SERIES 37 | Episode 04 Tammy meets a gardener of more than five decades at her suburban garden which is full of colour, foliage and personality. Featured Garden Designer/Owner:Dolores MeilakLocation:Dharug Country; Greystanes, NSWClimate Zone:Warm temperateGarden Established:50 yearsStyle:Cottage, ornamental and productiveKey Features:Maltese produce, fruit trees, cottage flowers
Dolores Meilak has been cultivating her Mediterranean garden in Western Sydney for fifty years. The abundance in her vegie patch is matched with her infectious enthusiasm for growing food, which springs from her childhood in Malta, where she grew up gardening alongside her parents and grandparents.
The garden is full of citrus, figs, strawberries, celery, parsley and other herbs – staples of a Mediterranean kitchen garden. Growing alongside these are subtropical fruits like mango and guava. A pink lady apple has been twisted and looped into a lovely structural form, as has a eureka lemon tree.
A raised vegie bed has ċiċra (chickpea), which her father used to grow in his fields in Malta. Dolores prepares the raised bed planting mix with lime to raise the pH, as chickpeas grow best in slightly alkaline soil. She’s also growing qarabagħli, a cultivar of zucchini with round fruits, which she fertilises with potash to promote better flowering.
Ornamentals blend harmoniously with the edibles. Dolores has planted abutilon, geraniums, roses, and much more. In the front garden, she has a dazzling display of colourful annuals and perennials. Poppies, pansies, and petunias complement foliage plants like ornamental sweet potato.
“To believe in a garden is to believe in tomorrow,” Dolores says, “it’s part of my own feelings and my own nature, being a Maltese Australian person.”
Featured Plants CHINESE LANTERNAbutilon cv. *LEMON ‘EUREKA’Citrus cv.ĊIĊRA (CHICKPEA)Cicer cv.QARABAGĦLI (ZUCCHINI)Cucurbita pepo cv.BRUNĠIELA (EGGPLANT)Solanum melongena cv.CREPE MYRTLELagerstroemia indica ‘Diamonds in the Dark’ *SWEET POTATO VINEIpomoea batatas cv.* Check before planting: this may be an environmental weed in your area
Filmed on Dharug Country | Greystanes, NSW
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