The Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23 showcases the diverse and passionate world of Australian horticulture, from personal home gardens to large-scale conservation efforts. This episode delves into the intricacies of creating thriving green spaces across the country’s varied climates. It offers viewers a wealth of knowledge on plant selection, innovative gardening techniques, and the profound connection between people and their environments.
The program explores how gardeners adapt to unique challenges, whether they are cultivating a subtropical cottage garden or restoring a windswept coastline. By highlighting both expert gardeners and community-led projects, the episode provides inspiration and practical advice for every kind of green thumb. This exploration into the world of Australian plants and gardening underlines the importance of thoughtful cultivation and environmental stewardship.
The episode travels from a personal home garden on the outskirts of Brisbane to the wild coast of the Eyre Peninsula. It then moves to the stunning native plant sanctuary in the Grampians. Each location presents a unique set of challenges and triumphs. Viewers learn about creating a productive food forest in a challenging subtropical environment. The show also highlights the meticulous process of conserving and propagating rare native species. This journey across different landscapes emphasizes the adaptability and resilience of both plants and the people who nurture them. It serves as a reminder that a successful garden is a blend of knowledge, passion, and perseverance.
At its core, Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23 is a celebration of biodiversity and the joy of growing. It features dedicated individuals who have turned their passion for plants into remarkable achievements. From a horticulturist transforming a bare block of land into a lush ecosystem to a couple creating a haven for hundreds of native species, the stories are both inspiring and educational. The episode also underscores the vital role of community in conservation efforts. It showcases how volunteers and even schoolchildren are making a significant impact on their local environment. This focus on collaboration highlights a key aspect of modern gardening.
The knowledge shared by the experts in this episode is invaluable for any homegarden enthusiast. Claire Bickle, a horticulturist, shares her journey of establishing a garden on a two-acre bush block in Mount Crosby. Initially, the land was mostly dirt with very few plants. She and her family prioritized creating an edible garden, starting with a veggie patch. Her partner, Carl, hand-terraced the entire area to combat the hard, trampled soil left by a horse that had lived on the property for nearly 25 years. This foundational work was crucial for the success of their ambitious planting plans. The program illustrates how even the most challenging sites can become productive and beautiful with careful planning and hard work.
The episode also delves into specific cultivation techniques that can help gardeners overcome common obstacles. For instance, growing fruit trees in a subtropical climate presents challenges like the Queensland fruit fly and fruit-piercing moths. Claire Bickle employs exclusion bags to protect her fruit, although she notes that gardeners must remain vigilant as the pests can sometimes still find a way. This practical advice is a testament to the trial-and-error nature of gardening. The show emphasizes that learning and adapting are key to achieving a bountiful harvest. It’s a masterclass in resilient and resourceful gardening.
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the power of memory and family in shaping a love for gardening. Claire Bickle attributes her passion to her grandmother, Mimi, a founding member of the Australian Native Orchid Society and the Queensland Camellia Society. Many of the plants in Claire’s garden, like the native frangipani and the shrimp plant, hold deep personal significance, connecting her to her childhood and her late father. This emotional connection to plants adds another layer of richness to the gardening experience. It transforms the act of tending a garden into a way of preserving memories and honoring loved ones.
Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23
Subtropical and Cottage Gardening Insights
Claire Bickle’s garden in Mount Crosby is a testament to the possibilities of creating a lush and productive space in a challenging subtropical environment. She has successfully blended the principles of a cottage garden with the realities of her climate, choosing species that can tolerate the hot, western-facing aspect and less-than-ideal soil. Her philosophy is one of freedom and creativity, encouraging gardeners to plant what they love, as long as the plants share similar requirements. She humorously dismisses the idea of “garden police,” advocating for a playful and personal approach to planting combinations.
The edible section of her garden is particularly impressive, featuring a mix of perennial and annual greens, with a strong emphasis on subtropical varieties like East Timor lettuce and Ceylon hill gooseberry. The garden is designed to be low-maintenance yet highly productive, providing something to pick all year round. To manage pests like possums, bush turkeys, and bandicoots, the entire veggie patch is enclosed in a protective frame. This practical solution ensures that the family can enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Fruit production is another key feature of Claire’s garden. Starting with just one mandarin and one macadamia tree, she has established a diverse orchard that includes mangoes, pomegranates, low-chill stone fruit, and black sapotes. To combat soil erosion and improve water retention on the sloping block, they implemented swales, which are trenches dug along the contour of the land. This technique made a significant difference, allowing the fruit trees to thrive. Her favorite, the soursop, has done so well that she has planted a second one.
Cultivating and Caring for Unique Plants
The Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23 also offers expert advice on growing a range of beautiful and sometimes challenging plants. For those in warmer climates like Brisbane, Jerry provides guidance on growing vireya rhododendrons. These tropical rhododendrons hail from mountainous regions in Southeast Asia and require specific conditions to flourish. He suggests treating them as epiphytes, growing them in open baskets where their roots can clasp onto a tree, mimicking their natural habitat. This method ensures they receive the humidity, dappled shade, and protection from strong winds that they need.
Tammy explores the world of fragrant camellias, a less common but highly rewarding group of plants. While many camellias are known for their showy flowers, only a handful of the 250 wild species possess a scent. One such species is Camellia lutchuensis, which has a spicy, clove-like fragrance and has been used to breed fragrant cultivars like ‘High Fragrance’. This particular cultivar, which took over 22 years to develop, has a sweet rose scent and a large, ruffled, pale pink flower.
The episode also provides tips for growing dahlias in the subtropics. These flowers love sunshine, good air movement, and well-drained soil. To prevent rot during periods of heavy rain, it’s recommended to plant them in a mound about five centimeters above the soil level. This allows excess water to drain away from the base of the plant. These specific care instructions empower gardeners to successfully cultivate plants that might otherwise seem out of reach for their particular climate.
Essential Gardening Techniques for Success
A recurring theme in this episode is the importance of fundamental gardening techniques for ensuring healthy and productive plants. Millie offers a detailed guide to thinning seedlings, a crucial task that many gardeners, even experienced ones, can find challenging. Thinning ensures that vegetables have enough space to grow to maturity, leading to a better crop. For leafy greens like lettuce, she recommends a two-stage thinning process. The initial thinning creates about five centimeters of space between plants, and a second thinning provides an even wider spacing as they grow larger. This also promotes ample air movement, which helps prevent fungal problems.
Root crops like carrots and parsnips also require diligent thinning to allow their taproots to develop properly. Millie uses scissors to thin her carrots, a technique that minimizes disturbance to the remaining seedlings. However, she debunks the myth that beetroot needs to be thinned aggressively. Since beetroot seeds are often “aggregate,” meaning they contain multiple embryos, they are accustomed to growing in clumps. Thinning to small clusters of three can result in a more abundant harvest.
Hannah demonstrates the process of raising tomatoes from seed in a cool-temperate climate like Hobart. This requires starting the seeds indoors in mid to late winter to give them a head start before the weather warms up. She uses a high-quality seed-raising mix and provides warmth via a hothouse or a sunny windowsill to encourage germination. As the seedlings grow, she pots them up multiple times to provide more space and nutrients, ensuring they are strong and healthy by the time they are planted out in the garden. This commitment and care are essential for a successful tomato crop in cooler regions.
Conservation and Community in Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23
The episode powerfully illustrates the impact of community-driven conservation through the work of the Lower Eyre Coastcare Association at Greenly Beach. This beautiful but fragile coastal area has faced significant degradation due to a surge in tourism, particularly during the Covid pandemic when it gained popularity on social media. The influx of visitors in large caravans and vehicles caused erosion and damage to the native vegetation. The volunteers are dedicated to giving nature a helping hand to regenerate this much-loved area.
The volunteers have developed innovative techniques to cope with the harsh, windy, and sandy environment. One such method is “brushing,” which involves laying out prunings of local native plants over the bare sand. This not only helps to control wind erosion by trapping soil but also introduces a new seed source, as the prunings are laden with seeds. They have also adopted a “deep planting” technique for their tubestock, burying the plants halfway to protect the roots from the shifting sand and to place the rootball closer to the soil moisture.
A key component of this conservation effort is the involvement of the local Lake Wangary School. Students participate in a year-round propagation program, growing native plants that are then used in the revegetation projects at Greenly Beach. This hands-on experience not only teaches them valuable horticultural skills but also instills a deep sense of environmental stewardship. The program integrates conservation work into various school subjects, including biology, math, and writing, creating a holistic learning experience. The children become ambassadors for sustainable land use, carrying the message of conservation to the wider community.
A Passion for Native Plants: The Grampians Garden
The final segment of Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23 introduces viewers to Neil and Wendy Marriott, two of Australia’s most dedicated native plant experts and authors. Their 200-acre property, Panrock Ridge, located in the Black Range near the Grampians, is a stunning testament to their lifelong passion for Australian flora. The garden is designed as a habitat first and a garden second, with a wild, naturalistic feel that blends seamlessly into the surrounding bushland. The property is protected by a conservation covenant, ensuring that it will remain a sanctuary for native plants and animals in perpetuity.
Neil’s particular passion is for Grevilleas, a diverse genus with over 350 different species and subspecies growing on their property. His interest in these plants was sparked by his love for native birds, as he realized that Grevilleas and Banksias were attracting a wide variety of birdlife to his father’s garden. He has since dedicated himself to collecting and cultivating as many Grevillea species as possible. The garden is home to some incredibly rare plants, including a form of Grevillea vestita named ‘Mulberry Midnight’, which is now extinct in the wild due to land clearing.
The garden also features an extensive collection of Hakeas, with about 165 of the 175 known species growing on the property. Neil explains the key difference between Hakeas and the closely related Grevilleas: Hakeas have hard, woody nuts that enclose two seeds, while Grevilleas have a thin, leathery seed pod called a follicle. The property itself was once a “completely flogged out” farm, but through years of hard work, including building up garden beds to improve drainage, Neil and Wendy have transformed it into a thriving ecosystem. Their story is a powerful example of how degraded land can be restored to its former glory through dedication and a deep understanding of the local environment.
Growing Forward: The Living Legacy of Australian Gardens
As we journey from Claire Bickle’s sun-soaked terraces in Mount Crosby to the windswept restoration efforts at Greenly Beach, and finally to the breathtaking native sanctuary at Panrock Ridge, one truth emerges crystal clear: Australian gardening is far more than cultivating plants—it’s about cultivating connections. These stories reveal how gardens become bridges between past and future, between human ambition and natural resilience, between individual passion and community purpose.
What strikes me most powerfully about this episode is how each gardener has learned to work with their environment rather than against it. Claire’s grandmother’s native orchids still bloom in her subtropical haven, while Neil and Wendy’s “completely flogged out” farm has transformed into a sanctuary for over 350 Grevillea species. These aren’t just success stories; they’re masterclasses in patience, observation, and the art of listening to the land. When Claire uses exclusion bags to outwit fruit flies, or when the Coastcare volunteers develop their ingenious “brushing” technique to heal eroded dunes, they’re demonstrating something profound: the most successful gardens emerge from understanding, not dominance.
The conservation thread running through these stories offers perhaps the most hopeful message of all. At Greenly Beach, schoolchildren aren’t just learning to propagate native plants—they’re becoming tomorrow’s environmental stewards. Neil’s extinct-in-the-wild ‘Mulberry Midnight’ Grevillea finds new life in cultivation, while the Lower Eyre Coastcare Association proves that community action can literally rebuild landscapes. These efforts remind us that every garden, no matter how small, contributes to a larger tapestry of biodiversity and resilience.
For those inspired to begin their own gardening journey, these stories offer practical wisdom wrapped in hope. Start with what you love, but choose plants that love your conditions. Don’t fear the “trial-and-error nature of gardening”—embrace it as part of the adventure. Consider your garden not just as a space for beauty or productivity, but as a living link to family memories, community health, and environmental stewardship. Whether you’re thinning carrot seedlings in a suburban plot or helping restore a coastal ecosystem, you’re participating in something much larger than yourself.
The true magic of Australian gardening lies in this interconnectedness. Every swale dug to prevent erosion, every rare plant propagated from seed, every child taught to recognize native species represents an investment in our collective future. As these gardeners have shown us, the most rewarding gardens grow from the soil of passion, knowledge, and community—creating spaces where both plants and people can truly flourish.
The seeds of inspiration have been planted. Now it’s time to see what grows in your own patch of earth.
FAQ Gardening Australia 2025 Episode 23
Q: What makes Gardening Australia Episode 23 particularly valuable for home gardeners?
A: This episode showcases diverse Australian climates and practical solutions for common gardening challenges. Additionally, it features expert techniques from subtropical cottage gardens to coastal restoration projects. Furthermore, viewers learn from real gardeners who’ve transformed challenging sites into thriving ecosystems through innovative methods like swales, exclusion bags, and deep planting techniques.
Q: How did Claire Bickle overcome the challenges of gardening on poor soil?
A: Claire and her partner Carl hand-terraced their entire two-acre property to combat hard, trampled soil left by a horse. Moreover, they implemented swales along the land’s contour to prevent erosion and improve water retention. Consequently, these foundational improvements allowed their fruit trees and vegetable gardens to flourish in the challenging subtropical environment.
Q: What pest management strategies work best in subtropical Australian gardens?
A: Claire Bickle employs exclusion bags to protect fruit from Queensland fruit flies and fruit-piercing moths. Additionally, she encloses her entire vegetable patch in protective framing to deter possums, bush turkeys, and bandicoots. However, gardeners must remain vigilant as pests can sometimes find ways around these barriers, making adaptation essential.
Q: Which unique plants are featured in Episode 23 and how are they grown?
A: The episode highlights vireya rhododendrons, grown as epiphytes in open baskets to mimic their natural Southeast Asian habitat. Furthermore, fragrant camellias like ‘High Fragrance’ offer sweet rose scents after 22 years of development. Meanwhile, dahlias thrive in subtropical conditions when planted in mounds five centimeters above soil level for proper drainage.
Q: What essential seedling techniques does Millie demonstrate in the episode?
A: Millie demonstrates a two-stage thinning process for leafy greens, creating five-centimeter spacing initially, then wider spacing as plants grow. Additionally, she uses scissors to thin carrots, minimizing disturbance to remaining seedlings. Interestingly, she debunks myths about beetroot thinning, explaining that aggregate seeds naturally grow in clusters and benefit from being thinned to groups of three.
Q: How are the Lake Wangary School students contributing to conservation efforts?
A: Students participate in year-round native plant propagation programs, growing plants used for Greenly Beach restoration. Moreover, this hands-on experience integrates conservation into biology, math, and writing subjects. Consequently, these children become environmental stewardship ambassadors, carrying sustainable land use messages to their wider community while gaining valuable horticultural skills.
Q: What innovative restoration techniques are used at Greenly Beach?
A: Volunteers employ ‘brushing,’ laying native plant prunings over bare sand to control wind erosion and introduce seed sources. Additionally, they use deep planting techniques, burying tubestock halfway to protect roots from shifting sand. These methods help combat tourism-related degradation that intensified during the Covid pandemic when social media increased visitor numbers.
Q: What makes Neil and Wendy Marriott’s Grampians garden extraordinary?
A: Their 200-acre Panrock Ridge property features over 350 Grevillea species and 165 of 175 known Hakea species. Furthermore, the garden preserves extinct-in-the-wild plants like ‘Mulberry Midnight’ Grevillea vestita. Originally a ‘completely flogged out’ farm, they’ve transformed it into a protected conservation sanctuary that seamlessly blends with surrounding bushland.
Q: How does family heritage influence gardening choices in the episode?
A: Claire Bickle attributes her passion to her grandmother Mimi, a founding member of the Australian Native Orchid Society. Moreover, many plants in her garden, including native frangipani and shrimp plants, hold deep personal significance connecting her to childhood memories. Consequently, gardening becomes a meaningful way to preserve family memories and honor loved ones.
Q: What key philosophy emerges from all the gardeners featured in Episode 23?
A: The episode emphasizes working with the environment rather than against it, celebrating the trial-and-error nature of gardening. Additionally, successful gardens emerge from understanding local conditions, choosing plants that love your climate, and embracing patience and observation. Furthermore, gardening connects individual passion with community purpose, creating spaces where both plants and people flourish together.
