Gardening Australia episode 24 2022

Gardening Australia episode 24 2022: Tino tours a home centred around courtyards; Jane focuses on ferns; Josh trellises citrus trees; Clarence learns about testing plants in public space; Jerry shares water management tips; Sophie visits a productive urban farm.

Inspiring, entertaining and full of practical advice, join Costa Georgiadis and the team as they unearth gardening ideas, meet avid gardeners and look at some of the most inspiring gardens from across the country.

Gardening Australia episode 24 2022

Rooms With a View

Tino tours a one-bedroom home centred around a series of courtyard gardens, allowing the plants to be the focal point of every space. These days it’s typical to see small blocks filled with large houses in major cities. However, this property and its owners have taken a stand, by putting the garden first and house second. It starts with the verge, full of native plants and a towering Blue Gum against a timber fence backdrop.

Carmel says, “The big focus was providing habitat for the little native animals and the birds because we’re fast losing it around here as people subdivide and just cover their ground with concrete. So instead of chopping trees down, plant more trees. We love them and the birds do too.”

The concept was to have a garden integrated into the house so you can feel like you’re outside and be able to view greenery from every room. “The ambient light comes in and we just live in this lovely, calm environment.” Four courtyards built into the house floorplan each have a different theme. There are native rainforest plants in the shadiest one, another centres around a beloved cherry tree, and from the bathroom you can enjoy magnolias, camellias and iris.

Fern Fabulousity

Jane explores the amazing diversity of native Australian ferns, sharing varieties for any kind of garden, and how to best care for them. Ferns are ancient, one of the first plants to emerge on land hundreds of millions of years ago. They don’t flower, reproducing only by spore, so they are reliant on lots of water being around. However, they aren’t all as fussy as we might imagine. Jane takes us through some of the unique and hardy members of this group.

Tree ferns are some of the more recognisable members of the fern family, and you can identify them by their trunk. All legally harvested tree ferns sold in retail nurseries will be issued with a serial number from a government authority.

Structuring Citrus – Gardening Australia episode 24 2022

Josh takes advantage of a new space that has opened up in his garden, planting new citrus trees and demonstrating how to trellis them. Josh demonstrates how you can grow citrus almost anywhere, adding some trellised citrus to his driveway orchard. His neighbour recently trimmed back a tree, opening up a previously shaded area to full sunshine. These conditions are perfect for planting citrus, which require heaps of sun. To fit them in along his driveway, Josh will trellis the trees flat against the wall, as he has done with other fruiting trees there already, as they won’t have the space to grow outward.

Josh is planting a Tahitian lime, which has quite large, pale green fruit and is a generous cropper, and a Valencia orange. The Valencia ripens quite late but lasts well on the tree. In a cooler climate you will have more success with Navel varieties, which require a shorter season to ripen.

Before planting, Josh assesses the shape of each tree to find the best position and direction to place them in. He faces the growing branches of the trees away from the wall, with the aim of directing the growth outward along the walls in the future. Additionally, the ‘Tahitian’ lime requires a prune to cut back some of the extra branches and remove any crossing over.

Plant Practice

Clarence catches up with a landscape architect playing with combinations of native and exotic plants in his own garden, to learn to better utilise them in urban spaces. Located in Stroud, just north of Newcastle, Jon has been using his own garden to experiment with plant combinations in the hope of introducing them to public spaces. His work has been instrumental in leading award-winning projects, both in England and Australia, but now, Jon’s focus has shifted toward plant-based design.

A lot of people would be familiar with architecture, but landscape architecture is more than just plants. Jon says, “As landscape architects we’re responsible for a whole variety of different aspects of public space.” Incorporating elements such as hardscape surfaces to the bench you’re sitting on, Jon’s particular focus is on the planting aspects.

Jon says landscape architecture as an institute has “moved apart from the world of gardening slightly and lost touch with the planted aspects of many projects, and the knowledge that we need to ensure there is increased diversity in our city centres, particularly through natives.” With tens of thousands of native species in Australia, Jon estimates Australian city centres are using only 15 to 20 species. The garden in Stroud is an extension of Jon’s work and has been helping expand his knowledge of plants.