Next, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine -
an Alice Springs gardening legend.
Geoff Miers here, coming to you from the heart of Australia,
Central Australia - Alice Springs.
For the last 33 years -
as long as Gardening Australia has been on the air -
Geoff has been on ABC talkback radio,
coaching Alice Springs folk about how to garden to their conditions.
In the decades he's spent growing and selling plants in his nursery,
he's learned a thing or two about coping with an arid climate.
It's a desert environment.
The climatic extremes are colossal.
And this winter, we've had 20-something days of subzero,
some places have experienced temperatures of -7, -8.
But, equally, in three months time, it could be 45 degrees in the shade.
We can have no rain for two months, three months, six months,
and then the Todd will flow.
We never know what's around the corner.
That's the exciting part - it's challenging.
And if you understand and you respect the environment,
and you work with the climate, you will have a fantastic garden,
and you'll be able to introduce plants that you won't find
in any other garden, or very few gardens elsewhere in Australia.
You know, the hard part here in Central Australia is that
the population changes by a third every three years,
so constantly, people are exposed to the new environment,
and they need coaching,
and that's where I try to play an important role.
Because citrus grows so well here,
I always have a good supply of citrus.
Aside from that, most of the plants in this nursery I grow myself,
and they are plants suitable for an arid zone.
And here we've got two examples
of plants that have very fine needle-like leaves
and don't lose a lot of water through evaporation.
This Acacia peuce, or Waddywood,
it's a rare tree.
They'll grow for 500 years.
And once they're old,
you can't even put a nail in them - they're that tough.
They have adapted to the most extreme environment
anywhere in the world.
The red mulga is another one that's similar.
It's a hardy tree, and it has this flaky miniritchie bark.
It's just stunningly red, and it's the most outstanding feature.
Eremophilas, they're becoming so popular
because they are such a fantastic plant for diverse conditions.
They are just stunning in terms of their floral display.
There are many, many varieties and many, many colours,
all in fantastic bloom.
And they'll grow in sand, they'll grow in even heavy clay.
This has to be a favourite -
Eremophila macdonnellii, Simpson Desert form.
This is a magnificent Eremophila.
It's a small shrub, flowers through spring, summer and autumn,
tolerant of a diverse range of soil conditions,
prefers slightly moist, well-draining soil,
but it'll tolerate heavy clay through to sandy soils.
This is my backyard,
and this is where I propagate thousands of plants every year.
To my right here, I've got
3,000 native lemongrass.
Over there, I've got 1,500 kangaroo grass, or Themeda.
Some of these groundcovers, they're bird-attracting,
they're bush tucker food
suitable for this environment,
and the demand for them is endless.
Just a small, little house this,
but it's my propagation house - one of.
And in here at the moment are over 5,000 cuttings,
and they are all starting to develop roots,
like this Rhagodia here.
And before long, all these plants will be in tubes and pots,
and by next autumn, they'll be all out in people's gardens.
Well, I try to demonstrate what I preach,
and we're in my front yard.
It's designed to suit this environment.
The most exciting plant in this garden is the Corymbia aparrerinja,
commonly referred to as the ghost gum.
And that is planted in the middle of my yard,
and it is the centrepiece,
and around it are lots of other Central Australian plants,
but that is the one that I can see from my front verandah.
It epitomises to me everything about Central Australia. It's glorious.
My dog - 17, 18 years ago - chewed the irrigation,
and I turned the irrigation off.
And I now only water this garden in the first or second week of January,
and that's it.
I give it 5 inches of water and that recharges the plants,
and so when they get to mid-February
when they keel over because they're stressed, these soldier on.
Look, the whole question of appropriate gardens
and water conservation
is something that I have preached, written about.
You know, I've done over 30 years of writing for newspapers,
that's been my message all along.
With climate change, it was predicted that we would have
greater droughts, greater floods, greater extremes of temperature.
We're already experiencing that in Central Australia.
So you've got to be prepared for that.
And the best way to do that
is to create a garden that's best suited for the climatic extremes.
The reality is that lawns, exotics need to be regularly watered.
They will not survive in this environment.
But an established Central Australian ruby saltbush
or an Eremophila or a Senna
will survive for periods of time with no water being applied.
We've got to understand it's a valuable resource,
and it's not...it will end one day if we're not careful.
So we have to be conscious of that, conserve our water
and develop gardens that are suitable for this environment.
I'm passionate about what I do,
absolutely passionate about what I do.
I love it, I love growing plants.
I could just grow plants all day and do nothing else.
I love it, alright?
But I also like to create, I like to be creative,
I like to help people in terms of them being creative
and developing gardens, streetscapes
that have their own character and are unique to Central Australia.