Best-ever bathroom jungle
Where does the garden end and the interior begin? It’s hard to tell in this glorious indoor-outdoor garden in Sydney’s suburbs
At the front door of Ewa and Marshall’s house in Sydney’s Lower North Shore, you wouldn’t guess you’re about to enter a wonderland of plants. But just down the hall, the whole place opens up and it is hard to tell where the garden begins and ends.
Indoor plants fill the open-plan kitchen and dining areas, then overflow into the conservatory living room and continue out in the garden. When the bi-fold doors are pushed back there’s no boundary between indoors and out. Lush tropical plantings lure you down to the outdoor entertaining space, complete with pizza oven, and on to the greenhouses and fruit and vegie beds.
But the highlight is the bathroom, which is packed with as many plants as Ewa (pronounced ‘Ever’) can fit in. They’re on the walls, around the basin and even surround the toilet.
The overall effect is of being totally immersed in greenery.
“I walk in each morning and say good morning to them,”
Ewa says. “I check if they need water and tell them how beautiful they are.” It seems to be working.
The white tiled walls make a crisp backdrop to the myriad foliage colours and textures that cover them. Ewa uses wire baskets that attach with suction caps on the tiles to hold her pots, but there are also hanging baskets, plants climbing up totem poles and decorative potted plants on every surface.
The suction caps allow plenty of flexibility to move the wire baskets as needed. “One of Ewa’s strengths is that she’s not afraid to change things, so drilling holes is no good,” observes Marshall with a fond smile. The latest addition is a three-tiered shelf stand that surrounds the toilet, which Ewa commissioned from her daughter Sylwia’s carpenter partner.
The bathroom is home to what Ewa calls “the princesses” – plants that are difficult to grow in the main rooms because they need extra warmth and humidity. With a heated bathroom floor and towel rail, and the shower running at least once a day, it is heaven for tropical plants. Ewa even brings her trays of vegetable seedlings into the bathroom and places them on the heated floor to speed germination during the cold months.
selecting the right plants
It’s hard to believe Ewa's collection of about 180 house plants happened mostly in the last two years. She claims she tried to grow plants in the living room many times, but they always died. It wasn’t until her daughter Sylwia started sharing her experience with indoor plants (she’s a member of online group CIPPA – Crazy Indoor Plant People Australia) that she started having more success. Sylwia advised on suitable plants for low light, such as monstera and devil’s ivy, to start with, then the pair started getting into more unusual species.
When Sylwia took Ewa to the Collectors’ Plant Fair at Clarendon in 2019 the addiction got serious. “She infected me with the bug!” laughs Ewa. “And she knows the correct name for every plant.” Now when Sylwia finds a rare treasure she buys two – one for herself and one for her mum. They’ve paid big dollars for some rarities, but Ewa says she takes just as much pride in a $5 plant rescued from a nursery. “I love all of them.”
Despite this recent passion for indoor plants, growing things has always been in Ewa’s blood. On her parents’ small farm in Poland where she was brought up, self sufficiency was the norm. “We produced everything we ate, from vegetables to chickens, cows and pigs,” she says. “My mother was a very good gardener, especially for vegetables.”
Although Ewa came to Australia as an adult 30-odd years ago, this is her first house with a garden. She jumped into growing vegetables, herbs and fruits, experimenting with many different types of tomatoes and chillies, which Marshall turns into chutneys, pickles and jams. A few years ago he built her two greenhouses for propagating and growing vegetables that need protection, while Ewa researched, learnt and worked hard. She’s had spectacular successes, but the battle with pests has become dispiriting, despite their ongoing efforts to exclude possums, rats, birds and caterpillars. Fruit fly is the worst enemy, according to Ewa, especially on her beloved tomatoes.
Meanwhile, she was also developing the garden beds, and mass planting mostly lush, subtropical species that are low maintenance, such as coloured-leaf cordylines (Cordyline fruticosa cvs), elephant’s ear (Alocasia spp.), frangipani, clivia, ginger, silver lady fern (Blechnum ‘Silver Lady’), bird’s-nest fern, bromeliads, slender weaver’s bamboo (Bambusa textilis ‘Gracilis’) and Himalayan weeping bamboo (Drepanostachyum falcatum). Palms include golden cane (Dypsis lutescens), cascade palm (Chamaedorea cataractarum), Bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) and dwarf date palm (Phoenix roebelenii).
Plants in the back garden, which runs east to west, are not safe from being moved either, as ideas for improvement occur. The frangipanis have been moved at least twice, according to
Marshall, who is chief hole-digger. Greening any areas of bare fence are trailing mistletoe cactus (Rhipsalis spp.), elkhorn ferns, native orchids and air plants (Tillandsia usneoides).
outdoor labour of love
The couple love entertaining family and friends, so their latest project is the outdoor kitchen. The star is a wood-fired pizza oven, and there are also drawer-style fridges, a barbecue, seating and bench space. Marshall is responsible for the kitchen’s design and various finishing touches. Inspired by a piece of seasoned redgum he’d found, he fashioned part of the massive timber beam into a floating bar. His woodworking skills have been developed at the local men’s shed he joined after retiring.
Using recycled timbers and working to Ewa’s designs, he has also built several timber plant stands, which provide extra display space for pot plants in their conservatory – an outdoor space they enclosed recently. Full-height glass doors fold right back, while clear roofing makes the space light.
No matter where the plants are, they are a movable feast. “I can change my mind many times,” Ewa laughs. “I’ll arrange plants in lots of different ways until it looks right to me.”
When she decides to take all the plants outside on a wet weekend (Ewa still works full-time running her own business) to enjoy a thorough rainwater shower, it’s a six-hour labour of love. Returning them offers opportunities for new ways to combine and display the plants. “It looks much better to have clusters of plants,” says Ewa. “I think they talk to each other and are happier being surrounded by each other.”