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Portfolio: Garden Design Chatswood
I designed this garden in Chatswood in March 2013, pretty much exactly three years ago. The client has been chipping away at building the garden from my drawings over the years, it is a large garden that backs onto some beautiful bushland, where weeds have been a constant problem. Below you can see an image…
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Keith’s Garden
This is my friend Keith’s native front garden in Bulli, I have wanted to take photos of this garden for a long time and on a recent visit finally remembered my camera. Phew! I had to snap quickly as the sun was setting and the mozzies were out. The garden is located on the escarpment…
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Portfolio: Garden Design Ashfield
This garden was in the making for only a few days, the plants went in on a very hot day last week but overall it felt very streamlined and easy to build and I have surprised even myself with the transformation! In the image below you can see what it looked like in November… The…
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Joseph Banks Native Plants Reserve
Every spring the Sutherland Australian Plants Society Group hold a day of Spring walks in Sir Joseph Banks Native Gardens in Kareela. I have been meaning to visit this native garden for years t is fairly local to me and I had heard wonderful things about it. The gardens were started by Sutherland Shire…
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Happy Wattle Day: Acacia cognata
September the 1st is National Wattle day, did you know that? I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t until fairly recently…whoops! Wattle Day has quite a long history going back to when the Wattle became our National emblem, you can read more about it here http://www.wattleday.asn.au/about-wattle-day-1 What I find particularly interesting about this National Day of celebration is…
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Acid Drops: Leptomeria acida
This was a new discovery for me on a recent bush walk on the northern Illawarra escarpment, and even just looking at the images again now makes my mouth water…..yum sour berries, not everyones cup of tea but at the time after 5 hours of walking and with limited drinking water they were a very…
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Fast Growing, Weeping Screen: Acacia cognata ‘Burgundy Cascade’
It seems that there are endless forms of Acacia cognata all battling for attention, all beautiful with their soft weeping habit and mostly with a hardy nature. I personally will never tire of them and if the market continues to be flooded with choice I am quite happy. There are more than a dozen Acacia…
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Walcott Garden: Canberra
A few weeks back I was lucky enough to appeal to a very generous couple, Ros and Ben Walcott. I contacted them out of the blue and asked if I could visit their garden. We were travelling to Canberra to see an exhibition and I had just read an article about their garden in the…
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Shady Reds: Breynia ‘Ironstone’
This is one of those special native plants that has deep red to burgundy foliage when it receives lots of sun, like Agonis ‘Burgundy’. It is also one of those special native plants that seems to have no height restriction, or rather non that is published, therefore when I found one that is about 10…
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Portfolio: Garden Design Lillyfield
Thanks so much for our garden Kath, we love it! I love this garden too! I love its quirky, modern feel where details are appreciated, the client pushed me to think out of the box more than I normally do. This is a small garden by suburban standards but large by inner city ones. It…
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Portfolio: Centennial Park Garden Design
Thankyou so much for my garden, I really enjoy pottering around everyday and watching things slowly change, there is always something happening! This is a garden that has been totally transformed in the space of 12 months, the owner wanted a formal native garden in keeping with her home and the suburb where she…
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Grafted Grevillea of the moment: Grevillea petrophiloides ‘Wild Beauty’
I am beginning to come around gradually to grafted Grevilleas, it has taken me about 5 years to slowly but surely start including them in my designs. I’m not really sure why I was so reluctant to begin with, maybe it was the local indigenous plant Nazi in me, maybe I just didn’t trust them….but…
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Water Garden Planting
Water is an important part of every garden, it encourages wildlife and can be a useful feature adding a tranquil peaceful element. Planting out a water garden is a great opportunity to discover some wonderful native plants, that flower and have striking foliage like other ornamental plantings, if grouped with some thought the plants will…
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One of my favourite Mallees…Eucalyptus luehmanniana
This is Eucalyptus leuhmanniana or Yellow Topped Ash, it is a rare species to the east coast of NSW and grows in high rainfall areas on sandstone soils, it comes in a glaucous and non-glaucus form, the glaucous form is my first choice. Above you can see the whitish-silver stems and buds of the glaucous…
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The Temperamentally Fruiting Plume Pine: Podocarpus elatus
I am always excited when I get to taste a new bush tucker food, these Australian native plant foods seem to get a fairly bad rap when it comes to flavour and usually I am pleasantly surprised when something ends up being quite palatable and occasionally delicious! Therefore it was fantastic to find a Podocarpus…
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In Support of Agonis ‘Burgundy’
So there is an out break of a plant disease that started in Australia a couple of years ago in nurseries called ‘Myrtle Rust‘ it affects all plants in the Myrtaceae family and it is incredibly dramatic. It is still about and is moving through our bushland at rapid rate. These rusts are serious pathogens…
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Tapestry Gardens
Van Gogh reputedly introduced the idea of a tapestry garden, relying on the hue, texture, size and shape of foliage creating a tapestry like mosaic. Diane Snape I was doing some research a couple of nights ago and came across this section titled Tapestry Gardens in Diane Snape’s book ‘The Australian Garden‘ and it is…
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Low Shrubbery: Acacia howittii ‘Honey Bun’
I have had my eye on this little dwarf form of Acacia for a few years now, it isn’t as common as some of the Acacia cognata dwarfs, which is one of the reasons it appeals to me. This is Acacia howittii ‘Honey Bun’ and it is an incredibly pretty and useful low shrub, suitable for…
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Eucalyptus ‘Silver Princess’ at Heide
I accidentally visited the Heide Museum of Modern Art last month, WOW it was a pretty wonderful accident! They have the most beautiful sculpture gardens, which are expansive and great for kids. The art Gallery itself is also an impressive building surrounded in native gardens with a bit of an edge. I saw this wonderful…
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Silver Tea Tree: Leptospermum brachyandrum ‘Silver’
This has been my favourite Tea tree for a few years now, it is Leptospermum brachyandrum ‘Silver’ and for the first time I saw some more mature specimens when I visited Cranbourne Botanic Gardens in January. I was overjoyed as I have two in my garden that are only head height so far and three…
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Portfolio: Greenwich Garden Design
This is a garden that I designed back in 2011 and recently revisited to re-tweek some difficult spots and increase the planting area. The rear garden is very steep and has been terraced with sandstone retaining walls, the furthest section of the garden is in heavy shade and was suffering from erosion. There is a…
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Portfolio: Consult Figtree
I have been busy this week planting out a consult design in Wollongong, it has been very satisfying cleaning up an aged garden, digging up weeds and tree roots and planting fresh natives. The bones of the garden were already there, pathways, existing large trees and a brand new renovation and deck, what was needed…
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Bush Tucker Under-Dog: Dianella caerulea
This season is the first time I have had a decent flush of fruit on my Dianella caerulea and I have been pleasantly surprised by the taste, although it doesn’t hit the same spot as the midyim berry, it is actually tasty enough for me to pick and munch on whilst in the garden.
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Casuarina Groundcovers: Casuarina glauca prostrate
I adore Casuarinas, in all shapes and forms, so I’m pretty happy with the number of ground cover Casuarinas that are around at the moment. They are tough, quick growing and have a lovely weeping soft look about them, they also can grow to form interesting shapes and textures in the garden. By the way…
Tag: weeping habit