Garden designer, Ted Whitley, faced a real challenge when he was asked to create a garden on top of a garage. Ted said that it was the most difficult garden he has ever worked on, because of its westerly aspect, shade from trees on a neighbouring property, steepness, bad drainage and an 80m x 20m concrete floor (garage roof). Despite its limitations, the site has been successfully planted with a blend of native plants and semi-tropical exotics. This demonstrates that it is possible to have a low maintenance yet beautiful garden if the plants are carefully chosen to suit the situation.
Jungle planting
Ted worked for five years to build up and improve the soil, which was basically backfill over the top of the concrete slab. Because the drainage was so poor, he began putting in water loving plants, including a large number of Australian natives and rainforest plants.
When choosing plants Ted looked at foliage, flowers, fragrance, the structure of the plants and how well they adapted to harsh conditions. He aimed for a jungle feel – working plants in with each other, pruning to create a canopy and then underplanting to keep the weeds down.
Throughout the garden, sparks of pink colour are provided by bloodleaf (Iresine herbstii) and repeated in the foliage of cordylines (Cordyline ‘Rubra’) and the flowers of the camellia-like, Hong Kong rose (Rhodoleia championii). Other plants thriving in the garden include: grevilleas (Grevillea ‘Moonlight’), banksias (Banksia ericifolia), callistemons (Callistemon ‘Little John’), correas, melaleucas, cycads and ferns.
Ted loves the natural world. As he told Don, “It is possible to live in the natural world and still have what we want. We just have to make a little bit of room for who was here first”.
Further information
Ted Whitley
Garden Designer
Mobile: 0417 219 109