We explore the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show | Discovery | Gardening Australia

Jane and Millie explore the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2022. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe

The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton is the largest event of its kind in the southern hemisphere. It hosts a huge range of specialist plant growers, floral displays, garden designs and products.

Show gardens:
One of the biggest drawcards are the inspirational show gardens by some of Australia’s premier landscape designers. Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott AO, has been involved in the creation of one of the highlights. ‘Tramlines’ is a “fully accessible and disability-inclusive garden” achieved through paths suitable for wheelchairs, comfortable seating, and sensory plantings that Dylan is most proud of. “They’re Australian natives but they also have different feels, different sounds, different smells for people with different sensory disabilities.”

For Landscape Architects Anthony Sharples and Alistair Kirkpatrick, their garden was not just about garden inspiration, the sunken house covered in plants was designed to get people talking about climate change and our role in it. Anthony says, “it’s not a doom and gloom piece, we are kind of highlighting the fact that the environment will continue, the environment will heal itself. When plantscapes rewild themselves they do look quite beautiful. I think anyone who has a garden, anyone who has land it’s so important to introduce habitat and ecology through different design moves” to give back to nature and make a positive contribution to reducing the impact of our changing climate.

This year’s student design category drew huge attention for their beauty, innovation, and inspiration for small spaces. Sarah Tulloch from Melbourne Polytechnic took out first prize for her representation of spring in an alpine landscape and Joshua Greenwood-Malin of Holmesglen Institute of TAFE put a contemporary twist on the Australian bush aesthetic by combining native plants with a Japanese style design.

Robert Boyle’s ‘More than Meets the Eye’ won a gold medal for the 6-room garden, including a vegie patch and an avenue of birch trees underplanted with hydrangeas in full bloom. The Best in Show award went to Christian Jenkins and his Balinese style space showing that a tropical garden is possible in Melbourne! “The plants, that’s the key to garden design at a garden show. You’re only as good as your plants.”

Plants on Show:
The show is a wonderful place to meet growers face to face and pick up interesting and new plants. Tim Drewitt of Drewitts Bulbs brought along nearly 800 cultivars of bulbs and flowering perennials, and lots of advice for new and old bulb lovers. “The key with bulbs is just as they’re coming into flower basically they’re gonna start looking for their tucker to make next years bulb, so as they’re coming into flower, feed heavily. The fatter the bulb the bigger the flowers.”

No one grows a more ambitious and productive plant than Kerry West with her Fruit Salad Trees that have up to 6 different fruits from the same family grafted onto the one tree. She says the key is to balance the tree – if any one type is growing more than others, prune it back so it doesn’t take resources away from the others.

This year’s show has offered so much joy and inspiration, and there’s nothing quite like being surrounded by gardeners and old friends!

Featured Plants:
HYDRANGEA – Hydrangea paniculata ‘Candlelight’

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