Don thinks that today’s gardens, particularly in Australia, are the best they’ve ever been. They are better to entertain in and better to live in, although they can be a bit ‘blokey’. Many designs feature straight lines and geometry, giving them a slightly hard appearance. For children, they’re not such great places to get lost in and for women they’re just not feminine enough. In our segment, Don tried to redress the balance in a blokey garden. He added a bit of femininity – flowers, foliage and softness as well as a piece of pleasant design. The result was a relaxing garden for the whole family to enjoy, not just the guy.
Don chose a whole range of plants designed to give the garden a soft, feminine touch. He used the ‘put and look’ method to decide on planting positions, with no strict geometry to the placement. He used lots of flowering plants, including blue statice (Limonium perezii ‘Perezii Blue’), bearded iris (Iris cv.), daylilies (Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’), butterfly bush (Gaura lindheimeri ‘Passionate Blush’) and yellow flowering kniphofias (Kniphofia ‘Lemon green’).
Many of these make great cut flowers for use inside the house, and others, such as lavender (Lavandula ‘Avonview’) and mock orange (Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’) have fragrant flowers. A feature of the garden is the magnificent climbing rose scrambling all the way around the window, illustrating beautifully that gardens are not just about harsh geometry.
Further information
1 bale of sugar cane mulch costs about $18
Plants shown in our segment are readily available at nurseries, and cost $5-20 depending on pot sizes.