Cheryl Maddocks has written 34 books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles on gardening. She is the gardening columnist for the Good Weekend (Sydney Morning Herald, The Age), and she is also a member of the horticultural team at Burke’s Backyard. In our segment Don visited Cheryl at her home in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. On the way there the old story of the plumber and the dripping tap crossed his mind, and he wondered what a horticulturist’s garden would look like. But, as soon as Don walked through the gate, he was impressed with the garden’s beauty and its lovely, relaxed feel.
Garden features
The garden has a formal structure but the planting is loose, with foliage and flowers spilling over pathways and softening all the edges. A flax plant (Phormium tenax) about 2.5m tall with huge, strap-like leaves adds drama and height to the planting. It also reminds Cheryl of her New Zealand origins! At most times of the year, particularly summer, the garden is filled with purple, yellow and blue flowers. When we visited, both a tibouchina (Tibouchina grandiflora) and lepechinia (Lepechinia hastata) were putting on an autumn display of bright purple flowers. Cheryl stressed the importance of growing interesting foliage plants as well as flowers, because they give you colour and texture in the garden throughout the year, even when all the flowers are gone. Many of the plants in the garden have grey, silver or grey-green foliage to complement the grey colours on the house. They include a clipped hedge of bush germander (Teucrium fruticans), Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, Carex albula (also sold as Carex ‘Frosted Curls’) and honey flower (Melianthus major), which has grey-green leaves. On the steps leading to the verandah, succulents (Echeveria secunda) seem to tumble and spill out of pots lying on their sides. This worries some visitors, who want to set them straight! Nearby a teapot planted with echeverias (Echeveria elegans) sits on a table, along with a candelabra with succulents (Echeveria secunda) where the candles should be!
