Dream Gardens ep 7: Fashion magazine editor Justine Cullen and events organiser Greg Mathew are wildly busy with three young kids and high-pressure jobs that often take them away from home. It’s their dream to have a garden sanctuary to escape, relax and recharge in.
To achieve this feel they want a design that brings the indoors, out. This means expanding the living area of their small fibro cottage on Sydney’s Northern Beaches by carving an opening into one side of the home. At the heart of the design will be a Mediterranean-style pool and a staggered deck down to a lawn, surrounded by planting and seating.
Dream Gardens ep 7
With her expert high eye for design, Justine is passionate about the finishes and wants her entertaining space to have a timeless, weathered look. The timber finish for the deck must resemble driftwood, a painting technique that the design team have not tried before. Another problem they face is the local landscape; the garden runs through a local flood zone so the pool will need to be raised.
To add to the challenges for the designer, Justine and Greg will be overseeing their project as ‘around the clock’ busy people do – by email, video calls and in person when they are both at home. Will this digital era approach to design – client consultation work?
To find sanity in the insanity they will need to push through one of the busiest years of their lives and pull off the perfect, designer retreat.
Join leading landscape designer Michael McCoy as he showcases some of Australia’s most lavish and magnificent gardens from the first spade hitting the ground to the incredible end result. What does it mean to make a garden? What longings do gardens fulfil ? These are the question at the heart of a new show, Dream Gardens, launching on ABC TV this week. Eschewing how-to tips on growing plants (done so well by ABC’s other garden offering, Gardening Australia), this is a show that looks instead at what we want from gardens and how clever garden design can deliver it.
The host is the ebullient Michael McCoy, a garden designer and writer. McCoy has a degree in botany, long experience as a hands-on gardener and sought-after garden designer, and a passionate curiosity about what makes good garden design work. He’s empathetic, enthusiastic and opinionated – the perfect guide to lead viewers around eight gardens-in-the-making.
