The Moonee Ponds backyard of Robyn Prent is wall-to-wall with an abundance of plant life. Robyn designed the garden herself, deliberating over the design for many years before realising her vision, using simple materials and colourful seasonal plants.
Our gardens columnist, Georgina Reid of The Planthunter takes a tour.
Savvy green thumb David Whitworth has earned a bit of a ‘Plant Man’ reputation, nurturing unwanted specimens back from the brink. This young landscape gardener rewards himself with potted purchases, and lives for tending his share-house lot in central Sydney.
Nestled in the town of Olinda is Beechmont, a 10 acre garden property belonging to Cherrie Miriklis-Pavlou. As Managing Director of iconic Melbourne florist Flowers Vasette, it’s no surprise that Cherrie is mad about flowers. She and her husband weren’t even looking for a new home when they stumbled across this property, but as she describes below, the pull of Beechmont was instant, and they couldn’t resist the calls of this green oasis.
Our gardens columnist, Georgina Reid of The Planthunter gives us the full story.
Today we chat to one of Australia’s pioneering landscape designers, Paul Bangay. Ever since he was a child, Paul has been obsessed with gardens, and particularly lush, sprawling country gardens.
After completing a Bachelor of applied Science in Horticulture at Melbourne University, Paul went on to open his Toorak nursery, where he designed a courtyard in the space. From this example came countless local commissions, followed by national and then international requests. Three decades later, eight authored books, a team of 12 employees and 1000s of gardens in between, Paul has just released his latest book, Paul Bangay’s Country Gardens! This book features many of the beloved country gardens he has designed over the years, and is a retrospective keepsake of one of Australia’s top garden designers.
Georgina Reid caught up with Paul to find out more about this celebrated local designer.
Matt and Lentil Purbrick of Grown & Gathered are with us again today, with another garden tutorial from their first book, Grown & Gathered!
From their farm in Tabilk, Matt and Lentil grow vegetables and flowers in abundance, which they sell and trade in Melbourne. In today’s excerpt, their share with us their simple but essential tips for growing seedlings from scratch.
Matt and Lentil Purbrick are the dynamic couple behind Grown & Gathered. On their farm in Tabilk, an hour and a half north of Melbourne, they grow vegetables and flowers in abundance, which they sell and trade in Melbourne. Over the past few years, they’ve gathered a cult following!
This month, Matt and Lentil celebrate the release of their first book, also called Grown & Gathered! It’s a truly gorgeous tome, beautifully photographed and designed, and dense with really useful information about growing vegetables, foraging for things like mushrooms, native greens and wild fruits, and raising animals.
TODAY Matt and Lentil share with us an excerpt from the book, covering the fundamentals of building a productive garden.
The West Brunswick garden of children’s book Illustrator Craig Smith, and artist / publisher Erica Wagner is a lush suburban oasis.
Abundant with native plantings and fresh veggies, the backyard also houses two art studios, used by both Erica and Craig in their respective creative fields. The pair have been here 15 years!
Our gardens columnist, Georgina Reid of The Planthunter gives us the full story.
It’s no secret we are huge fans of local plant purveyors Charlie Lawler and Wona Bae of Loose Leaf. Charlie and Wona have been our go-to resource for all things green ever since they set up their wonderful store and studio in Collingwood in 2014, offering urban Melburnians an incredible range of indoor plant life, as well as an endless calendar of workshops and events inspired by all things botanical.
Loose Leaf is the name of Wona and Charlie’s brand new book, out now through all good booksellers!
As one of Australia’s most renowned garden designers, Edna Walling was a trailblazer. She built a career designing, building and maintaining gardens, at a time where women were not encouraged to forge careers, let alone outdoorsy ones.
One of Edna Walling’s greatest feats was designing Bickleigh Vale; a unique 10-hectare housing development she created in the 1920s. Today the Vardy family are custodians of Walling’s old garden and home, continuing the legacy of this grand garden, and breathing new life into it.
Our gardens columnist, Georgina Reid of The Planthunter, introduces us to this very special Melbourne garden.
Barry Byrne is a man of vision. When he and his partner, Miguel Alvarez, moved to ‘Bebeah’, a five-hectare garden estate at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains of NSW, he says there was nothing except a few large trees. That was 30 years ago, and in the decades that have since passed, together this pair have re-established the property. The garden was originally built in 1880 by Edward Cox, and these days is once again open for the public to enjoy.
Our gardens columnist Georgina Reid recently spent a morning in the garden with Barry and Miguel.
