Room to grow
Be inspired by a sprawling garden in Sydney’s north-west developed by a passionate gardener
When Pamela Wallace and husband Hugh were searching for a property in 2014, one of the key items on the wishlist was acreage. As a passionate gardener (Pamela was short-listed in the Gardener of the Year competition in 2018) with what she calls a ‘full and luscious’ gardening style, Pamela was on the hunt for a new playground. The couple found what they were looking for in a 2ha property in Dural, a semi-rural suburb in Sydney’s Hills District. Having close access to plentiful nurseries and specialist plant growers in the area was a bonus.
The original parts of the garden, designed by country-garden designer Michael Bligh, include a number of deciduous trees, a crabapple walk, a formal rose garden, stone walls and substantial box hedges near the four massive eucalypts closest to the house.
Inspired by French and English country gardens, and fuelled by a love of roses, Pamela’s vision for the garden has involved softening some of the harder lines and creating more interest with layered plantings. Since she began making the garden her own, every bed has been added to, extended, remodelled or linked, and the garden areas have tripled in size as a result.
Pamela has added a woodland along the southern boundary, a bromeliad garden, a ball-sculpture garden, an elegant potager, fabulous perennial borders and a Hidcote-inspired mahogany and red terraced garden, as well as hedges and arbors dividing garden rooms, a variety of sculptures and water features, and an impressive dry garden surrounding the dam.
Native plants feature, too. Callistemon and westringia blend well with this style of garden, and grafted eremophila and hardenbergia feature near the dam. Grey-foliaged licorice plant ( Helichrysum petiolare) and the lighter H. ‘Limelight’ trail over walls, and add a sculptural element as topiaried balls.
Pamela enjoys planting en masse, mostly using cuttings or divisions that are planted directly, or seeds sown in clusters. “I don’t like to see any bare soil!” she says. She selects small plants or tubestock to help plants establish better, and makes choices about plants based on the seasons, so the garden has flowers, colour and interest year-round. The local Galston Garden Club is a great source of information, and members are keen to share plants and cuttings.
roses, roses everywhere
Roses feature in different settings throughout the garden, and are a clear favourite. They can be found in a traditional rose garden, among perennials, in borders, as groundcovers, climbing up and over walls, fences, arbors and archways, and grouped by colour.
The previous owners also planted many roses, especially in the formal rose garden in front of the house. Most were Hybrid Teas, with some David Austin varieties. Pamela transplanted all of the yellow- and orange-toned roses into the potager. She also increased the number of those with pink and white blooms,
including ‘Seduction’ and ‘The Children’s Rose’, and added many old-fashioned David Austin and repeat-blooming varieties. See ‘Pamela’s Favourite Roses’ ( overpage) for a selection of these.
Pamela chooses her roses for their form, repeat blooming and disease resistance. She removes old mulch and fallen leaves to reduce the incidence of fungal problems and the need to spray for black spot, and doesn’t spray for aphids, instead relying on insect predators, such as ladybirds and insectivorous birds.
The roses are hard-pruned in late July, or later if the garden is opening in spring. Pamela applies soil conditioners containing liquid seaweed, fish emulsion and manure, and uses sugarcane mulch. The roses get a serve of organic-based pelletised rose food when shoots appear in mid to late spring, and the blooms are deadheaded throughout the growing season. Pamela cuts flowers for the house, but likes to leave plenty in the garden.
overcoming challenges
Despite the property being cleared for use as orchards in the late 1800s, tall stands of mature trees remain, including turpentine ( Syncarpia glomulifera), Sydney angophora ( Angophora costata) and eucalypt. “We love the trees. Their silhouettes in the golden western light as the sun sets are stunning,” says Pamela. “We are in awe of their towering trunks and artwork-like bark patterning.”
However, growing plants under large gums can be a challenge. Pamela has created dry, naturalistic gardens beneath the trees by building up the soil with layers of mulch and organic material. These gardens are planted with a wide variety of succulents, Helichrysum petiolare, lamb’s ears ( Stachys spp.) and hybrid agapanthus, interspersed with seed-sown cosmos, nasturtium and strawflower, which have flourished in the improved soil.
Throughout the rest of the garden, Pamela has improved the hard clay soil by regularly adding layers of mulch, such as sugarcane and lucerne, with ongoing applications of organic fertilisers, including blood and bone and plenty of duck manure. Prunings are chopped, mulched and returned to the beds.
Pamela mulches heavily to reduce weeds, and handweeds anything that pops up in the gravel paths or paved areas. She also does all the planting in the garden and enjoys trimming the topiary, while two helpers come to the property regularly to do all the lawns, edges and hedge trimming.
watering the garden
Although the Sydney region has received an abundance of rain over recent months, water has been a concern for Pamela since taking over this large garden. To keep her garden thriving, she has been handwatering young plants until they are established, relying on rainfall for outer areas of the property, and using an Envirocycle wastewater recycling system for the woodland garden and drip irrigation for new gardens and plants around the house. This regime was adequate until the drought set in.