(PEACEFUL MUSIC) (BIRDSONG)
MILLIE: This is Flinders, on the Mornington Peninsula.
It's ruggedly beautiful,
with views out to Bass Strait.
I'm here to visit a garden I've been really excited about.
It's only a couple of years old
but already there are plenty of things to see,
created by a very thoughtful gardener.
Jo Ferguson has spent her life absorbed in horticulture.
She's worked in revegetation and environmental management,
and graphic design.
And now it's all come together in her work as a garden designer.
JO: It's all about the feeling of the garden.
When we did this garden - it's only really two years old...
Um...so, one of the questions
that we asked ourselves is,
"What is it that will make your heart sing?"
So, for me, it was being able to walk barefoot on sand,
so I just love the gravel,
'cause I can get out in the morning, out of bed, in my pyjamas,
and walk straight out into the garden
and garden in bare feet.
And also the grasses.
(SERENE MUSIC)
To see the wind in the grasses is...
..it's just really evocative
and it just makes me feel...
..I don't know, like just really who I am,
really centred in myself.
(SERENE MUSIC CONTINUES)
Wow, this doesn't feel like a new garden.
Well, actually, these trees are 80 years old.
Oh, wow!
So, we salvaged them from a friend in Mildura.
And they're so gorgeous with the banksias.
Yeah, so, the foliage links in throughout the whole garden.
We've used grey foliage within this part of the garden.
We've had to raise them up, of course,
because they need really good drainage
and it's quite wet here in Flinders.
But they're just beautiful. If I could get more, I would.
But...yeah. Need another 80 years.
(LAUGHS) Yeah.
Can we go look at the rest? Yep.
Yes, it's a big experiment.
Like, none of this has been designed.
I think probably the most area that's been designed
is that corner which I was really experimenting with colour.
So, when I'm at the kitchen sink, I'll look out into this garden
and I see the pinks and the yellows
and the oranges and the blues
and it just makes me really happy.
So, that garden, it's not about whether it's native or exotic
or this or that kind of plant.
It was really just about a colour palette.
(SERENE MUSIC CONTINUES)
(BIRDSONG)
And what a beautiful sheltered spot in an exposed garden.
Yeah, it sort of embraces you,
this beautiful wall made of the terracotta agricultural drains.
Is that what they are? So where do they come from?
My husband, Simon, he works on the freeways,
and I think it was during the Dingley Bypass
he was asked to bury them,
because the road was going through the old market garden,
and so no, he thought, "Oh, I'm gonna salvage those."
He dug them up? Oh, wow. Yeah.
So, they've been sitting in a box for ages,
and then when we did this extension,
we wanted to create a curved wall,
and so, yeah, we've used these terracotta pipes
to create some permeability.
It's a great tip for, like, blocking wind too,
or let it sort of gently filter through
so it doesn't leap over the top and get you on the other side.
Yeah, as well, as providing views through to the greens
and the colours of the flowers.
So it's actually a really beautiful, little intimate space.
And hand-made. Yeah.
Each one has been hand-made out of a slab of clay...
Wow.
..in about the 1940s, I believe.
Absolutely gorgeous.
And no doubt you have plenty of habitat in here
in the long term as well.
Yeah. The spiders are already moving in.
(LAUGHS)
This is so gorgeous.
It's got a similar feel to other parts of the garden.
But it's all Australian plants. Yeah.
This is where my heart lies,
in the native grasslands on the basalt plains.
And my favourite grass is dichelachne,
which has so much landscape potential.
You don't really see it used in gardens.
But it's so lyrical, the way it moves,
and that beautiful plume that comes up over summer.
When everything else is struggling in the drought,
the native grasses just sing.
And that beautiful podolepis is such a beautiful kind of...
It looks like a whole fried egg in there.
Yeah, and it's always packed full of pollinators.
I love this paper daisy.
It's such a winner when it comes out.
It's gorgeous, isn't it, and so responsive to the sun.
Yeah, and it just flowers nonstop.
I can see that this is a garden
that you've created for yourself.
Yeah.
But how do you go about designing gardens
that can represent other people?
Designing them for clients? Yeah.
Every single garden that I've designed is different,
and it's because of the person that I'm designing for.
'Cause that's what a garden is, isn't it?
Something that people are part of. Yeah.
I really feel that gardens really bring people back
to who they actually really are,
and a lot of it comes back to memory.
Whether it's childhood memory
or memory of, like, holidays where they were really happy
or things that were really meaningful to people
when they were children can be really powerful.
So, if you can get to that information,
then it's...it just makes a garden really special.
And I've actually seen people change
through the process.
I think this garden is such a great lesson
in not judging a garden by what it looks like.
Of course it IS beautiful, but it's about what it feels like.
It's a lesson we could all take in life.
Yeah.
That's what we're aiming for as garden designers,
is just to bring people back to who they really are
and just...feel.
Like, I think a lot of time we're just going around,
you know, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking,
and we forget to just stop and just feel.
So, if we can get people to do that,
just for a few moments,
which is really healing and...
..and possibly it's healing for the whole planet,
if we can all just get back to that
and what's important, yeah.