Plants of the future

Natives stole the show at this year’s Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. JENNY BALDWIN dips into the planting schemes for ideas and inspiration

Australian native plants stole the spotlight at this year’s Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

They were everywhere. Kangaroo paws, brachychitons, banksias, Wollemi pines, native grasses... Australian plants really stole the show at this year’s event – in fact, they were the show in the Avenue of Achievable Gardens, where design and horticulture students strut their stuff.

As I moved between the gardens with our photographer, Virginia, we agreed that native gardens used to be a bit all or nothing. What we were seeing was a real shift in how Australian plants are used. Natives were being mixed in with exotics, and arranged in ways that many of us find pleasing – a melding of drifts and wispy loveliness, with structural shapes to anchor it all, and repetition of colours and textures.

We all interpret artworks differently, and so it is with gardens. These are my observations on what the world of garden design offered us this year to chew on – and copy! I hope you find a few ideas here to try out in your own garden.

Dry bones

As our climate warms and water becomes more scarce, ‘The Loggia’, whose awards included a gold medal and Best in Show, is the type of garden we might see a lot more of in future. Natives mix seamlessly into a dry-climate planting scheme that’s heavy on ‘plants of the moment’, such as sedum, dichondra, miscanthus, yucca and kniphofia. Among the grasses are a native toughie, Lomandra ‘Seascape’, and up the back you can see Banksia spinulosa ‘Birthday Candles’ and ‘Amber Velvet’ kangaroo paws. The colour palette is one that cropped up repeatedly this year – grey-green, blue-green, lime-green, muted reds and oranges, and yellow or purple.

What’s clever is the way your view up to the commanding water feature is crisscrossed with swathes of foliage and flowers that look randomly assigned, but have been planted in threes or fives, and thoughtfully placed so that each one offsets the one next to it. It’s an achievable planting trick for any gardener to try – odd numbers, repetition and a unified colour scheme, resulting in a wild, romantic look that’s underpinned by pragmatism.

BELOW & LEFT

Another common motif was black chairs, like these ones below, and in the distance at left.

Bush baby

The name of this garden seems to say it all: ‘Gone Bushesque’. I read this as a blend of the gardening style we call gardenesque, and the bush. There’s a fair bit packed into this small space, with that green wall being the standout feature.

That and the blue swathe of grasses (Festuca glauca ‘Beyond Blue’) flanking the bluestone steppers. They seem to shimmer like water, which is exactly what designer Katherine Westle intends, with her concept of stepping stones showing the way through a stream. The patchwork green wall, which has the look of a distant or aerial view of the bush, is planted with festuca, Dichondra argenta ‘Silver Falls’, kidney weed (Dichondra repens), cushion bush (Scleranthus biflorus), Korean velvet grass (Zoysia tenuifolia) and Scaevola ‘Mauve Clusters’. There’s that beautiful palette again, too: yellow and purple dotted through a sea of greens, greys and blues.

Love me tender

Bird nest, love nest or both? If you thought you couldn’t create a rainforest vibe in a small space, think again, with this garden titled ‘Rainforest Nest’. Inspired by eagle nests found on outcrops near her home in Marysville, designer Jessica Villani has created a delightful nook to snuggle up in, awash in filtered light and fringed by the leaves of blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon). The seating area is simply woven vines on a metal frame, but it’s slightly elevated above the ferns (predominantly a mixture of Blechnum spp.), and log steppers, which are charred to remind us of the devastating fires that have ripped through the area. All the plants in this garden are native or indigenous species.

Ace of spades

There’s lots to love in ‘Redivivus Materia’ (if not the name, which means recycled material), starting with the apparently random placement of plants (no such thing, we know!), the pretty colour scheme, the rusty and natural elements, and this super cute area (below) that I’m calling an outdoor lounge or bedroom. There’s the bed and bedside table, made from recycled materials), a living rug of cushion bush (Scleranthus biflorus), and the plant ‘picture’ with black coral pea (Kennedia nigricans) wound through a mesh frame. And how about this water feature? Designer Jason Donnelly told me he’d seen spades used as water features before, but not turned this way, with the water coming out the groove on the back, and cascading across the spade. We love it!