I've shown you my Treasure Garden many times before.
It's on the northern side of the house
and it is one of my favourite places to play.
I've got food plants here, flowers and lots of habitat features.
But the other side of the house, well, that is a different story.
This is the southern side of the house,
which, of course, is really cold and dark most of the year.
In summer, it does get a belt of western sun.
It's also where all the services are,
and that means I need to keep it relatively accessible,
but it won't stop me absolutely packing it with plants.
While this garden isn't really used in everyday life,
it is visible from a number of windows in the house.
And who doesn't love a plant-filled view to sit and contemplate?
As always, my planting is going to be quite experimental.
I'm going to use some things that I'm quite confident
will work well in those tough conditions,
and others that I hope will work well - I'm going to test them.
I'm going to use some ground cover species and little shrubs
that are going to fill that ground plane,
not only for us to look at, but, more importantly,
to create a little bit of habitat down at ground level.
I'm then going to use all of the vertical plane.
Climbing plants are a really obvious choice for doing that.
They take up very little space on the ground
but can absolutely fill the view.
I'm also going to use some local species I've grown myself from seed.
This is a local Dianella
and it is not really going to be that visible out of the window,
but it will offer some habitat to any insect or animal species
that might visit this little garden.
And then I'm going to try and incorporate
some unusual potted plants.
And I'll build some tricky little devices
to improve the view even more.
I'm going to utilise this fence as much as I can.
I've already put some old gates on the fence
to act as climbing plant frames.
And I painted the fence itself a dark colour,
which means it actually recedes a little bit further away.
And now, I want to put in some shelving.
So, this is inspired by my friend Steven Wells.
He's done this in his garden. I thought it worked really well.
So, I've made a couple of bits of cypress
that are just going to fit perfectly in there.
And then I'll fix this one into the existing spot on the fence.
I think that'll pull the fence over before I...
(LAUGHS) It's sturdier than the fence.
The soil here is incredibly compacted
so the first thing I'm going to do is loosen it with a fork.
Then I'll add a layer of homemade compost.
And then start to lay out my planting.
Alright, alright. You've gotta go a bit to the right.
Swap you two. I think I need something else there.
Climbing plants are such an obvious choice for a space like this
because they take up little or no real estate down here,
but of course, you can get fantastic coverage on a vertical face.
I'm going to use a couple of my favourites.
This is a Clematis species that I've had great success with
on the northern side of the house,
so I'm going to be interested to see if it does as well down here
where it will get a lot less light and it's a bit colder.
But it is such a lovely foliage plant
all through the year,
I think it'll make a difference.
Now, you shouldn't muck with Clematis roots too much.
They really don't need to be teased out.
This is a native climber.
It's a Billardiera - an apple-berry,
and it comes from all up and down parts of the east coast,
down into Tasmania.
It's a really handsome plant.
It has a gorgeous little lime bell followed by a little purple berry.
And I haven't tried it yet in my garden.
I've been desperate to do it, and I reckon this is the spot.
It's not only climbing plants
that you can use to cover a vertical surface.
Shrubs and even trees can be pruned and trained that way as well.
And I think often they're a better choice
because once they get that cover,
they don't take the same amount of managing
as a vigorous climbing plant will.
Now, this is just a camellia.
It's actually Camellia sinensis, the tea plant,
which I think is a really pretty, simple flower.
The thing that people never really talk about with camellias
that I witness all the time in my own garden
is how powerful they are as habitat plants.
They are absolutely full of nectar
so I'm hoping that as I train this,
in wintertime, when it's absolutely full of flowers,
might get the odd visitor as you look out the window.
Whenever I need plants for a difficult spot like this,
and particularly one that's shady and will be quite dry,
I always look at Correas.
They're one of my favourite groups of plants.
And this is the Chef's Hat Correa, Correa baeuerlenii,
which is a really, really beautiful evergreen plant, has a lovely flower.
But one thing that people don't often think about with Correas
is they're actually related to things like citrus.
They're in the Rutacea family,
which means they have incredibly aromatic foliage.
This one smells like bubblegum.
And even though I won't brush past here often,
when I do, I'm going to get a whack of that beautiful scent.
As well as growing plants in the ground,
I'm keen to put a few things on the fence itself,
and I can change the display around over time.
And one group that I'm really interested to experiment with
are some of the local ferns.
Now, people think ferns are really finicky, fussy plants,
but many of them actually occur
growing on other trees and plants as epiphytes.
I've seen this growing on rocks,
in the cracks where a little bit of leaf litter accrues,
and you get a good little growing environment.
So I'm going to try it in these old stink pipes,
and I'll see if I can get this little local to thrive in my garden.
I want to use this shelf in a couple of ways,
and one is to sit some potted plants on top.
But obviously, if you put something up high,
it's a bit of a risk of falling,
so I'm going to dot a few bits of silicon on the base of each pot,
and that will hopefully secure it so there aren't any accidents.
This needs to be a really hard-wearing surface
so I'm using a recycled crushed brick.
I went to get some recycled crushed concrete but they didn't have any,
so, you know, whatever recycled product
you can get your hands on is perfect.
The finishing touch for the view.
You know, sometimes gardening is pretty easy -
you've got great soil, the aspect is perfect and the options are open.
But other times, it is really challenging.
But with those challenges come opportunities for creativity,
to try a whole new suite of plants and to have loads of fun.
And I reckon the outlook for this little garden is gorgeous.