Achievable Garden
Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2018

As part of the diploma at SWINBURNE for Landscape Design and Horticulture, students were offered the chance to submit a design for a small Achievable Garden. Our team of Ricky Hayward and I were offered a slot for the 2018 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.
Our aim was to create an entirely edible garden, while being a fun and entertaining space.
It was a hit! We had crowds of interested people every day asking questions and intrigued by the variety of plants and the beauty of the layout.
The Build took 3 days, and the Show ran for 4 days. Here are some photos we took before and during the show:

Point Cook Garden Makeover

My clients wanted to reorganise their rear garden to be more productive, with a focus on fruit trees and raised garden beds. They also envisaged a more interesting layout and focus on flowering plants for the front garden.

Back garden:

I realised that they had too much space devoted to grass, but they wanted to keep the clothesline and some grass.
We marked out a circular space for the remaining grass
The rest of the grass was cleared and the space was edged with corten steel deep enough to stop future invasions from the grass roots.
Also, all the garden beds were covered in rocks which heated the soil, and the paths were bordered with gravel which ‘travelled’ to the deck, damaging the surface.
I designed a productive garden to maximise growing space and better suited to accessing raised wicking beds for growing vegetables and herbs, shaded by fruit trees.

• Two more wicking beds were sited and built with access space allowed.
• The garden shed was painted Colorbond Dark Grey to ‘disappear’ it
• The garden beds were deepened to allow scaled planting using permaculture principles.
• The gravel was removed from the paths and reused in the bases of the wicking beds and on the surrounding access areas.
• We cleaned all the rocks off the beds and reused them around the pathways and sideway. 

A deep garden bed was created next to the fence facing the back deck to plant a hedge of trees - these would lower the temperature and provide a pleasant view, blocking out the neighbour!
Ground covers and ferns were planted in the shady western sideway to create some beauty and interest as well as disguise the fence for the window views.

Front Garden:

I layered the front garden slope into 3 levels with corten edging for the outline and two corten dividers criss crossing to give a sense of beds for different types of plants, shrubs and trees. A beautiful flowering gum took pride of place offset to the right on the top layer.
We used some of the rocks from the backyard to fill out the pavers on the path and in the gap between the corten and the front public path, as well as next to the driveway.
The nature strip was cleared of grass and new soil added to enable planting of resistant native bushes and ground covers.
Then the fun part - planting to the agreed plan for both front and back and setting the irrigation lines.

Garden Refresh

Defined spaces were super-imposed on this garden by using corten steel edging at different heights and backfilling with new soil and mulch. No grass was required, so all other gravel spaces were filled with mid-sized pebbles. A new coat of oil was applied to the deck and a stair added as well as the irrigation drip lines, and timing system installed. Companion vegetables, herbs and indigenous edibles were placed through all the beds to soften the fruit trees and the corten edging.

Rooftop Beauty

The stunning views from this penthouse were enhanced by installing balcony height planters and filling them with tall grasses and prostrate rosemary that can withstand the wind and sun. The pergola needed a variety of large pots filled with climbing vines, creepers, and hardy natives to add colour and eventually further shade. Handy herbs like oregano, thyme and sage were planted in smaller spaces around the BBQ area and irrigation lines were connected to keep everything happy!

Tropical Melbourne Garden

What a challenge to create this garden in existing, defined concrete beds! First all the old soil was removed and replaced with a sand/soil mix for drainage and to avoid compaction. I chose a palm from Uruguay as a focal point in this tropical paradise, as it grows on nearly the same Parallel as Melbourne. A bottle tree and bromeliads, New Zealand flax, ginger, clumping bamboo, liriope, cannas, dwarf red cordylines, a stunning grass tree and prostrate acacia limelight all came together beautifully.
The front garden featured standard grevilleas, liriopes, nandinas and assorted groundcovers, with Teddy Bear Magnolias to mark the windows and fence line bed.

Welcome Home

A generous concrete parking area in the front yard needed softening with a wildflower, strappy plants, and grasses underplanting of the existing trees. The beds had compacted soil so, after breaking that up, compost and soil was piled up on both beds with a topping of mulch and the planting begun. The house-side bed had some old camellias as a backdrop, so a matching one was found to fill in a gap and a riot of flowers and small bushes were planted to soften the edges.