For a long time I used to wonder what to say Garden Lovers ..
… when people asked “What’s the kind of garden you’re making in Sydney ?”
Warm temperate … Pacific rim ? Coastal frost free …well it was all these but I just had no collective name for it that would capture them all.
Until one day colleague Catherine Stewart and I were chatting about this and I realised her suggestion of Cool Subtropics was by far, the best way to describe the Sydney growing condition. Especially within coastal suburbs like Northern Beaches, Harbourside, Eastern Suburbs and where all pix came from here at ‘Sea-Changer’ my home studio garden at Forresters Beach on the Central Coast.
So Garden Lovers, at 1pm on Saturday, 10th April just after Easter, at the Collectors Plant Fair ’21 Clarendon, I’m giving a talk not about some far flung ‘idealised’ climate. I’m giving a talk on how to make a better garden of exciting plants at your place … in beautiful Cool Subtropics Sydney (or anywhere that equates up & down East Coast Australia).
You’ll find out just what to ask the stall-holder Growers, to make sure that gorgeous plant you’ve been eying off, is right for your growing conditions AND will do the job it’s being bought for ie conceal the fence, weed suppression, make useful shade. Tired of being ‘garden shamed’ ? Dry Shade, thin top soil over bed rock, harsh unirrigated west, root ridden soil from next doors monstrous tree ..gloom ? These are all normal growing spaces and we need MORE INTERESTING plants that will do well in them to make our gardens THRILLING !!!
So let’s celebrate the return of Collectors Plant Fair (map how to get there .. ) AND our mostly frost free gardens, where the warm humid breath of Queensland visits us every summer. Mark your planners now, buy your tix to avoid the cue and I’ll show you what happens with gardens full of these plants and how you can borrow from them to make the best garden you’ve ever had with plants that are best fit to the conditions you already have … at YOUR Garden 🙂
