Hi all,
I would be really keen to hear what everyone thinks about what gives a garden a distinctly Australian feel. Having grown colourful perennials for years I am keen to make a big change by simplifying the planting using shrubs. Many of the “Australian gardens” I admire are coastal or hot & dry and they work brilliantly with a combination of native and exotic plants but I would be keen to hear what others do in cooler, slightly wetter areas. I have been interested in the experiments with Australian plants that James Hitchmough has been involved with but it’s so much more than just bunging in a whole lot of natives.
Keen to hear opinions
Sally
Distinctly Australian gardens
Discussion
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Hi Sally, our garden is based on a mixture of shrubs and perennials, both natives and exotics – mainly from Mediterranean climate regions of the world. We are traditionally in a wetter region (SW Aust) but have a long dry summer and being on tank water can only irrigate by hand. Natives we have included are many different correas, scaevolas, small acacias, Thomasia, morning iris Orthrosanthus), Conostylis, Maireana, Patersonia, Lomandra, Billardiera, Goodenia, native Poa grasses and grevilleas. I think there are many native plants that can suit a uniquely Australian cottagey type feel when used in conjunction with others.
Those plants sound wonderful but how do you grow them to create an Australian aesthetic rather than just a collection of native plants. I know when I look through garden books & magazines I can often say whether it is a Dutch garden or American garden or Spanish. There is some element that I can’t put my finger on that makes them distinct and of their place. Michael, have you any ideas….you have been to so many places. The cultural essence or something like that. Thanks for any thoughts. Sally
For those interested in seeing Donna’s garden it will be featured in the next edition of Gardening Australia magazine.
What I think of is muted colours, particularly greys and greens, use of grasses and blending with the landscape. Raw timber, stones, gravel. Mallee eucalypts instantly add the Australian feel.
Thanks Donna, I agree about the colours….I live in the foothills of Kunyani/Mt Wellington and I am surrounded by natural bushland. I have run an unusual plant nursery for years specialising in perennials so my garden is very colourful and ………..very busy. I want to calm it down and simplify. This chat is really helpful
I am from South Africa, where we have very similar issues of national identity and use of natives vs (or with) exotics, and very similar climatic ,
I have a particular issue with people who use the word indigenous (your natives) as a holy catch-all. We have as diverse a climate and range of biomes as Australia, if not more so, and to me endemic (from the area) is much more valid than something which happens to originate within the geographic borders. There are iconic plants that spell AU or SA, by all means use them. But there is not ‘a look’.
How we use our gardens is different, and that determines the look – so the way we incorporate e.g. a swimming pool or a braai (barbie) can show where we are. Also referencing the much sparcer growth or colour palate of our more open landscapes in the way we garden can give local flavour. But that is not a recipe. English’ gardens and landscapes are by nature lush and detailed, and so are their gardens. The Dutch landscape is linear and rhythmic, and so are their gardens. We tend to want to emulate them, because that is what we look up to as good gardening. (Oh, the colonial inferiority complex.!)
If you look (again?) at Monty Don’s “Around the world in 80 Gardens”, he is bemused in both our countries at the Europeaness of what he sees.
But: I think it is counter-creative to try too hard to create a national idiom. A well designed, appropriate garden will be in conversation with its closer and wider surrounds and in the process be right for the place. Creating a mini Ayers Rock in Sidney or a Tasmanian forest in Darwin is as inappropriate as recreating Regents Park in those cities.
Ooo Jack, I really want to see your garden now. Thankyou for your ideas, it is terrific just to be able to express this. I am having a fine time having a much closer look at our endemic flora particularly Tas rainforest and wet sclerophyl and working out which will grow well in a garden situation
Hi again Sally. my current garden is still very early days and generic suburbia, but on my profile you will find links to my previous blog and the current owners website. I am about to launch my new website ( perhaps even today), greatly inspired by discovering Michael and his easy, informative, intelligent communication. And by the stop-to-think that Cobid-19 has brought.
Thanks Jack, I will look forward to your new website
Hi Sally, I’ve been really looking forward to dipping into this conversation, but was keen to hear what others might say first.
I’m with Jack, in thinking that it’s counterproductive (and a little lame) to try and self-consciously generate a national style. I’m guessing that that’s not what you’re desiring, anyway. But you point to a really important truth here, and that’s that our most recognisable and iconic plant communities are generated in areas of great stress (coastal and arid environments), and while they can become truly inspiring aesthetic models for gardens (witness the incredible work of Fiona Brockhoff, Peter Shaw and others in that coastal style), they don’t work at all in more verdant settings. (Indeed, I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t achieve the reverse-oasis. Somehow it makes sense to make a water-celebrating garden in a dessert, but it never, ever works to try and create a dry-celebrating garden in a high-rainfall zone).
My climate is a little like yours. The surrounding vegetation is just too verdant to adopt any of the pared-back, sparse styles that work so well in drier zones.
I think there’s some ‘key’ in the pattern and repetition seen in the plant communities like the mountain ash/tree fern combo of, say, the Black Spur in Victoria, in which the white candle trunks repeat into infinity, and are skirted by the repeated vase-shapes of tree-ferns, as far as the eye can see. The spotted gum/cycad combo of the NSW South coast is similarly powerful, as is dry sclerophyll forest with a repeated understory of grass trees. Likewise, perhaps, repeated tussock grasses beneath the sculptural, sinuous trunks of snow gums. But it seems to me that all of these require a huge area in order to recreate that strong sense of pattern created by repetition, and none really allow for a visible edge or end-point, making them largely un-adoptable for gardens.
So I have to admit to being pretty stumped about the same thing, Sally. I’ve tried to tell both Peter Shaw and Fiona Brockhoff how ‘lucky’ they are to be designing in a zone that allows for them to explore one of Australia’s more iconic plant communities, but in doing so don’t in any senes want to undermine the extent of their achievements. But I honestly envy them. My climate gives me no such option
I inherited a difficult garden when we purchased our house in New England NSW.
Large block
Large gum trees
Rocky basalt soil
Steep slope
Frosts
Now water restrictions to level 5
However, north facing and private
The drought has put us on level 5 water restrictions,
I set about creating an Australian native garden and I love it.
Used Corten steel to terrace, lots of gravel and mulch and thanks to our local native nursery, lots of miscanthus, Correa alba, Westringia poa, wattles, hakeas, callistemons,
and a sprinkling of exotics.
It is a joy to work in and a joy to see it evolving and the bird life increasing.
Very much trial and error but worth the effort..
Fascinating discussion, love the thoughtfulness of the responses and would love any examples of recent gardens that people feel begin to move towards this in cold climates. The impossibility of the ‘reverse oasis’ is such a great articulation of why this is so difficult in cold climate settings. There is certainly a self consciousness around gardening in Australia that has for many years been aesthetically stymied by a moralising about the use of natives – and the tension around provoking a need to change the colonial eye to appreciate the landscape comes up really hard against translating this into the comfort given by garden scale, rythyms and making. My particular bug bear is when you see gardens in glossy media publications that loudly proclaim to use native plants – but when you actually look feature maybe a lomandra or westringia ball amongst predominantly climate appropriate exotics. It’s annoying as it fuels the moral imperative to go native but discounts the function and beauty of the overall mixed planting context.
I do remember a podcast a couple of years ago with Tim Entwisle of the RBG about Australian suburban (Melbourne/ Sydney/Brisbane) garden identity in which they concluded that the Jacaranda tree was an Australian garden signifier. Kate Herd and Jela Ivankovic-Waters’ book, Native, is a really thoughtful grappling of where we have moved or trying to move, post 70/80s native gardens, as it thinks through identity and natives in a more designed context – but in truth when I look through it there are a lot of close ups of wonderful foliage but it’s notably lacking in vistas of cohesive gardens (aside from the aforementioned dry, coastal, or TCL gardens). In a Melbourne context, Amanda Oliver is doing some really interesting mixed plantings that work really well and are very evocative and particular to place. I presume you have heard of (because of the James Hitchmough mention) of Burnley’s Woody Meadow project which is grappling with these issues of local identity, climate appropriateness and aesthetics too – but with an eye to creating more floriferous and engaging public space plantings. There is also something happening with increasing (hinterland) Californian garden design interest in Australian gardens – the likeness in light quality and sky scale is similar and is playing into our sense of Australian garden identity – think Bernard Trainor. That’s a bit of a ramble of thoughts, but it’s certainly an area that I think a lot of us trying to garden through.
Hi Khassandra! Just wanted to let you (and everyone else) know that the Woody Meadow Pilot Project guidelines are now on the City of Melbourne website: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/parks-open-spaces/guide-to-parks/pages/woody-meadow.aspx
I have had the privilege of actually visiting a few of Bernard Trainor’s gardens in California. My garden is becoming a mix of Australian, Californian, South African and Mediterranean plants as a direct response to the Millennium Drought. My new garden will be similar I think – still in the planning stage!
Eucalypts and rocks.
All over Australia there are eucalypts and rocks. The varieties of each change with the location, but I think this combination defines our landscapes.
I’m in central Victoria and have established a ‘Gondwana garden’ on the eastern side of our house, which is sheltered from the most extreme weather. Initially I didn’t want to limit myself to only Australian plants (hence the Gondwana theme), but after four years of garden development I only have a few of the South African species left, with all others being Australian.
However, you won’t find wiry grevillea, overgrown bottlebrush or mass-planted dianella in my garden! I started with the eucalypts and rocks: a grove of dwarf snow gums gives birth to a long, sinuous dry creek bed lined with iron stone. There are no garden beds, just groups of plants and paths inter-twining along both side of the creek. I wanted a garden with a story.
I’ve really fallen for natives and have become passionate about them. When I look at garden books, those gardens could be recreated in any temperate area of the planet. I know roses, lavenders, camellias and tulips are nice, but there’s nothing unique about them. I just don’t think the world needs another box hedge or standard anything!
Here is a list of some of the Australian plants that I have had success with:
Correas – so many!
Poa labillardieri – with great restraint this is the only grass, repeat planted
Acacia cognata ‘mini cog’ – a show-stopper that has been repeat planted
Boronia megastigma lutea – oh, the fragrance!
Banksia/dryandra nivea
Pimelea ferruginea
Scleranthus biflorus
Kangaroo paws
Pelargonium australe
Hardenbergia
Woolly bush
Myoporum floribundum
And so many other flowers too!
The non-Australians are limited to king proteas, leucadendrons, eumorphia and leonotis.
If you have heavy soils, ripping is absolutely essential. I think my success with growing a wide variety of natives is wholly because the area was ripped prior to landscaping.
Happy gardening!
Hi there, we live in the Hunter Valley of NSW moving to our 5 acre block eleven years ago we had a nice garden in Sydney just a suburban corner block, now with five acres of a cow paddock we planted a “park like theme” gardens and trees with plenty of paddock grass area. We planted a lot of natives particularly grevillea and now find we are losing large well established specimens learning some do not like clay soil. I will continue replanting but changing to more callistemon they seem to like our soil better but last year began planting succulents as well, finding a lot of joy with this species, yes some do die off over a period but usually a baby is already forming to take its place, so……. natives suited for your soil type, succulent’s and the occasional exotic. Annuals in pots. Note one of my favourites sedum autumn joy which to me is a perennial never flowered at all this summer, not sure why, too hot maybe?
Hilary, that sounds perfect…..would love to see photos. I love the idea of the dry creek bed with groups of plants and rock. We live on very rocky ground and every spade brings up a handful of small stones (round dolerite) which I have use for cobbling paths. I started out my working life as a florist and because I couldn’t find lots of gorgeous flowers I worked with in Europe I started tracking down lots of unusual plants and that slowly morphed into an unusual plant nursery. I wanted Colour and almost all our plants are evergreen. But now that my nursery is winding down I feel slightly overfed with all the colour and want something cooler and calmer. I bushwalk a lot and see the way plants arrange themselves Fields of buttongrass with random Banksia marginata and mossy logs with huge boulders and lush green rainforest plants. And I am able to grow many of these in my garden because we have a spring and I now have more time to consider how. I know we are supposed to just garden for ourselves but because my garden has been open for such a long time it is hard not to garden for others a bit. In the last few years I have had a few influential European gardeners visit and what they see is all the same plants they grow so I take them bushwalking to see Tasmanian endemics.
Forgive me if this is Thinking Out Loud …… I do have a lot of Tas endemic plants in the garden but I Just need a more cohesive planting style to help blur the edges with the surrounding bushland.
Just love everyone’s ideas….just to be having this conversation is so stimulating
Thanks Michael
Hi Sally,
First up, I do agree with much of what is said above, especially Jack’s comment about it being counter productive to try to consciously create an idiom. An idiom or a recognisable look will be built over time – much longer time than you or I will be in our gardens (hundreds of years maybe?) The idiom will come through people experimenting with what seems to be really relevant where they are. There is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas (from other, similar climates perhaps). It is true that every culture and every creative borrows ideas, the thing is to tweak, adapt, discard , repeat.
As for simplifying a garden – the only way I know of is to reduce the number of species but that’s not going to happen for plantaholics. So maybe you might confine all the busyness to one distinct area, and reduce species in the rest?
I have to say I garden by feel, that is, I know the emotional qualities I want to evoke and any plant that sings those qualities out loud AND CAN GROW IN THE FAIRLY LIMITING CONDITIONS IN WHICH I GARDEN is a contender. In this way my garden is starting to have distinct character which is not just personal, it also represents the physical environment here.
Happy gardening!
Chipping in again, Sally. There’s definitely a aesthetic key in the idea of repetition. With all broad-scale planting (as opposed to planting in borders), I’m moving to a place in which I go through my plant list (which is only ever in my head – I’m rarely so organised as to write anything down) and decide which are going to be the key repeating or matrix species, and which are going to only appear occasionally (or perhaps only once – though the only time I’d ever do that is if I only had one single plant, and would quickly set about propagating more). My intention is to cover (just say) 50% of the ground space with only 10% of the diversity (the figures are arbitrary here, but help to get the idea), so that at an initial glance at a planting, it appears quite simple, but as you delve into it, detail starts to emerge. Along similar lines, I love Nigel Dunnett’s P3 rule – he reckons its never necessary to have more than three things in bloom at any one time. I loved Karen’s thoughts above about limited the palette, and think that it IS possible for plant lovers to get the best of both worlds, using a repetitive matrix of super low diversity for overall effect, and tickling in as much detail as is possible without diluting the big picture. How much detail the ‘big picture’ can absorb or mop up will likely depend on the strength of the composition created by the simple matrix
Thanks Michael.
That is so helpful, I have been making lists (on paper) of the plants that are really effective in an area and adding heaps more plus new plants including local endemic species……..70 beesia, 100 epimedium Thunderbolt, lots of Blechnum nudum, and Dicksonia antarctica. Just for starters. Love to continue the discussion on the Australian aesthetic
Thanks, Sally, for initiating this fascinating discussion on the Australian garden aesthetic. It’s something I have reflected on during extended time in England and Japan in the last couple of years. I walked the streets and laneways of Tokyo, and admired the wonderful use of tiny spaces. I adored the maples and gingkos in autumn, the anticipation of cherry blossoms in Spring and the wonderful sculpture and artistry of the Japanese gardens, the ponds, the kusari-toi (rain chains) … One surprise was the quite common use of Australian plants in landscaping in my Tokyo neighbourhood. It was such a delight to come across banksias, wattles and kangaroo paws. What was missing though, was our birdlife. What is special about our gardens is the uniqueness of our plants, as Hilary has mentioned, especially the soft silvery greens, the gnarly eucalypts, the gold of the grasses in late summer light the wonderful gumnuts and banksia pods, but also the variety of birds that live in our gardens. After the summer of devastating fires, we should all be planting habitat for our birds and insects. This is not necessarily indigenous plants; Eastern spinebills love the salvias in my garden in Autumn. Coming home after periods away, I see quite a strong Australian aesthetic in the gardens around me, and it makes my heart sing. When we make use of natural materials from our local environment, and embrace the shapes and subtle colours of our natives (which blend beautifully with blues and silvers of Mediterranean exotics, and the jacarandá mentioned earlier), we create something quite different from gardens in other parts of the World.
Thanks Andrea,
I think Michael made the point which struck a chord with me. Planting in borders rather than a more random arrangement of plants. Fiona Brockhof does this in her garden…….no garden “beds”. And Dan Hinkley does it in his cliff top garden ‘Windcliff’ in Washington State. And I agree about the birds, it is so much about the sounds around us…..and the birds do not discriminate about native or exotic, just like us they like an international diet. The honeyeaters here love Isoplexis which has flowers nearly all year. So now I will explore where I can ‘undefine’ the garden beds and reduce and repeat.
Loving this project and very popular because I need homes for all the plants I am removing,!
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