Seasonal beauty
This cool-climate garden is designed to provide colour and interest all year
Nine years ago, when Justin and Reed saw their little cottage in Katoomba for the first time, they fell in love with it. Although they initially missed out on buying the property in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, when it was back on the market a year later, they left nothing to chance and snapped it up. It was a slightly worn and torn 1920s weatherboard cottage, but
“the yard was singing to us like a siren and calling us from Sydney”, Reed recalls.
Justin and Reed had never designed a garden before, but both were keen to embrace the region’s cool climate. At the time, the garden consisted of little more than an expanse of lawn and a statuesque maple tree, which they’ve retained. Eight years later, it’s otherwise unrecognisable.
The front garden, which Justin says is typical Blue Mountains, features azaleas, cherries, maples in red and pink tones, and four huge pines on the boundary that suck up all the available water and nutrients.
It’s in the backyard that they’ve concentrated their efforts on creating a four-seasons garden, as Justin fondly calls it.
levels of interest
The rear garden covers an area of about 350m2. Seen through the wall-sized picture window in the lounge room, it’s a breathtaking view that entices you outside to explore. When you’re out there among the 1385 plants that fill this relatively small space, you begin to realise that about half are not your average cool-climate species.
Justin says he is the “minutia detail man” obsessed with tulip species, irises and the Arisaema genus, to name a few. “Reed, on the other hand, is tree-obsessed,” he adds. “He has chosen all of them, planting them in the ground, in pots… you name it, he’s put a tree in it! He’s really big on architectural, structural plants.”
The back garden is divided into two levels. A retaining wall creates both height variation and a secondary path beside the garage, which is covered in Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). The upper garden is framed by camellia hedges, and accessed via wide, gentle steps and a curved pathway from the lounge room deck. The stairs are framed on either side by a ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) and a dramatically pruned tulip magnolia (Magnolia x soulangeana). When both are in leaf, the back of the garden remains a mystery and the steps draw the curious further into the garden. In winter, when the trunks of the deciduous ginkgo and magnolia are exposed, they bring a sculptural element to the space.
Beyond the stairs, the circular lawn is framed by garden beds containing euphorbias, marigolds, peonies, Asiatic lilies, avens (Geum spp.), bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), Mollis azaleas, salvias and hellebores. Burgundy foliage is dotted throughout in the form of smoke bush (Cotinus spp.), Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’, maples, heuchera, cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and pineapple lily (Eucomis spp.). Water plants are tucked behind the maple in half wine barrels.
The succulent groundcovers are a constant and, after some casualties, the toughest, frost-surviving species remain. Used throughout, groundcovers prevent weeds, leaving Justin and Reed with more time to tend, prune, feed and water.
In this part of the garden, the textural delight of the various dwarf conifers, hostas and Amorphophallus konjac really comes to the fore. The differentiation creates interest and surprise, while the sheer number of species in the garden is mind-boggling.
To keep track of what goes into the garden each season, Justin meticulously records the details in a journal. Flicking through it, he recalls which of the hundreds of plants have made it, and the few that haven’t. It’s this devotion to each and every one that makes me ask if there’s really room for any more. “Aside from bulbs, I’ll never buy another plant,” Justin responds, but somehow I doubt it.
sharing the spotlight
With photographic recall, Justin knows where every bulb is located. He has used succession planting to great effect, taking into account the flowering cycle of each species and layering the garden so that one follows the next. Each deciduous plant (60 per cent of the garden is deciduous) has its moment to shine. It then dies back, giving the next plant its turn.
At the back of the upper level, Justin’s rainbow-coloured Gouldian finches, and painted and star finches, are housed in an 8m2 aviary. In this garden, where no space is without plants of some kind, the shade of this structure creates the right microclimate for the potted orchids.
The conservatory at the rear of the garage is where Justin potters away, propagating his favourite plants and tending his fish tanks. When the lower garden was planted two years ago, more than half of the 400 plants used to fill it had been propagated in the conservatory.
The bedroom window overlooks this area, so Justin wanted to include his and Reed’s favourite plants. Arisaema spp., Astilbe spp., butterfly amaryllis (Hippeastrum papilio), Geranium ‘Rozanne’, azaleas and a potted maple have filled out the space in a short time. But as Justin shows me around and mentions plans for additions, the glint in his eye says that, like any true gardener’s garden, it’s never going to be ‘finished’.