's a frost-sensitive perennial,
11:24so in a temperate climate,
11:25you plant them in spring and you harvest them in autumn.
11:29In my climate, they can grow outside all year round.
11:33Now, you can eat the roots and you can eat the leaves.
11:36The flowers also are edible.
11:39The roots can be dried to make turmeric spice,
11:42a colouring and flavouring for curries and other foods,
11:45and the leaves make a beautiful, refreshing green tea.
11:49This is the exotic turmeric,
11:52and this is the Australian native,
11:54which is found in the top end.
11:56They're both interchangeable in the kitchen and in the garden.
12:01The only difference between these is this one flowers in summer,
12:06and the native one flowers in spring.
12:15They say a life spent in the garden is a life well lived.
12:20And if that garden is a reflection of your culture,
12:24your personal journey, your family,
12:28and the people you've met along the way,
12:31well, all the better.
12:33Tammy's here with a home garden visit
12:35that's about as good as it gets.
12:40Some gardeners have that extra special something,
12:43and Dolores Mielek is one of them.
12:46I'm doing just beautiful, yes.
12:47Wow, you've trained these figs into archers.
12:50Yes.
12:51The garden is a celebration of her Maltese culture,
12:53family and friendship.
12:55Yes.
12:55Heaps and heaps of, yeah.
12:57And here is my Maltese orchard, as I call it.
13:02A larynge here, a chitro, a kiftade.
13:06Yeah, oh, there am I.
13:08I'm talking Maltese now.
13:10That's how it is.
13:11You're at home.
13:11I'm at home.
13:12This is my Mediterranean garden.
13:15I've got the olive trees, the fig trees.
13:18Oh, I think I've got about 10 in this tiny little small garden.
13:22But I keep trimming.
13:23Chitro in Maltese, which is citrus.
13:26Lot of herbs I have in this garden.
13:29I've got the carfus, the celery.
13:32As we speak now, I'm allowing it to go into flower
13:35to give me more seeds.
13:37But I use that in soup, which in Maltese we call it brodo.
13:41There is parsley everywhere and mint galore.
13:46And I lay it on the ground.
13:47So when I go on my knees, I say trimming something,
13:51I just smell back home.
13:54Yeah, it's just beautiful.
13:56And of course, being here in Australia, tropical,
13:59which, what can I say, the climate is becoming like that.
14:03I've got the mango trees, guavas.
14:06And yeah, there, as you can see, I have a pink lady apple,
14:11which is full of flowers as well.
14:13And again, you will see that it's, yeah,
14:15I created it rounds and rounds.
14:18And so did your mum and dad garden?
14:20Is that where your influence is from?
14:21Actually, mostly was my father after he retired from being a soldier.
14:26And then, of course, he had two lovely fields there in St. Paul's Bay, Malta.
14:31It's just where I grew up as a little young kid.
14:34I used to go more to the fields than go to the beach,
14:38which was just around the corner from where I lived.
14:41How about that?
14:42It shows that if gardening is part of you,
14:47you've kind of been born into it and you can't escape it.
14:53More than 50 years ago,
14:55Dolores and her family put down roots in Greystains,
14:58a suburb in Sydney's west.
15:00Every centimetre of soil has been creatively cultivated
15:04into an oasis of fruit and flowers.
15:10Here, Tammy, I have this butyl and I've put it here
15:13so the colour, you know, the yellow colour brights
15:18and, of course, more bees come around.
15:20And it's such a pretty plant, very easily done by cuttings as well.
15:24These lanterns, I call them.
15:27They're very sweet.
15:28They are, they are, yes.
15:29And, Dolores, I can see that you've trained this citrus
15:32into another arch.
15:33Yes, of course.
15:34Anything reaching to the sky, as I call it,
15:37what's the word here?
15:39It's really for the birds, not for us.
15:41So the more lower you put it
15:44and the more you lay it down,
15:46the more fruit you will get.
15:48This is a lovely Eureka lemon tree.
15:51It's keep on giving.
15:54So here we've got rooms that I created one after the other
16:00and I call them windows, handmade windows.
16:03So you can see right through them.
16:07And on top of us here, I've got this beautiful tornless rose,
16:11which my sister from young gave me a piece 20 odd years back.
16:16And look at it, I created into another arch.
16:22In a garden, you just play around, pot around and see what you can create with your hands.
16:30Yes.
16:30I mean, look at what you created.
16:33It's...
16:33I have no words what you've done.
16:35It's amazing.
16:37And in amongst the foliage, Dolores is squeezed in a veggie patch.
16:42And over here, there is more little plantings that I do as vegetables, of course.
16:48This one we call the chickpeas in English, but in Maltese, it is chichri.
16:54Oh, that is a lovely even word for it.
16:56I grew up eating chichri from my father's fields.
17:00He used to grow them just for little me, really.
17:04Look how beautiful it is.
17:05Makes it into a little pod.
17:07There's a tiny pea in there, which is the chichra.
17:11And when you eat that, when it's fully, fully more plump, it has a very salty taste to it.
17:18Ah.
17:18And how do you grow it?
17:20Does it need any special conditions?
17:21Yes, it does.
17:22As a matter of fact, for the chichri, then in the soil, it has to be very sweet, very limey.
17:29So, of course, you add lime before you plant everything in.
17:33That's preparation, as we say.
17:35The more sweet the soil, the better the chickpea will grow into.
17:41And then, as you can see, I'm growing now Arabali, which is the zucchini, but the round one.
17:48That's another very, very Maltese.
17:50Before you put in the seeds, you always prepare and mount up into the fertilizer or manure, whatever you have
18:00to put it in.
18:01And, yeah, of course, later on, I've got potash, which is already in pots full of water.
18:08Because when I see they are growing a little bit more and they're starting the flowers, then I will start
18:15watering from that potash water into them to make the flowers stronger and the fruit will hold better.
18:23And I also have here, which is, again, another Maltese, maybe in other places too, the aborigine or eggplant.
18:31Maltese, what do I call it?
18:33Brungil.
18:34It sounds like you're the official ambassador for Malta.
18:37Oh, yes, I still kept and keep my language Maltese.
18:41I do the garden segments in Maltese talkbacks and, yeah, with SBS Maltese radio.
18:50And, yeah, it's my own pleasure that I do what I know.
18:55I try to give it to whoever wants to listen, I guess, and learn.
19:00Because, as we always say, the garden is a never-ending story.
19:13Dolores, what made you leave Malta to come to Australia?
19:16Oh, that's a good question.
19:18Well, I got married, of course.
19:19My husband was there.
19:21We found each other and got married and came to Australia.
19:25And what was it like when you got here?
19:26I was young, naive, and finding it, like, very hard.
19:32You go to the park, they're empty, and I say, what on earth?
19:35What am I doing here?
19:37Where is everybody?
19:38And what did you do when you felt isolated?
19:40I started gardening.
19:43I started gardening.
19:43I mean, a little patch here or a little patch there, and gardening was, I call it my salvation,
19:48really.
19:49I just started, and the mind kind of relaxed and said, this is it, this is my place.
19:56I started looking for gardening clubs, and I found Holroyd Garden Club about 30-odd years
20:03back, and these last 17 years, I've been president of Holroyd Garden Club for home gardeners.
20:10We are a teamwork, heaps of members, and we just talk gardening, answer questions, talk
20:17about anything involving gardening.
20:20How do you even find the time?
20:24Dolores' contribution to Australian gardening culture has been recognised by the Garden Clubs
20:29of Australia, and in 2024, her front garden won the Sydney Spring Garden Prize.
20:36It's a dazzling display.
20:40So what was the plan for the front garden, Dolores?
20:43Well, colour.
20:44Colour is always in the front for me, for everyone to look at.
20:48Even colour in the foliage, you know.
20:51I mean, a leaf is not always green.
20:53That one there is a crab myrtle, the diamond in the dark.
20:59Further on, I've got the ornamental sweet potato, which is the most beautiful ground cover.
21:05There's so much colour to really draw everyone in.
21:09Well, that is the reason.
21:10Every year, I change the colour from season to season.
21:14There's always something going on, especially to make people smile when they pass by.
21:21And even give a cutting.
21:23And yeah, smile.
21:24Smile is all about, yes.
21:26You're spreading joy in the neighbourhood.
21:28Well, I try to very much indeed, yeah.
21:33I love the way Dolores embraces life and gardening.
21:37A radiant reminder to cherish what we have and grow more of it.
21:42To believe in a garden is really to believe in tomorrow.
21:46It's part of my own feelings, my own nature, I suppose.
21:50Being a Maltese Australian person, yes.
22:03I'm often asked about plants for screening.
22:05I mean, we've all got a spot that could be improved with a wall of green.
22:11Well, Clarence is here with some of his top picks for native plants that could fill that space.
22:31As gardeners, we often face quite typical challenges with hedging and screening when it comes to creating space and privacy.
22:38I've some great native plant solutions that do the job even in the trickiest of locations.
22:45Planting natives really pays off when thinking about large-scale screening and windbreaks.
22:51I like to go for a striking bottle brush, the Callistamon Dawson River Weeper.
22:56Now, it's an iconic Aussie native that withstands a tonne of diverse conditions, including frost, drought and waterlogging.
23:04There's not a lot of plants that can do that.
23:08It flowers twice a year, producing stunning red flowers that attract pollinators.
23:13And whether you prune it for shape or let it naturally flourish, it'll provide the screening you need.
23:20Another alternative is the graceful native blueberry ash, Eleocarpus reticulatus.
23:26It can grow between 5 to 10 metres.
23:29Now, it dazzles with clusters of fringed, bell-shaped white or pink flowers in spring and summer
23:34and creates a truly vibrant and biodiverse plant.
23:40There's a couple of Aussie icons to consider.
23:43Old Man Baxia is a superb landscaping all-rounder.
23:47With its velvety new growth, lovely cones and old man bark, it can be pruned hard to make a formal
23:53hedging.
23:56So, too, Melaleuca stifloides.
23:58We're used to seeing it loom large and beautiful in our landscape, but pruning every few years creates the perfect
24:04screen
24:05with its spongy, papery bark and creamy white flowers.
24:12Taking a step down in height from screening trees, there are great native options for the all-important intermediate level
24:18of hedging.
24:19And they can be pruned to your own taste for their look, shape and feel.
24:24One of my favourite natives is Icmina smithii, mini pili, which is a low-maintenance option that fits well with
24:30contemporary native and low-water gardens.
24:33It's a compact shrub with glossy leaves that flush bronze pink when new.
24:38The mini pili blooms small white flowers in spring, followed by edible purple berries that support local wildlife.
24:49The beckia vergata is a wonderfully versatile native known more commonly as the twiggy heath myrtle.
24:55A low-maintenance whiz of a plant that I think is a bit of a show-stopper.
25:00It naturally grows into a neat, lowish-growing spherical form that provides great structure for any garden.
25:08In early summer, it produces a spectacular dusting of tiny white flowers that draw in pollinators.
25:15And versatile too, thriving in either full sun or part shade.
25:23Another hedging native you could try is Kansia ericoides, snowman, which is perfect for trimming into formal shapes and thrives
25:31in Aussie conditions, providing year-round dark green foliage and texture.
25:36And finally, the Grevillea ladio.
25:39It's a wonderful, quick grower that's in flower 12 months of the year.
25:43Shape it into a hedge or leave it to nature.
25:45It'll be a fabulous addition to any garden.
25:51I hope I've given you some good ideas for screening and shaping your gardens with wonderful and resilient natives
25:56that'll keep you and your local wildlife happy for years to come.
26:07How do I minimise the risk of mosquitoes?
26:10Well, protection starts before you leave the house.
26:13You need to cover up, and any exposed skin, you need to use a mosquito repellent.
26:19Now, the official advice is to use products containing DEET.
26:23Whichever brand you use, you have to repeat every hour.
26:27Maybe more if the weather is really hot and sticky.
26:31The next step is to look for places around your garden
26:34where water may have accumulated.
26:36Like the base of palm fronds, which you can empty out.
26:40The same thing with saucers and drip trays and buckets.
26:44They're all places where mosquitoes will lay eggs,
26:48and in the space of three to four days,
26:50those wrigglers can mature into blood-sucking adults.
26:55So you just empty those out.
26:58And if you have large bromeliads that hold water,
27:01I just go around and hose them out with fresh water
27:04and make it a morning routine.
27:06Now, with standing water, such as a permanent feature like a frog pond,
27:11well, you can use things like native fish.
27:14Blue-eye are really adaptable,
27:16and they don't mind too much whether the water is good or low quality,
27:20but they will eat mosquito wrigglers.
27:22And you can use plants.
27:24There's a bladderwort which grows all the way around Australia,
27:28and they can be planted in ponds,
27:31and they trap and kill mosquito larvae.
27:34Still to come on Gardening Australia,
27:37I'm getting top tips on planting trees.
27:40Is anyone anywhere safe from you and your tree planting mission?
27:46Uh, cost you if I see a tree planting opportunity?
27:50I'd like to take it, mate.
27:53Hannah stretches out her basil,
27:56and we visit a creative couple with some wild inspiration.
28:08Perth is a hot place,
28:09and that means any water you can incorporate into your garden
28:14is a real bonus for local wildlife.
28:17But what if you took it to the next level?
28:21Josh is visiting a garden
28:22that will have you ready to take the plunge at your place.
28:32If you take an aerial view of the suburbs in our cities,
28:35particularly the warmer ones like Brisbane and here in Perth,
28:39you'll see a patchwork of roofs, lawns, tree canopy,
28:44and shimmering swimming pools.
28:46Pools don't always fit into a landscape,
28:49but sometimes they do.
28:54In the hills overlooking Perth,
28:57Cashier and Nathan's pool
28:58isn't a standalone feature in the backyard
29:01just for the family to swim in.
29:03It's a fully functional, integrated part of the garden.
29:08Cashier, what attracted you to a natural pool?
29:10I love the feel of the water as I swim through it.
29:15I wanted an ecosystem
29:17that attracts all the different birds and insects to the garden.
29:22We just wanted to stay away from the quarrying
29:24for our kids' sake, for their health.
29:26Nathan wanted a nice space to look out
29:28from his office onto the pool.
29:33When we first purchased the property,
29:36we engaged some landscape designers.
29:38We asked them to incorporate rock,
29:40rock walls, stone steps,
29:43and, you know, a meandering garden
29:44where you didn't know where you were going to go.
29:47You know, take a turn about the garden.
29:49Am I going to go this way today or go that way?
29:51We thought, what better place to end up
29:54at the end of your little meander
29:56than a beautiful swimming pond.
30:00This stunning natural pool
30:02is the creation of landscaper Tony Green.
30:06A natural pool for me is not only the natural system
30:10of filtration, but also the natural-looking environment.
30:13The habitat for me is one of the most important parts
30:16of the natural swimming pond.
30:17The rocks, the gravel, the engagement with the fish
30:20and the tadpoles.
30:21Oh, my goodness.
30:22And the hornets chasing each other.
30:24The water's held in the landscape.
30:25It's a rubber liner and it's stretchy,
30:27so it's got a lot of values that make it really good to use
30:30in this kind of environment
30:31because we place all these heavy boulders on it.
30:34It has the capacity to absorb impacts
30:37and even deal with, like, pointy parts of rocks
30:39and be able to stretch around those
30:41and not easily tear or easily pierce.
30:45We draw the water through a skimmer,
30:47much the same as you would in a conventional swimming pool,
30:49and the pumps then pump the water up to a wetland filter.
30:52Now, the wetland filter we build is an upflow wetland filter,
30:55so we pump water into the bottom of the filter.
30:57If it goes in at high velocity, then it slows right down,
31:00and it's the slowing right down
31:02and then going up through the filtration media
31:04that does the heavy lifting of cleaning the water in the system.
31:08So in those different layers of gravel,
31:10we have different types of microorganisms and bacteria
31:12that grow and thrive and clean the water,
31:16and then the water flows out through the top of that,
31:18and typically we have an elevation change
31:20and have a waterfall returning from that back to the pool.
31:23The plants in these systems
31:25are typically just polishing the water.
31:27They're just drawing up the last of the soluble nutrient
31:29and cleaning it up
31:31and providing a really nice aesthetic too.
31:34What we found, though, is that we don't use a lot of native reeds and rushes.
31:38My hypothesis of the reason for that
31:41is that they don't work hard enough in such a clean environment.
31:45Because of how much work the wetland filter is doing cleaning the water,
31:48there isn't actually a great deal of waterborne nutrient for them to survive on,
31:52so we often have to use species that would be from more tropical areas
31:56that are much harder working plants,
31:58and they're the ones that we find that perform the best.
32:00We like to plant water lilies just for their flowering
32:03and the joy of seeing them come out.
32:04We love the hibiscus.
32:06We had frogs appearing in the pool
32:09before we'd even built the whole thing.
32:10We have lots of insects appear really, really early on,
32:14and then birds discover it and they appear.
32:16Are mosquitoes a problem?
32:17No, not at all.
32:18The water moves a lot.
32:19There's a lot of circulation in the system.
32:21We've got bubblers, we've got circulation jets,
32:24so any mosquito larvae that was on the surface would draw to the skimmer.
32:27And we've also got fish, obviously, in there,
32:29and they eat the mosquito larvae too.
32:31We don't typically add fish to them ourselves
32:33because every owner of a pond wants different things for their pond.
32:41It's just a pleasure to maintain.
32:43There's no chemicals, there's no gloves,
32:45there's no masks or anything like that.
32:47It's just a really lovely way to maintain a pool.
32:50Three, two, one, mommy!
32:54It's almost like a form of gardening.
32:56Trimming the water plants is not actually that hard.
32:59The level of maintenance is actually quite low.
33:01For us, it's more than just a place to swim.
33:04It's a place that we can sit by,
33:07we get wading birds come,
33:09and we've got a resident monitor lizard underneath a rock over there,
33:13and we have frogs.
33:14It's a place where we can have fun,
33:16but it's also quite a contemplative place as well.
33:18During the summertime, the kids love to come,
33:21and there's a big bommie rock up the end there, the deep end.
33:25During wintertime, we like to do, like, a cold plunge,
33:28when Casher's generally not keen on wintertime.
33:30More of a summertime activity.
33:33Yeah, so we get to use it all year round.
33:38In a neighbouring suburb,
33:40experienced pool owners Emily and Craig
33:43are relishing the switch from a conventional pool
33:46to one of Tony's designs.
33:53Originally, there was an above-ground pool located here,
33:56and that was a lot of effort to maintain and look after
33:59and lots of chemicals and stuff to keep it balanced all the time,
34:02so that was a lot of hard work.
34:03So we ripped that out,
34:04and we put it in the natural pool in the same location.
34:07And it cleans itself with the filtration systems now,
34:09so it is literally just cleaning out the skimmer boxes
34:12and scooping out some leaves.
34:17And you really need to jump in the pool
34:18and do some big bommies in there
34:20to help move the materials around as well,
34:22which is a lot of fun.
34:24Have you been happy with the quality of the water?
34:26I absolutely love it.
34:27Like, I don't have to put any chemicals in there to balance it.
34:30What we talk about almost every time we're in the water
34:32is how soft the water feels,
34:34and it just has the most ambient temperature.
34:37I think with the rocks and the thermal properties,
34:40the water is incredibly soft and beautiful.
34:43Have you noticed having this amount of water in the landscape
34:45has attracted wildlife from across the area?
34:48Yeah, look, it's become its own little ecosystem.
34:51We have an array of birds that come in
34:53and love to drink from the water
34:55and just be in the cool of the trees.
35:01The location that we've put the pool in
35:03is obviously surrounded by some, you know, well-established trees,
35:06so we get a lot of shade and also some open-up areas
35:08for the sun to put some warmth in the pool too.
35:10With the large beach area, the kids and ourselves as well,
35:13I must admit, you know, we've put a chair in the water
35:15and actually sit in the water just in the afternoons,
35:18especially on a weekend.
35:18It's really nice, really nice and relaxing.
35:21It's beautiful, the rocks,
35:22and when the sun sets across the water,
35:24it's just a really lovely place to be.
35:30Tony, what's your favourite feature of this pond?
35:32Oh, this pond, it's got to be the beach.
35:34It's a big, long, shallow space.
35:36It's fantastic for young kids to look at the tadpoles
35:39and the small fish swimming around in there.
35:41People around our age in particular
35:42spend a lot of time growing up with creeks to go and play in
35:46and bushland to play in, and we've lost a lot of that now,
35:48and people have focused a lot on devices
35:50rather than connecting with nature,
35:52and I feel this is a really nice way to bring that back
35:55and for people to interact, to swim with the fish,
35:58to see the tadpoles, to follow the schools of small fish around
36:01to watch the insects coming and going and breeding
36:04and birds coming and going.
36:05It's a really nice way to connect back with nature.
36:17I'm with horticulturist Tim Pickles,
36:20whose enthusiasm for trees branches out beyond his own backyard
36:25and is sharing his expert tips for planting.
36:30Is anyone anywhere safe from you and your tree-planting mission?
36:36It costs you if I see a tree-planting opportunity.
36:39I like to take it, mate.
36:41My friend Charlie's just built this beautiful house next door
36:44and he definitely needs a shade tree,
36:47so we're going to go and plant him a shade tree.
36:49So why have you chosen this tree?
36:50I love crepe myrtles.
36:52There's this variety called natchez.
36:53It's a white flowering one.
36:54It actually grows eight metres high and six metres wide.
36:58When you buy a tree from a nursery,
37:00just check to make sure it hasn't got any of these tyres on it.
37:02The wire gets embedded in the trunk of the tree
37:05and, in the strong winds, the tree just snaps off.
37:08Next thing I'm going to do
37:08is I'm going to remove these lower branches,
37:12just to clean the base of that.
37:16Before we remove that,
37:17now we've got a nice, clean trunk
37:18and that's going to become a beautiful underprune tree, ready to go.
37:25We're going to do a circle.
37:26One metre, we're going to take the grass out.
37:27If we dig a hole in the grass and plant this tree,
37:30what will happen is the grass will take all the water
37:33and, more than likely, the tree will be unsuccessful
37:36because it'll dry out, it won't get enough water.
37:42If we soften the soil all the way around,
37:45the tree's roots are going to be able to grow into this soil
37:48to find water and to find nutrients.
37:50Oh, yeah.
37:50It's like a nice cake mix.
37:53When we get those little bits of grass out,
37:54otherwise they'll start to reshoot, they'll start to grow as well.
37:58So what we're going to do now, Costa,
37:59is we're going to dig a bag of premium potting mix into this soil.
38:03The premium potting mix has a fertiliser that lasts for three months.
38:06We're going to turn it over.
38:08We want to mix it with the existing soil.
38:10Well, so now we've made our garden bed to plant the tree.
38:13Now we're going to dig a hole for the tree.
38:15Now, Costa, a lot of people, when they plant a tree,
38:17they plant it in the hole and then they water it with a bucket of water.
38:21We're going to do it a little bit differently.
38:23Potting mixes are made from recycled green waste.
38:26They're actually made from wood chip as well.
38:27And what happens with those products is when they get dry,
38:30they actually repel the water.
38:32And once they do get dry, it's very hard to get them wet again
38:36because they become hydrophobic.
38:38So what we need to do is we need to dunk the pot in a bucket full of water.
38:42And what we're going to do is we're going to replace the air in that soil.
38:49There's the air escaping.
38:51That's the air that kills your plants because it dries out the roots.
38:56Once the roots dry out, they die.
38:58What we've done now is we've replaced that air with water.
39:02So now we can take it out.
39:05We're going to take that pot off the soil.
39:08Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to tease those roots.
39:10I'm going to let this plant know that it's been taken out of the pot.
39:14Now those roots will grow into the soil.
39:17Putting it in the centre of the hole, we're getting the tree nice and straight.
39:19We're putting the soil back in.
39:22We're going to make a well so that when we water it,
39:25the water actually goes through there and not runs over the soil.
39:28And also when we water over the next few weeks to keep this tree going,
39:31we want the water to go into the roots.
39:33The tree's getting all the water and that's why it's going to grow so beautifully.
39:38In this exposed, windy location, we're securing the tree with stakes
39:43and a soft tie that won't harm its development.
39:46The stakes can come off in about three months' time.
39:50A good layer of mulch on top and for the first few months,
39:55if you're planting in summer, water every day.
39:58If it's winter, a couple of times a week.
40:00And once established, water every few weeks.
40:05Why will you keep on planting trees?
40:08Custer, you must have felt that yourself.
40:10When we were planting that tree, it gave you a great feeling.
40:14You're taking it out of that pot, basically you're setting it free.
40:17How beautiful is that?
40:19I love Tim's attitude.
40:21More trees, please.
40:23Look after your trees and in return, they'll look after you
40:27with abundant shade and beauty.
40:37We're having a bumper basil season this year
40:40and we're loving life because of it.
40:42We're very interested to see how long we can extend our basil harvest for.
40:46There's two ways we do this.
40:49First of all, we come along the very top and have a look around
40:52to see if there's any flower or seed heads
40:54and we just pick them off and compost them.
40:56We want to delay that reproduction process as long as we can.
41:01Also, when we're harvesting leaf to eat,
41:04we come along and look for the freshest, newest growth on top.
41:08That's where we want to harvest.
41:10First of all, we come down to look at the stem to the next node,
41:13the second layer of leaf that's popping out
41:15and we harvest just above that.
41:18We eat that bit and this bit is kept
41:21and it will bush out and become really full and leafy
41:24instead of growing tall and leggy.
41:35Whoa, a powerful owl right here in the heart of the city.
41:40For us gardeners, connection to nature is vital.
41:44It's a passion we share with wildlife carers
41:47who step in when our furry and feathered friends need some help.
41:53In our next story, we meet a couple in inner city Melbourne
41:57who not only care for wildlife,
42:00but they've turned those experiences into creative inspiration.
42:28We are visual artists and wildlife carers.
42:31We've been collaborating for 25 years as artists.
42:34But in the last 12 months,
42:37we have officially been a government-licensed wildlife shelter
42:40here in our little home.
42:45I'm Gratia Havey and this is Louise Jennison.
42:49And we're here in North Fitzroy in inner Melbourne
42:52and visitors on Wurundjeri country.
42:55And that's where we look after native Australian wildlife
42:57with the view of release.
43:00So getting them back out into the wild,
43:01returning them to where they should be.
43:04We called our shelter Tiny But Wild
43:07because we are literally a tiny space
43:10and everything here is wild.
43:15Our back garden is a space completely for wildlife.
43:18It's basically three enclosures,
43:21one large one for our flying foxes
43:23and two for our ring-tailed possums
43:25and then a little bit of space
43:27that we can shimmy around in to get to them.
43:30Good stretch, mate. That's beautiful.
43:36Because the flying foxes are in care at the moment,
43:39we've freed them our fruit
43:41and then also add a high-protein supplement
43:44so that they're looked after.
43:46And when they're really little,
43:48they are actually bottle-fed five times a day.
43:53Good boys.
43:56Good boys.
43:58To handle any bats,
44:00microbats or megabats,
44:02you need to be qualified and vaccinated
44:04and wear protective gloves and sleeves.
44:06You're a lovely wolf.
44:07Umi and his friends here are grey-headed flying foxes.
44:11These guys are megabat
44:12and they're endemic to Australia
44:15and they're also unfortunately a threatened species.
44:19They're our long-distance pollinators.
44:21So these guys co-evolved with eucalypts
44:24and they pollinate all the way up the East Coast.
44:27So all our forests are completely reliant
44:30on these beautiful pollinators.
44:35So the eucalypts will often flower at night
44:38and open up and they're beautiful yellow and white
44:41and bright pink flowers like this phycifolia.
44:43And then the flying foxes slam into it,
44:46get the nectar all over themselves
44:48and they fly to the next one and the next one.
44:51And they're also at the same time eating the fruit
44:54and they'll be then doing their poos and dropping that.
44:58But they can fly like 50 kilometres a night,
45:01which is extraordinary, these little guys.
45:03So you can just imagine how many seeds
45:05they can distribute every single night
45:07and how far they can distribute those.
45:09And no other animal can do it
45:10except our beautiful flying foxes.
45:14Like all our native wildlife,
45:16these guys are facing lots of different issues.
45:20But for the flying foxes in particular,
45:23it's deforestation, they're losing habitat,
45:26they're losing space and also the climate emergency.
45:31So those extreme hot weather events are a direct threat.
45:35But then we're also having floods.
45:37It's becoming more and more difficult.
45:39So we need to all step up and look after them
45:42because if we lose these guys,
45:44we lose our forest pollinators
45:46and then we're in a terrible mess.
45:49Even if you've only got a tiny space,
45:51like our little urban oasis,
45:53we can all plant for wildlife
45:56and we can all share our space with wildlife.
45:59So make sure you've got canopy and understory.
46:02Make sure you've got water out for the birds
46:04and for the insects.
46:06And nesting boxes are fantastic to put up
46:09to encourage others to come and live with you.
46:13And if you're netting fruit trees in your garden,
46:16make sure that you use wildlife-friendly netting
46:18because if you don't,
46:20it can be catastrophic for our flying foxes
46:22and also the birds.
46:24They can get terribly entangled in them,
46:27injured awfully,
46:28and then they need specialised care from vets
46:31like at Melbourne Zoo or Wildlife Victoria
46:34and then end up in care at a place like Tiny But Wild
46:38for weeks and weeks and weeks
46:40before they can get back into the wild,
46:42if indeed they can at all.
46:45So this is our outdoor possum enclosure.
46:48These are three ring-tailed joeys.
46:50Typically, we'll have them in care for roughly six months,
46:53so that's when they come in as tiny little joeys
46:55who've been orphaned,
46:56so they'll be about 70 grams,
46:58whereas now these guys are 400 grams.
47:01So they're getting really ready for release.
47:04So in here we've got the Robert Gordon Grevillea.
47:07We've also got a beautiful new growth on their Manigum.
47:12Calistamon, which they love.
47:14There's Melaleuca, both in flower and the leaves,
47:17and we've also got a spray of coastal tea tree.
47:20So little ring-tailed possums are also called pepper shakers
47:23because all of the leaf that they're eating now,
47:27they chew that, they digest that,
47:30and they create super little power pellets
47:32that fertilise your garden.
47:33So in that sense,
47:35they can be a fabulous ally in your garden,
47:38taking all of the nutrients from the tree
47:40straight down into the soil,
47:41which is quicker than it would take for a leaf to decompose
47:44and break up into the soil.
47:47Ring-tailed possums often get a bad rap for demolishing gardens,
47:52but a lot of the times there are other culprits.
47:54It might be rats.
47:56Yeah, we encourage people to learn to live
47:58with their local wildlife.
48:03Well, as well as out the back,
48:05the front room is also our designated wildlife room.
48:08It is also our studio.
48:10And here we have Hans Holbein Myunga.
48:13He's a little microbat, a gulls-bottled bat,
48:16and he was rescued recently in the city.
48:18He's a sub-adult, so he can't fly yet,
48:20so he must have had a misadventure.
48:22He was found on the pavement,
48:24and now he is here eating mealworms provided by Louise.
48:28So microbats are different to our megabats,
48:31are our beautiful pollinators.
48:33Microbats eat all our insects,
48:35so they look after the insect populations in our gardens.
48:38So if you've got a little group of microbats near you,
48:41you're very lucky.
48:45One of the joys of looking after wildlife
48:48is that you get to see the world
48:49through the eyes of another species,
48:51which is just something so glorious.
48:55It's got this little arboral connection
48:57from this tree back into the garden.
48:59When we go for a walk,
49:00just looking around at what food trees are available for possums,
49:04what they would eat, how big gardens are.
49:06I mean, typically a lot of gardens are getting smaller.
49:09There are people who are planting a lot of native vegetation
49:12and things, which is fabulous for the possums.
49:16So every day we need to go and get fresh food,
49:18which we call browse, for our possums.
49:21It's a big part of every day.
49:22It's a lot of work
49:24because we have to find different things in flower.
49:27We have to check with neighbours if it's OK,
49:29that we can grab a little cutting here and there.
49:32It's critical to give them the right thing
49:35and something like the grevillea
49:36would be a special treat for the joeys.
49:42Grace and I met at art school in the 90s
49:44and we were friends and started exhibiting together
49:47and then we became partners.
49:49And then we started to collaborate on some artist books
49:52and then it sort of organically grew into a collaboration
49:55that's been going on 25 years later.
49:58We make artist books, which is effectively an artwork
50:01in book form.
50:02Animals feature heavily in all of our artwork.
50:05They're all completely hand-bound.
50:08They're digital collage sometimes.
50:11We also make large-scale installations
50:14and one example is a recent commission
50:17from the National Gallery of Victoria for Melbourne Now
50:19in which we made an entire room
50:21which was collaged from 100 pieces in the NGV collection
50:24that was a forest for the grey-headed flying fox.
50:29Working with wildlife and working with our artwork,
50:34reciprocating, it's what gives us hope
50:37because hope's an active thing.
50:40Hope is actively choosing kindness.
50:46So this is beautiful Walt and Mr. Velvetini.
50:49They came into care as adults
50:51and they had urban misadventions.
50:55Mr. Velvetini got caught in a light well
50:58and Walt had a bad concussion.
51:04But it's a really big day today.
51:06They've both got the green light, everything's good to go.
51:08They've been vet checked and they're ready to go back into the wild.
51:14We're headed to the grey-headed flying fox colony
51:17and it's about 5km,
51:19a few minutes from where we are at Tiny But Wild.
51:22On the banks of the Birrarung, beautiful Yarra River,
51:25here on a tiny bit of restored habitat beside the freeway,
51:29nestled in around our urban-ness.
51:31Excitingly, Walt and Mr. Velvetini are going to shake off
51:34their human-given names
51:35and now they will probably be called...
51:38Walt might be called.
51:41And I think Mr. Velvetini would probably be like...
51:44Yes.
51:57For us, this is like a really glorious moment
52:00when we get to return them to where they should be
52:03and it's a beautiful part where it's not about us
52:06and what we might feel
52:07and it's just all about them
52:09and seeing them go fly back
52:11and going from being Walt in a basket to one of many
52:16and it's just their beautiful embodiment
52:19of how it takes so much time to get them to this point
52:22and it takes a village of people to get them ready
52:25and it's the non-human and the human coming together
52:28and it's just...
52:29It's a really wonderful feeling.
52:45Guess what?
52:47It's time to get your wheels rolling
52:49with your jobs for the weekend.
52:56Cool temperate gardeners bung in some biochar to improve soils.
53:00A combo of wood waste, manures and weeds
53:03slowly burned with restricted oxygen,
53:06biochar is brilliant for prepping beds before planting.
53:10Got a spot in your garden that's sunny in winter
53:13and shady in summer?
53:14Then how about a hellebore?
53:16These ornamental perennials are fantastic in flower over winter
53:20and can be planted now.
53:22Pak choy, bok choy, choy, sum and tat soy,
53:25your favourite Asian greens are ready to grow now.
53:29These fast growers will produce a heavy, hearty harvest
53:32before the cool winter weather kicks in.
53:35It's time to start ordering bare root trees
53:38in warm temperate areas for winter planting.
53:41Whether they be fruity or ornamental, compact or colossal,
53:45bare root trees are better for planting and the budget.
53:48It's a busy time in the garden this month and preparation is key.
53:53Clear out compost produce over summer to improve garden beds
53:56and replace with autumn prunings from perennials.
54:00Flowering now are belladonna lilies.
54:02While their pink flowers and bare red stems may be attractive,
54:06they're often environmental weeds
54:08and efforts should be made to safely remove them.
54:13In subtropical gardens, take your salad from garden to gourmet
54:17and plant some corn salad.
54:19A lovely lettuce substitute, this quick-growing green
54:22has a mild, nutty flavour.
54:25Flowering bulbs aren't just for cooler climates.
54:28Add some awesome autumn colour to your patches and pots
54:31with blood lilies, autumn crocus and noreens
54:34from your local nursery.
54:36Weeds are jumping out of the ground right now,
54:39threatening to take over.
54:41Spend 20 minutes a day in the garden
54:43removing weeds and remulching.
54:45It's great for you and your garden's wellbeing.
54:49Time to start prepping for the dry season in the tropics,
54:52so get capsicums, chillies and eggplants into the ground,
54:56followed with a layer of straw mulch
54:58to minimise weeds and water loss.
55:00If you've been craving more protein,
55:03why not plant some tropical legumes this weekend?
55:06Mung beans, soybeans and snake beans are good to go
55:10and can be ready to harvest in just 40 days.
55:13March can be an active one for cyclone activity in the tropics,
55:17so spend a bit of time in your garden
55:19making sure outdoor furniture, sheds, shade structures
55:23and the like are secure.
55:25In arid zones, loads of plants are about to put on
55:29an autumn growth spurt, so now's the perfect time to prune.
55:33Remove dead or diseased wood and tip prune to improve shape.
55:37If fungus gnats are causing you grief,
55:40it's time to treat your indoor plants.
55:42Drench the soil of affected pots with diluted neem oil.
55:45Repeat weekly for three weeks, then mulch with gravel.
55:50Jerusalem artichokes are delightful, delicious
55:53and dead easy to grow.
55:55Pop some tubers in the ground this weekend,
55:57leaving about 30 centimetres between each
56:00and feed with a whack of wood ash.
56:03Welcome to Autumn Gardeners.
56:05If you haven't already, head to our website
56:07and sign up for our regular Gardening Australia newsletter.
56:18Well, the coach has dragged me from the field,
56:21kicking and screaming and dropped me on the bench until next week.
56:25But we have got a game plan for you.
56:28Have a look at what's in store.
56:32I explore a romantic cool climate garden
56:36in the New South Wales Southern Highlands.
56:38Brought back to life by one of my pop music heroes
56:42and their partner.
56:43It makes me feel like dancing.
56:46I've converted my goat yard into a temporary productive veggie garden
56:50while my goats are on holiday.
56:52And we'd like to welcome our newest guest presenter
56:55to the GA family.
56:57Well, kumquats are rebels, right?
56:58All other citrus.
57:00Are you a rebel too, Kosta?
57:02The fabulous fruit nerd
57:03to share one of his favourite fruits
57:06that you may not be familiar with.
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