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Read the land
Despite running for almost 30 years, this year was the first time the show included a garden co-designed by Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung elders. So seamlessly did the Indigenous and native flora, charred branches and rocks meld into this patch of the Carlton Gardens, it looked like they had always been there. And in a sense, they had.
This deceptively understated spread, also designed by Andrew Laidlaw of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Suzannah Kennett Lister, addressed Indigenous land stewardship and was one of the few displays that actively welcomed visitors inside. Its take-home message was that sometimes you can add more to space by peeling layers back.
Go out on a limb
Even if you’re not inclined to make your garden half-purple and half-silver like Ellen Freeman did, her solar-eclipse-inspired spread, which took out a prize for best use of plant life, was the prompt many of us needed to loosen up with our choices.
“With this garden, I would like to unshackle people from their ideas of what’s achievable in a garden and encourage them to seek inspiration from new sources,” the Holmesglen student wrote in the statement accompanying her gold-winning entry in the ‘Achievable Gardens’ category. Freeman’s two-speed, multi-plant approach had attitude. Way to go.
Ellen Freeman forged her own way with her gold-winning, solar-eclipse-inspired garden.Credit: Megan Backhouse
Care for your soil
Show gardens are, by definition, about what’s going on above ground – but as all gardeners know, it’s what’s going on below that dictates everything. While you can’t actually dig at the Carlton Gardens – every plant in every display is installed over the top – there was much discussion this year of soil health. As if to drive the point home, ‘Through the Looking Glass’ even had a glass panel revealing its different layers of soil and the ecosystems they contain. An idea for school gardens, perhaps?
Hide whatever you don’t like
Finally, for the things visitors didn’t see: rubbish bins, messy compost piles, empty pots, parked cars (well, except for a few particularly pretty ones in the floristry section). This absence really makes a difference. Everyone should go out now and throw out or obscure – with plants, partition walls or whatever structure works for you – all the unattractive stuff that inevitably makes its way into a garden. It will change everything.
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