My Garden in the Avenue of Achievable Gardens at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2019 won the "Award of Excellence". This is awarded to the Garden with the highest overall score my creation Redivivus Materia. It was the icing on the cake for me, after lot of hard work in the proceeding year. I was studying my final year in Garden Design, working full time and eagerly preparing for the garden show.
Each year Melbourne Polytechnic is given three places in the MIFGS design competition. Melbourne Polytechnic, Holmesglen, Chisholm and Swinburne all have a chance to compete against each other in the 12 gardens designated for this exciting category. Students are encouraged to experiment and are expected to design and build a show garden to very high standards. The judges look at all aspects of the design and mark accordingly, the other judges are the over 100,000 attendees at the event.
Firstly, to have a chance to compete in this competition you need to be a student studying Landscape Design. To get selected Landscape Design students need to submit a design to their respecting colleges to be scrutinized. I was studying Certificate IV of Landscape Design at Melbourne Polytechnic Fairfield Campus. https://www.melbournepolytechnic.edu.au/courses/certificate-iv-in-landscape-design-2
The design I submitted needed to have detailed plans of my intended design. A fully workable Landscape plan with construction drawings, planting plan and costings was required to even be considered for selection. The competition was strong with submissions from students studying Horticulture, Diploma and Cert IV of Landscape Design. With much relief I and two fellow classmates were chosen.
Now it was time to get prepared and start to put into place my project management plan. The theme of my garden was a recycled material theme Redivivus Materia ( latin for recycled material). https://worldofdictionary.com/dict/latin-english/meaning/redivivus
I already sourced all the materials I needed to construct the walls and furniture and water feature. I had been busy collecting all these materials for a few years. All my materials were collected from kerbside hard rubbish collection and objects that had been thrown out. One person's trash is another person's treasure. I had collected sheets of rusty corrugated iron, old weathered hardwood fence palings and plinth boards, various length's and width's of hardwood, old off cut's of reinforcing mesh, a rusty gas tank and even a 200 litre poly fish pond. I believe in recycling and sustainability and trying to lessen our impact on the environment. Redivivus Materia was something that I really believed in and wanted everyone to see.
The next important part of the plan was the plants. They needed to be very high quality and I had to decide which plants I wanted to be in flower. A show garden isn't like a standard garden build. Plants need to be in pots for the duration of the show. Most of the plants I grew myself, some were cutting's and some I bought in tubes and small pots. Some species I needed to prune twice to get the timing right for the show. this included the scaevola, brachyscome, dichondra, xerochrysum and chrysocephalum and the Kangaroo paw. Melbourne had an extremely hot spring and summer so I had to water every morning and evening, I used tank water only. I really wanted the whole garden to stick to the sustainable principles philosophy as best as I could.
I had a third party grow the Dianella Goddess http://austraflora.com/project/dianella-goddess-pbr/ , this was a great help to me, I picked up the 90 plants a few days before the show.
Another important plant was the Lythrum salicaria. I wanted this to be the backdrop plant in my water feature. I contacted Oz Watergardens and they agreed to loan me three for the garden. A few days before the show I went out to their Silvan property to pick them up. Darryl greeted me and we went into the hot house to collect them. From about 100 metres I could see beautiful vivid purple flowers and as we drew closer I knew they were for me. They were in fabulous condition and were in full bloom. Oz watergardens are the premier growers of everything aquatic in Australia, I highly recommend them they are experts in all pond and water feature matters. http://www.ozwatergardens.com.au/home
The next important thing was the soft landscaping materials that were needed for my design. Granitic sand and recycled timber mulch were required. An email to Bruce at Bulleen Art and Garden came back with a warm response that he would sponsor me free of charge including delivery. BAAG go out of their way to help students and many other causes related to sustainability and environmental preservation. They are a company that actually practices what they preach. http://www.baag.com.au/
From here I was ready and felt confident that I had all the physical aspects taken care of. Now it was time to put it all together to present something that I would be proud of.
https://issuu.com/warrandytediary/docs/april_2019_warrandyte_diary/16
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv5rQCDF2Bb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
To be continued.................................................................................
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