Visiting Open Gardens

Bondi garden designed by Brendan Moar

 The first garden was designed and built by Brendan Moar.  You  may have already seen this one if you get Foxtel as Brendan hosts his own landscape design show called ‘Dry Spell Gardening’. This garden featured in the very first episode.  Brendan took a very overgrown small garden and created an interesting and modern landscape.

Out went a lot of plants and in went some pretty cool structures like the steel hoops and artificial grass mound seen in the first photo above.  A firepit, custom-made white ‘dinosaur eggs’ and whimsical artwork on the wall are featured in the back half of the garden (see below).

What impressed me the most is not just the clever design but the fact that it’s over two years since the garden was built and it still looks great.  A lot of make-overs done for TV only plan to look good for the final shot with seemingly little regard to how the garden will evolve over time. A lot of thought has gone into the design of this garden and it really shows.  It was particularly lovely to meet the owners and hear how much they still love Brendan’s design.

The second garden I fell in love with from the moment I stepped into the front yard.  Whilst the photos don’t really do it justice I hope you can see what the attraction was for me.

The owners had very cleverly used the small space at the front of the house to create a patch of Japanese inspired tranquility.  Stepping off the street and into this garden I instantly felt transported into another world.  Raked pebbles and a few feature rocks were complemented with a restrained planting of clipped Japanese box (Buxus microphylla japonica) and Orange Jessamine (Murraya paniculata).  I particularly liked the murraya being clipped into ‘clouds’ – a technique more commonly seen with cypresses.

The back garden was completely different again.  It was a fairly small paved courtyard split over two levels.  Its theme was obviously a tropical garden, packed full of wonderful exotic specimens including: bromeliads, heliconias, angels trumpets, succulents, gingers and more.

I was particularly impressed (and jealous) with their flowering Heliconia rostrata, seen above in the bottom right hand corner.  This coastal garden (in Clovelly) was obviously warm enough to allow the heliconia to thrive.  Following are a few other flowers which caught my eye…

Globba winitii

Globba schomburgkii