Behind the scenes of a Gardening Australia producer’s garden | Garden Design | Gardening Australia

Jane visits one of Gardening Australia’s producers in his home garden. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
We first visited Albert Koomen’s 420-sqm garden in 2017 when he was busy stripping unwanted plants from his new home in Melbourne’s west.

Starting again with the blank canvas, he’s since been working on his version of a semi-formal garden using Australian native plants, many of which are local to where he lives.

The main difference was drawing up a plan before rushing in, he says. His reason for using native plants was to provide habitat and food plants for local wildlife.

The garden is small, with narrow spaces along either side, and small areas in the front and back.

Despite that, he’s created some distinctive landscapes by limiting the number of species he’s used and disciplined pruning. One side has an informal path edged with strappy grasses in front of a correa hedge and weeping bottlebrushes along the fence line.

In the rear garden, there’s a straight path edged by recycled bricks and filled with gravel; to soften the lines he has planted a correa hedge in a circular pattern across either side of the path. A purple bench highlights the purple flowers in his limited palette of colours: silvers, greys, and blues.

A favourite plant of Albert’s is the sweet bursaria, which has panicles of small white flowers in summer and attracts lots of insects and insect-eating birds.

After just four years the garden already looks mature – the bursaria is nearly 4m tall – even though it was all planted using small tubestock-sized plants.

Two small eucalypts grow in pots: a Wolgan Snow gum and Victorian Silver gum. The latter looks scrappy in summer when case moth larvae attack it, but after hearing they have little habitat left, he’s learnt to live with the moth-eaten leaves and found the tree soon recovers once they’ve pupated.

A more unusual screening plant that he’s chosen is native hemp bush (Gynatrix pulchella), which has pretty cream flowers in spring and summer.

On the southern side where there’s either full sun or full shade, he’s planted a row of callistemon and created a lattice covered with pots of hanging plants.

Filmed on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in Deer Park, Vic
___________________________________________

Gardening Australia is an ABC TV program providing gardening know-how and inspiration. Presented by Australia’s leading horticultural experts, Gardening Australia is a valuable resource to all gardeners through the television program, the magazine, books, DVDs and extensive online content.

Watch more: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/gardening-australia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gardeningaustralia
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/gardeningaustralia
Web: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening

___________________________________________

This is an official Australian Broadcasting Corporation YouTube channel. Contributions may be removed if they violate ABC’s Online Conditions of Use http://www.abc.net.au/conditions.htm (Section 3).

OK. Opening piece to camera. Are you ready, Jane? Yep. OK. And action. When I’m doing a story, you usually see it only from this side of the camera. This time, we’re going behind the scenes to take a look at a garden that belongs to one of the producers on Gardening Australia.

I’ve worked with Albert for many years doing stories from all over the place, and I’m really excited to see what he’s been up to in his own garden. And cut. Yay! We last visited Albert’s place in Deer Park in Melbourne’s western suburbs back in 2017, when he was busy stripping his garden.

Hopefully it’ll survive. Everything, including roses, apples, citrus and vegie beds were removed and relocated so he could create a blank canvas and start all over again. How have you done things differently this time around? Well, the main thing I’ve done is I did a plan and I thought about it a lot more

Before I just rushed into planning things. And also I have achieved a bit of my life’s goal, which is to do a semi-formal native garden. And why did you choose that sort of style? Partly in reaction to where I live, where there’s not many gardens

Around me, and so there’s not much for wildlife or birds, and I’m pretty conscious of that. I was hoping that if there were lots of local natives from my area, that it would attract the wildlife that go with those plants. I was really keen to do that. The block is 420 square metres

And is dominated by a large house. The garden wraps around with a large space out the back and narrow areas either side. This is a side garden and it’s pretty narrow. As you can see, it’s only really an arm’s span across. It’s lovely, though.

I think the repetition of all the plants is really good. Well, I didn’t want to have too many species, so there’s only three. There’s the Correa hedge. Yeah. And there’s the poas either side which are local species. Yeah. Flowering. Look at that. Wow. And flowering. And also there’s the Callistemon Wilderness White

Which have white flowers. Yeah. And those, so they hug the fence. So if they dare to grow out here, you’d just go chop. Absolutely. Because if I let them go, they would just be out here. And because it’s a limited space, I want to make sure that everything, you know, allows access and,

You know, acts politely together. This is the back garden. And so one of the first things I did when I redid everything was put in this footpath, which is recycled bricks either side with crushed sandstone. It’s very straight. So to counteract that I did the Correa hedge.

And the Correa hedge does this serpentine pattern across the path to sort of break it up. Yeah. And do you leave it to flower and then prune it back? Um, yes. I’m reasonably tough on it because I know if you let it go, it’ll get really big. Yeah, because there’s Correa alba.

So I do try to keep it nice and low. So as it sort of does those curves, it gives me places to plant in. So in this garden, as well as having some just standard Australian natives, I wanted to really champion local plants from the area. So there’s a lot of plants here

Which are from the western plains of Melbourne. ‘Cause they’ve sort of lost because there’s been so much development here, you don’t see so many of them anymore. So I really wanted to, you know, make them heroes of this garden. And the colour scheme you’ve got is really pleasant to be in.

Yep, it’s meant to be a relaxing haven in my backyard. So all the colours are cool colours. It’s all silvers… Yeah. ..greys, purples, blues. Which made it challenging when I was looking for plants because everything had to fit that parameter. So no oranges or reds or yellows? No, no.

Because my previous garden I had in here was like this chaotic cottage garden. It was roses and it was lavender hedges. Everything was jammed in together. So this time around I wanted to be more disciplined and I… (CHUCKLES) This is typical Albert, you know. See his blue folder and the red biro?

Well, that is typical Albert. He ticks and crosses and do it again and… Ah, that’s very good, I like it. So it’s a disciplined garden. It is. Where are we up to on the script, Albert? Well, we’re doing pretty well. We’ve still got voice overs to do. Fair enough.

Yeah, we’re doing pretty well. Good. I think you’ve just got to work a bit harder. Oh. This one’s doing beautifully. Look, I do love a native Hibiscus Alogyne. Because those flowers. I mean, look at those purple flowers. Yeah. And I reflect the purple flowers in the purple bench over there.

And then the grey leaf again. This is great. It’s an Olearia. Yes. This is the one I like. Tea trees. Yep. This is a local Leptospermum, and from this area. And I have tried to keep things, um, pruned. Not every plants have to be pruned. You can see with the native hibiscus.

You know, originally I try to make like a hedge and it wasn’t happy being a hedge. No, I’m not going to be a hedge. Not for Albert. I’m not even going to do it for him. But it’s nice. It’s still got plenty of new growth and new flowering. That’s good.

But I have to keep it contained because it gets enormous. Too big. And because it’s quite shallow root, the bigger I let it go, it’s like a big sail. Yes. And the same with the tea tree, I’d say just keep it pruned. And that looks really good.

And that’s a great thing, the Bursarias. Oh, they’re my favourites. Actually, all these plants here were grown from tubestock. Wow. So, you know, four years ago they were tubestock about this big. And that’s what they are now. The Bursaria must be, like, four metres high now. Bursaria spinosa. I like its name.

And I’ve grown a bit back in the path because they’re very spiky. I wanted a eucalypt, which wasn’t going to get too big ’cause it’s quite a narrow space. It’s only about… It is, 2m or 3m. 2m or 3m. And I was worried with eucalypts, particularly, I didn’t want

To choose the wrong species and have this enormous tree in 20 years in my backyard. So you’ve pruned it. I have pruned it. Hmm. I’m not sure. I know. I think it will come good. It just looks a bit sort of bare, doesn’t it, at the moment,

But I think it will come good. You’ve got new shoots here and that’s good. This is a beauty, though. Where does it come from originally? Uh, near Canberra. It’s a Wolgan snow gum. Oh, I like the trunk. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And it’s a mallee eucalypt, which means a lignotuber.

And lots of shoots come from the base, but I want a single trunk. So every time another shoot comes up, I prune it off. You’re asking a lot of this little plant. Well, it’s still growing. (CHUCKLES) Good on you, Albert. So you’re telling people, don’t worry about pruning.

Give it a go. I mean, I know. I think don’t be scared because things will grow back eventually. Hm. This is a very popular eucalypt and it’s a beauty. This is our eucalyptus crenulata. So it’s a Victorian native. And I’ve chosen because it’s a small eucalypt and because I wanted to grow them in pots. And it’s got that silvery blue look again. In fact, it’s called a Victorian silver gum.

The only thing, every year gets eaten by moths. Ah! So you can see cocoons here. Yes. And all these skeletonise leaves. So when that first happened, I thought, “Oh.” So consulted a moth expert to find out what they were. And they’re a ribbed case moth. So a local moth.

There’s the little case moth. Yeah. Yeah, they’re gorgeous, aren’t they? The advice was if I could stand it, to let them eat leaves because, you know, they need all the help they can get. Wow. Because moths are really important. Remember we did that story we did at night, the moth story.

And it was really good because it was so pertinent that we have to be careful of moths because they’re great pollinators. And also they’re food source for wildlife. And so he said, “If you can stand it, let the moths eat leaves.” And that’s what I do now.

Every year, pretty much they eat almost all the leaves on the trees. They’ll come good. Look at that. They come good. That’s the old one, and there’s the new ones there that are coming good. Yeah. Now this is a different one for me. I don’t know it. Uh, it’s a local plant.

It’s Gynatrix pulchella. OK. And I got it because I wanted to screen the fence, and it grows to about 2.5m high. Oh, so good. Really good and high. Yeah. Screens the fence beautifully. So why are these looking like they are? Well, you know I do love a prune. (CHUCKLES)

Um, perhaps a bit too much, but also because they were really tall and they were in danger of blowing over. But it’s a good example of, you know, local Indigenous plant that most people hadn’t heard of. And really pretty. You can see it’s got this tiny little cream flowers. Yeah. No, they’re good.

And it’s a good screening plant. Yeah. This is the far side garden and it’s only about, like, maybe a metre wide. So it’s very narrow. And it’s one of those places that everyone always forgets about. Well, because it’s either full shade or it’s full sun. It’s really tough. Very difficult.

What’s the soil like over here? Oh, it’s complete clay, you know. So what I’ve done is I’ve planted a row of Callistemon down the side of the fence. They’re doing well. They are. And I had to use an auger to dig a hole for the poor things ’cause…

Oh, my goodness. ..and they’ve tolerated it. Yeah. Then this wall here looks really good. Rather than looking at a Colourbond fence, I did screening and I did this lattice and I’m just hanging plants off it. So I’ve got a native Dichondra. Yeah. And lots of bromeliads, of course, the good old hardenbergia.

Which is a local. Which is a local plant. And that’s in the clay soil as well and it’s just beautiful because it just sprawls. Yeah. Has amazing purple flowers. Yeah. So it’s a whole other area that you can have a garden in. Yeah, yeah.

So maybe ask me why I like gardening, I think… Oh, do you think? Yeah. For the end of the story. OK. So why do you actually like gardening? Greenery around me makes me feel good. And it reassures me that no matter what might happen elsewhere in the world, how terrible it might be,

You know, as long as I’ve got my little patch of plants doing their thing and wildlife, that I figured that’s something. And that sort of reassures me. What else could we ask him? Oh, dear, oh, dear. No, it’s all good, Albert.