HANNAH: I'm visiting a suburban Hobart garden
transformed from a mishmash of styles
and inconsistent levels
to a fully integrated design
that's highly functional and beautiful.
Entering through this gate,
its design inspired by the silhouette
of the city's beloved mountain kunanyi,
the garden is divided into zones by organic paths, lots of stonework
and there's no lawn in sight.
This is the dream garden of Debbie Crawford,
but it hasn't always looked this way.
After living here for years
with a make-do veggie garden and chicken run,
Debbie decided it was time to start from scratch.
What was it about your previous garden that you wanted to change?
It was tired. We hadn't done anything with it.
Um...
A lot of things were falling down, overgrown,
but also the veggie garden was along the edge here
and it got no sun and overhanging trees.
So I wanted a big veggie garden and raised garden beds.
I wanted to be able to cook out of the garden.
A firepit - we love entertaining outside.
One thing we didn't want was lawn
and we wanted it to be as sort of native as possible.
So, yes, low-maintenance, but also pretty.
And do you have a favourite place to hang out in the garden?
Well, the place just up here that we put the sails over overlooks Hobart.
I watch the moonrise, which I think is just gorgeous.
That's pretty special.
And we've got the sound of the water feature
and sunshine in winter and shade in summer.
Perfect.
As Debbie had some firm ideas in mind,
rather than engaging a designer,
she reached out to local landscaper Jethro Plunkett and his team
to bring her dream garden to life.
So, Debbie, how did you come to choose Jethro to work with you?
I really liked his photos,
a lot of use of natural products
and I was pretty keen on recycling,
which Jethro seemed to be keen on as well.
So, yeah, I thought we could work as a team.
When you look around today and see what's here
compared to what you started with, is there any difference?
Yeah, yeah, it's a big difference. (LAUGHS) Yeah.
We had to bring in 300 ton of boulders up a narrow driveway.
It's a lot of trucks. That is quite a lot.
300 tons. That is huge. Yeah.
There's more stone here than at the quarry potentially.
(LAUGHS)
But it was worth the effort.
The stones tie each zone together
with organic boundaries and retaining walls,
with each stone carefully stacked
so that there are no straight lines.
Their addition has also made the space much warmer.
The benefits of the stone are great.
There's thermal mass they create. They passively drain.
They've got a really nice natural feel to them
and we feel like they fit the lay of the land perfectly.
And it creates a warmer microclimte, which we love here
in cool, temperate Tasmania.
I can't believe...
I felt like I created this new country in the back of my garden.
Like, it was like...
It's very summery up here
and we're sort of sheltered,
which has made it all year round growable.
And, Jethro, what about the plant selection?
How did you guys choose those?
So a lot of the plants were existing,
the raspberry, the quince,
so a lot of the choices complemented that.
Other than lots of colourful perennials
like salvias and daisies,
most of the new plantings are focused on drought-tolerant natives
to add habitat and reduce maintenance.
It really was something that evolved
and some things worked and if they worked, we could repeat them,
some things didn't and we tried them in other places
and the joy of gardening is the joy of it evolving and learning.
I love the range of really hardy plants along this rockery edge.
What are we looking at, Jethro?
We've got the 'New Blue Moon' here and salvias.
They're all really hardworking plants
and against the dry, warm stone they seem to do really well.
Great pollinators for the veggie garden
and just a really nice pop of colour.
And what made you choose the cushion plant here?
Jethro probably instigated my interest
and I'd seen them a lot, like, up on the high plains in Tasmania
and they're just really pretty.
This year, they're even seeding so you can see that they've...
Do this and hopefully we'll have lots of them.
And they feel amazing.
Like, they're quite firm, but they have a great texture.
They're kind of cool, how they grow up over rocks.
Yeah, like swallowing the rock. It's gorgeous.
The thing I love about them is that they're native to Tasmania as well.
Both Debbie and Jethro were keen to repurpose
as much material as possible from the original garden.
When you were digging things up,
I understand you found a few surprises.
We certainly did. Yeah.
We found a gravestone...
..a founding stone for an old bakery in Hobart
and we found hundreds of little medicine bottles.
Every time we dug, something would pop up
and if we could, we'd try and incorporate that
into the story of the garden.
And when I look around, I can see bits of farm machinery
and just bits and pieces that have been used sculpturally.
I love that.
I think a garden's a really good place to have a bit of fun with
and not be so generic.
You can have these really individual items
that make the garden unique in itself.
Debbie and Jethro also put a lot of thought into the design
and how to future-proof the layout.
The raised veggie beds are all at waist height
along with the retaining walls for all the other garden beds
so there's no clambering around.
I'm a physio by trade so bending over I know is a bit vulnerable
and your knees aren't as good as you get older,
so having raised beds was part of what I wanted.
It's easier to control the soil too.
And flat areas, so that we were terraced and flat,
not trying to work on a slope which is really difficult.
This driveway is an absolute highlight.
It's a joy to come into.
Well, it's how we started.
It started on needing a new driveway and it was the last thing to happen,
so we were pretty excited when it actually happened.
And what was the inspiration for all these beautiful curves
and little rock feature pods?
We were pretty strong about not having a straight line.
It would look really horrible, a straight line of concrete.
We're integrating the stone from the garden into the concrete as well
so it's not this harsh substrate of concrete.
It's got these nice intersecting elements in there.
The native garden blends in really well.
It's just starting to spill over the sides
and really soften the edge as well.
And as far as a driveway
for the inner city like Hobart, I think it's great.
It looks like it could be in the middle of the bush.
What would you recommend for other people looking for a landscaper?
What kind of qualities or things should they be looking out for?
I think, to start with, you should find someone
whose style and work resonates with what you're after
and then definitely meet the person
and feel how you get along with them,
what your relationship is like,
if you feel like you can work with them.
If that's not there, it's gonna be a really challenging process,
but if you've got that,
you've sort of resolved half your issues already.
What are some of the important things to hold in mind
when you're approaching a project of this scale?
I think being flexible
and having an open mind to a whole lot of different ideas.
I think if you're rigid
in what you think something is going to look like,
you're bound to fail.
Trust in who you're working with,
that they are thinking along your lines as well.
As a landscaper, you put a lot of stewardship
into the gardens you work on
and you need to remember they're not your garden
and that you're doing it for someone else
and at the end of the day, they need to be happy with what you've got.
You can hold their hand and help them get there
and impart all your knowledge,
but as long as they're happy, we're happy.
That seems to be the best result you can get.
It can take years and lots of effort,
but it's worth having patience
and getting a few helping hands and heads together
to make your dream garden better than you ever imagined.