FROM THE GROUND UP
1Ponytail palms form a bower above a curved timber bench seat in a private garden nook. A row of jade plant (Crassula ovata) borders a raised bed along the fence, which is filled with Dracaena compacta and song of India (D. reflexa). To the left of the bench, a potted anthurium displays beautiful red spathes most of the year. This and other potted plants are moved to prime positions around the garden when they’re looking their best.
2There are two archways on the property, and this one frames the entrance to a sheltered, shady nook. A quirky wire and spinifex sculpture shares the space beneath a tall Queensland box tree (Lophostemon confertus) with a collection of tough and easy-care potted plants, including pachysedum, fimbristylis, jade plant, aloe and ponytail palm.
3Greg Kinman takes a break among some of his favourite plants. Assessing the relationships between plants, and whether they need pruning, moving or re-potting, is an ongoing task.
4Clusters of red-tinged Neoregelia ‘Fireball’, a bromeliad from Brazil, echo the earthy tones of a favourite old Dinmore ceramic bowl filled with another South American beauty, Ctenanthe burle-marxii.
PREVIOUS PAGE
The pebblecrete driveway has been transformed into an appealing entrance and secluded courtyard. A stonemason was engaged to build a wall using pieces of porphyry, granite, stone edging, sandstone and basalt that Greg had collected. Endemic celery wood (Polyscias elegans) along the fence provides the perfect backdrop to a collection of pots. The tiny leaves on Portulacaria afra ‘Decumbent’ contrast with Euphorbia ‘Cowboy’ spires, while candelabra-like E. cooperi has found a home in a stone mosaic pot, and the succulent Graptopetalum mendozae sits beneath a dragon tree (Dracaena draco). To the right, a Ficus obliqua, defying the odds planted in a shallow bowl, is Greg’s nod to bonsai. After finding the fig growing in a jam tin, he planted it in a part of an old fountain. The ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) grew unusually as a multi-stemmed plant. When the pot cracked, Greg wound fencing wire around it. “You can get years more growth from a cracked pot if you secure it,” he says, adding that succulent-style plants tolerate small pots very well. This reflects their natural habitat, where they grow in poor soils between rocky patches.
found instant homes, either placed around the garden or planted out. Greg has a huge collection of old pots, including myriad concrete pots, which were popular in the 1960s, and he has a talent for arranging pot plants in perfectly balanced combinations.
Greg happily mixes succulents with natives, including the endemic species Banksia aemula and B. robur, which he has worked into the front garden. These are both plants of the wallum – the tough heathland ecosystem of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. Coming to the coast, with glimpses of the national park from his front garden, has given Greg the opportunity to study the wallum. “It takes a little while to come to understand it,” he says. “It’s quite wild and messy, but there’s a quiet beauty in it.”
Greg has also planted things that he enjoyed growing before, such as hybrid aloes and Lomandra confertifolia ‘Little Pal’ with its grassy texture. “When you see honeyeaters move from banksias to aloes, you realise there’s a link between African plants and ours,” he says.