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Sustainable Gardening

The essence of a successful low maintenance garden.
This is a series of articles on the basics of growing garden plants without suffering the ignominy of them dying on you.
Growing a sustainable garden isn’t too hard once you get a bit of a feel for what plants need and how those needs might vary.
A few other general musings might also find their way in.

Yellow tailed black cockatoos

Biodiversity in the Garden

Having a variety of plants that provide food, shelter and habitat will improve the garden biodiversity around your home.  It will also create an ecology that helps to keep your garden healthy and productive. Simply putting plants in your garden increases biodiversity.  Doing it in a way that promotes a healthy ecology is taking it

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An informal garden with rustic slate paving and diverse plantings

What is Your Garden Style?

Find your Garden Style. Take the Quiz! People will always have their own style preferences. Whether it relates to music, fashion or home décor. Similarly, they might find certain gardens more appealing than others because they match their aesthetic preference. If you like to keep your home clear and pristine and free of clutter, you

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Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne Volcano Garden

Low Maintenance Garden Design

A low maintenance garden is a sustainable garden.  If designed well, it will save you time, energy, water and money. Having plants that suit your climate gives you a much better chance of ending up with a healthy garden without the extra time and resources. That is a more sustainable garden. The best way of

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How to design a garden

How to Design a Garden

So, you have looked outside your door and and concluded that something needs to be done with your disappointing backyard and that you need a landscape design to make it properly part of your home. The first thing to ask yourself to design a garden is ‘What and who is my garden for?’ That is,

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A neglected backyard is now a productive living space

Why get a Garden Design?

Your property outside the house is as much part of your home as the building itself, so it makes sense to treat it with as much respect as the inside. The backyard really could be a purposefully thought out living space that directly integrates with the rest of the home.  Every part of the home

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South facing Garden Wall

Know your Garden

Find your Garden Style. Take the Quiz! If you understand your garden, it's orientation, its soil and the climate, you will have a better chance of designing a healthy and sustainable landscape.  You will be able to cater to the needs of plants, particularly light and water, while making sure you have the appropriate plants

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Royal Botanic Gardens Water Conservation Garden

 Low Water Garden Design

Perhaps the greatest stress factor on Melbourne gardens is lack of water.  This is amplified greatly during frequent droughts.  While this makes it more difficult to generate a lush garden, it shouldn’t be a reason to do without it.  Plants around buildings and roads in urban environments will reduce the harshness of a hot dry

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Shady courtyard

What Plants Need

If you are not a confident gardener, growing plants can be a bit intimidating if they don’t grow the way you think they should or if they just keep dying.  It can feel like a personal slight.  It is also very dispiriting is something that you nurture and care for lives a short feeble life. 

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The Arcadian or Pastoral State

The Original Arcadia

What is Arcadia anyway – apart from the name of this business? Arcadia is a mythical, idyllic landscape. In classical times, particularly through the Roman poet Virgil, it was described as a place of peace and innocence when people mingled with the gods in the ‘Golden Age’.  Arcadia is portrayed as a placed of gentle

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