With distinctive foliage, architectural shapes, and large format art setting the tone, the Australian contemporary garden is the latest look.
When it comes to gardens, it’s everyone for themselves. Especially in a contemporary garden where eye-catching plants, random patterns, and architectural foliage dominate.
This garden style is very different from the others we’ve covered over the past few weeks. While formal gardens have hedges, lots of green foliage, and clean symmetrical lines, and cottage gardens have a relaxed atmosphere with an abundance of flowers, the only word to describe the contemporary style is “bold”.
There is a bold use of color.
Instead of having white or pale flowers in peaceful harmonious combinations, these gardens use strong colors, both in flowers and in leaves.
Eye-catching single colors like red are just as popular as eye-catching color combinations like purple and orange.
Strong foliage contrasts including brightly colored plants with brightly colored leaves and architectural shape are popular. These are not plants that fade into the background – they stand out and say “look at me”.
ART AND SCALE
These are unique gardens, but often have a minimal planting palette and use repetitions to make a statement.
No two gardens will look alike.
There may be rows of hedges, and while some have clean, straight lines, they may not always mirror each other like in formal gardens and appear randomly. Hedges in these gardens can tend to have irregular shapes, vary in height to have an undulating nature, and wrap or frame objects such as trees or large-format garden art.
Some plantings can be neatly cut and cut into shapes like balls that are repeated many times to contrast with the line and shape of the hedges. Art and furniture in a contemporary garden are also bold in shape, scale, and color.
For example, a garden bench or an outdoor chair does not blend into the background and is invisible. It could be painted bright orange, purple or blue, sit on white or light gravel and stand out.
Garden spaces are often delimited by hedges, low walls and contrasting materials such as lawns or hard surfaces such as gravel, paving or terraces. Outdoor living spaces border on indoor living spaces and create a flow from the inside to the outside.
THE MINIMALIST GARDEN
Some people prefer a very minimalist garden with only a few types of plants that repeat themselves over and over. I even had a few customers who asked me to design a garden with no flowers, just foliage. While this may be attractive to gardeners on one level, it is important to add another level to those gardens as well. The planting can be chosen site-specifically, with hyper-local native species or taking current lifestyle trends into account.
Low-maintenance repeat plantings in smaller garden beds can help gardeners with little time.
Or contemporary gardens can be planned for sustainability or to promote biodiversity.
Native approach
Pick the right locals and you can have the best of both worlds: bold colors and shapes to suit your climate, plus a biodiversity hotspot and wildlife haven. From rubber trees to banksias to bottle brushes, kangaroo paws and waratahs, these natives add the bold color that works so well in these gardens. And they also provide a feeding station for your local birds, bees and even the odd koala or two.
After looking at several garden styles over the past few weeks, it should be said that there are many styles such as Mediterranean, Balinese and Japanese that work well in our backyards.
It is also possible to have a different style in different areas of your garden, for example your front yard could be formal and your back yard contemporary or a cottage. So mix up your gardening style, but most importantly, make it custom and work for you.
CONTEMPORARY GARDEN INCLUSIONS
Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia retinae)
These showy plants have bright orange and deep purple flowers and form attractive clusters of long spade-shaped leaves.
Succulents
Succulents come in an incredible variety of colors and shapes, ranging from ground cover to large trees. I’m a huge aloe fan and there are great new hybrids bred for excellent bloom. The fan aloe (Kumara plicatilis formerly Aloe plicatilis) has beautiful architectural foliage that fans out in flattened sprays of upright orange flowers. As a bonus, honey-eating birds love their nectar-rich flowers.
Cycads (including the sago palm, Cycas revoluta)
Forms an attractive crown and rosette of dark green fern fronds that are very stiff and leathery to the touch. They are remarkably sturdy and look great all year round.
Strappy or prickly foliage
Plants like yuccas, cordylines, and dianella make for an interesting architectural effect, and varieties with colored foliage and variegated can add bright pops of color. Dracaena draco, the dragon’s blood tree, is a showy but very slow growing tree with strong strappy foliage and a strong architectural shape.
PLANT OF THE WEEK: – Lavender – lavendula
There are many forms of lavender, and they all make wonderful functions in any sunny, well-drained garden. Their flowers pick well and are loved by bees.
English lavender has slender ears of highly fragrant flowers that are used to make oil or to dry. They bloom in spring and summer and need very well-drained sandy or loamy soils.
French lavender (pictured is Miss Donnington) has soft, velvety, silvery-gray foliage and spikes of soft, mauve-colored flowers that are produced almost continuously from autumn to spring. I’ve found it to be more tolerant of heavier soils as long as they are well-drained.
The Italian and Spanish hybrids have soft foliage and winged tips on their flowers. There are many different varieties including ‘Avonview’ and they are more tolerant of moisture.
Q. Hi Sophie, can you please identify this strange plant (pictured)? Nobody seems to know what it is. It has a small crop of small purple flowers on top. I didn’t plant this, it just grew. I hope you can advise. Thank you, Loren Clayton
A. It’s silver leaf nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium), also known as white horse nettle or tomato herb. It is a weed found in warm temperate parts of mainland Australia and was spread through bird droppings after a bird ate the yellow or orange fruits that develop after the purple bloom. The fruits are poisonous so remove them before sowing. Pull the plant out by hand. However, remove all roots as it can grow from root fragments as small as 1 cm.
Q. When and how do I prune my sage? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks RJ.
A. There are so many different types of sage, or flowering sage, and their treatment differs depending on how they are grown. Some salvias, like S. muirii, are soft wood shrubs that bloom practically all year round. They are best given a haircut to finish off the bush and keep it neat, although they can be cut hard in early spring if you want to limit their size.
Others like Salvia ‘Anthony Parker’ and Salvia leucantha, which were recently in full bloom, have a habit that shoots from the base. When the flowers are done you will notice that new growth will appear at the base of the plant. This is the time to prune them really hard, to just above the ground and all that new growth will start to grow and bloom in beautiful bloom next fall. Other salvias (which have S. microphylla and S. greggii in their parentage) bloom from spring through fall and tend to have small flowers and leaves.
These are best pruned hard in the spring when you see the new growth. If you have an old woody sage that hasn’t been pruned in a while, it may be worth pruning in two to three small increments to try to stimulate new growth before pruning it heavily.
Send your gardening questions to Sophie Thomson via athome@news.com.au
