Touring stunning Monet-style water gardens | Garden Design and Inspiration | Gardening Australia

Costa is at a magical water garden that he has wanted to visit for years.
Austral Watergardens in Cowan, NSW, sits on 7 acres with views of the Muogamarra nature reserve. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Kevin and Lisa Metelik have been managing the mountain paradise for decades.

Kevin’s grandfather bought the land, set up the water gardens in the 1940s and inspired his daughter to follow in his footsteps; Kevin got the gardening bug from her.

Lisa met and married Kevin and got the bug as well.

Some of the original concrete ponds still exists, with plenty of new ones too, all filled with a range of different water plants. Visitors can choose plants from these stock plants and take them home for their own pond or bowl.

The water is kept clean by finding the right balance of shade and sun, plus native fish to keep down mosquitoes without affecting the frog populations.

Kevin says there are two main groups of water lily: Hardy or European and tropicals.

Hardy or European are the style seen in Monet paintings, with red, pink, yellow and white flowers that sit at water level. They flower earlier, from October to April, and blooms range from miniature to large.

Tropical waterlilies hold their flowers above the water line and are usually fragrant; colours include blues, white, yellow, and pink, and they bloom from December to June in the Sydney area (all year in tropical climates) but may not survive winters in colder areas.

Hardy waterlilies have rhizomes while the tropical ones have bulbs.

Lotus are different again; they are large plants, are revered as sacred in many cultures. The leaves sit above the water and flowers form distinctive seed heads.

Other less obvious but equally useful plants include the native Snakeskin vallisneria, which grows underwater and improves water quality as well as providing habitat for fish and frogs.

Border plants such as jointed twig-rush can tolerate quite deep water.

Red-stemmed thalia gives a tropical look to a pond and is a favourite with frogs.

How to build your own water garden:

A water feature will bring frogs, dragonflies and beauty to a garden, creating a mini oasis. Here are some basic steps to get you started.

Consider the size and depth of a water bowl as well as the material – a lightweight fiberglass or polymer resin makes a large vessel easier to handle. Ceramic bowls may need to be sealed.

The minimum depth is 30cm for water plants; deeper is better. Lisa tries to create three levels in a pond:
* a submerged aquatic plant
* a shallow-water creeper group to grow on the edges
* a tall marginal plant for height

Add in water lilies for flowers and floating leaves; if you can fit two plants, choose one hardy and one tropical species for a longer flowering display.

Put river sand or gravel on top of the soil mix in the pot to avoid muddying the water.

Aim to cover about half to two-third of the water surface with plants.

Add native, tadpole-friendly fish to keep mosquitoes at bay

Filmed on Dharug Country in Cowan, NSW

Featured plants:
Waterlily ‘Escarboucle’ (Nymphaea cv.)
Waterlily ‘Marliacea albida’ (Nymphaea cv.)
Waterlily ‘Blue Triumph’ (Nymphaea cv.)
Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)
Snakeskin vallisneria (Vallisneria nana)
Jointed twig-rush (Machaerina articulata syn. Baumea articulata )
* Red-stemmed thalia (Thalia geniculata)
Water milfoil (Myriophyllum ‘Dragonfly’)
* Taro (Colocasia esculenta cv.)
Waterlily ‘Colorado’ (Nymphaea cv.)
Waterlily ‘Green Smoke’ (Nymphaea cv.)
Firetail gudgeon (Hypseleotris galii)

* Always check species before planting: they may be environmental weeds in your area.

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Cowan is just under an hour’s Drive North of Sydney it’s surrounded by spectacular national parks and nature reserves the landscape is wild and breathtaking tucked away in this beautiful part of the world is a magical Water Garden that I’ve wanted to visit for years ustal Water Garden sits on 7 Acres

It’s an aquatic Paradise with stunning views of the mugara nature Reserve behind every amazing Garden there are equally amazing gardeners and couple Kevin and Lisa have been managing this paradise in the mountains for decades so Kevin your connection to the gardens here goes back to Childhood uh

Yeah that’s right I worked here with Mom and found the fascination through her and your mom got the passion through her parents yeah through her Father William Roberts he he purchased this uh Seven Acres up here and So Lisa you came into it through partnership that’s it yes we

Met quite young and I used to come up here on weekends and watch Kevin working and gradually I got the um bug as well it truly is another world you know once you get into it as a collector you start and you get fascinated and you add more

And you learn more and it is Tru another world having water in your garden and is it going down into the next gen I so yeah as our kids they love jumping in the ponds christening a pond when it was you know first built and they love

Growing up here throwing slime at each other the whole Bit these concrete rectangular ponds look different to others in the garden they were built by Kevin’s grandfather in the 19 40s they’re like 70 years old yeah and still going strong well within yeah all right how do these ponds work exactly we have our stock in them so people can

Pick and yeah pick and choose we whip it out put it in a plastic bag it’s all done for them they can take it home place it in their Pond or water balll now anyone who’s got a water feature knows that you got to look after the

Water quality how do you keep it so clear and clean well basically it’s how nature does it the right balance of plants um the lily pads provide shade so that’s limiting the sunlight that penetrates the pond so it doesn’t get as hot yeah it doesn’t get as hot and

Sunlight kind of can encourage algae to form Etc there’s no elaborate filtration systems pumps or anything we have always relied on the plants the plants do the work na fish are a great way to go um small little Mozzy eating cold water fish that uh are frog friendly and a

Great additive to your pond they pecket a little bit of algae around the edges so they play a part so for anyone looking at all of these lies here where where do you begin how do you categorize the differences basically the two main groups are Hardy

Or european so they are more the Monet style that he would have used in his garden the brilliant um magenta red one up there uh esca buul excuse my pronunciation uh and the other one uh marilia ala beautiful simple white structurally are they all the same between the

Tropical and the Hardy uh there is a difference the Hardy are the ryom the ryome is the thick tubous root part of the Lily whereas the Tropicals are a bulb because the uh hard varieties start earlier on they flower from October through to April and the Tropicals come on from December onwards

Basically up to around April May if you can include one of each in your pond you do get this extended flowering time are there any other differences between them the Tropicals are highly fragrant you can just be walking past a pond and you’ll get a waft of their perfume could

Be quite intoxicating just get one for you Costa and you can have a smell of it there you go that is that is intense that is such a strong bouquet no wonder the Egyptians revered these plants they walked around with them on their heads wow all right so let’s keep

Going just like the Egyptians now it seems appropriate that this particular variety gets its own Pond almost yeah well this is the Magnificent Lotus or sacred Lotus spectacular this time of year quite a large grower revered by Hindus and Buddhists I believe they can be used in a large pond or a decent sized water

Bowl they are summer flowering loving lots of sun I mean the structure of the leaf just the way it sits there like literally a water bowl itself and the finished flower head is just a piece of architecture isn’t it apart from the showy lies and Lotus many other water plants are necessary

For a healthy and attractive Water Garden some of the plants that uh you don’t notice at first are some of the most valuable the submerged aquatic this being a giant snakes skin Valero a native does wonders for water quality spawning areas for fish and small frogs

So it’s it’s like a little filter I mean they they actually filter the water through their leaves a little bit that’s that’s something a little bit unique in a pond this one a marginal plant bourier again a nice Australian native plant to have in your pond can tolerate quite deep

Water this one red stemmed failure so it kind of gives a real tropical look to your pond I think adds High frogs love to sit on it this is you know our show Pond and we kind of display them in a way where they look the best

You know leaving a gap between them is a real sort of Monet style it’s the best way to show them off is this what you do it all for is is this your your real love yes this is my happy Place you can’t help but feel the serenity when you’re surrounded by Water Gardens like these ones and makes me understand why Mona spent so much time painting these Superstars the water lies in their Myriad of colors and shapes and forms while we can dream about an aquatic Wonderland like Kevin and leases

We can also get started by planting out our own small version in our backyards for those gardeners who are a little bit daunted by the idea of transitioning from soil to water don’t worry we’ve got this so when it comes to creating a water garden what are the most important

Things you need to consider in choosing a water bowl the size the depth the material that they’re made of this one being a lightweight fiberglass or a polymer resin as that one is yeah look at that it’s pretty light yeah Y and then then you can also uh include the

Ceramic um bowls that you may have to seal the bottom and maybe yeah to make them waterproof and then the next step of course is choosing the plants to go in there Lisa where do you begin the most important thing is uh the depth of

Water so 30 cm is the minimum depth any deeper is better and we try to create three levels in the pond so the submerged aquatic is great beneath the water and this one’s a myop filum it’s a little Australian native plant it’s in the shallow water creeper group so it

Likes the edges and it it’s sort of like a ground cover in the water and then we would put uh something like a tall marginal in and they create height so this is an antique Taro they like shallow water as well so it likes around 20 to 30 cm depth of water then

We would put the beautiful water lily in and you could put one or two of these in and that has The Floating Leaf the Hardy variety are early flowers so they get their leaves in September and they start flowering in October and there are many flushes over the seasons it’s also nice

If you can fit two water lies in to get Hardy and tropical so this is a tropical variety there’s its flow this particular one’s called Green Smoke and these have a continual procession of flowers over a 6 month or six or 7 month period from around late November

December through to May June is there anything specific that you do to get all of the plants Pond ready we recommend putting gravel or Co river sand on top um just to create a barrier between the mud in the water keeps your pond a bit cleaner we sort of recommend to cover

Your pond around halfish to 2/3 in various plant life that’s a general rule of thumb fish would be an addition um little Australian native fire tailed gudin are a good choice oh yeah they will eat the mosquito regular they’re very clean and easy to look after uh they’re also frog friendly fish what’s

The real value of having one of these in your garden it adds a little Oasis to a garden it brings frogs dragon flies you can sit there for an hour or two and time just disappears because you’re just enjoying the reflections and the movement of the fish and plants in the

Pond yeah so now you can create your very own water garden and over time it will become a place of great biodiversity and Beauty with of course a water lily changing and evolving across the seasons of all the garden features that decorate a garden this will become one of the most Fascinating