February was a brilliant month in the garden. At least I think it was. Unless of course you were a plant in my garden. Then, well, you would have appreciated the time I spent learning how to be a better gardener this month… as you withered away from an overly enthusiastic combination of sun and easterly. Being too hot outside I thought I would spend my time usefully learning something at a couple of garden lectures instead.
The first lecture I went to was with Chris Ferreira, from Great Gardens. The starting point for Chris’s talk was what passes for soil in much of Perth – sand, glorious sand – that water either bounces off or falls right through helpfully taking nutrients into the river system where they happily feed algal blooms.
Chris outlined the importance of adding organic matter and soil amendments such as spongelite, zeolite or bentonite clay to develop water retention and encourage the growth of the micro-organisms that support plant life. Preventing evaporation through effective mulching is also critical. Chris recommended street tree prunings, which can be accessed free through www.mulchnet.com. Barely raising a sweat he also zoomed through appropriate plant choice, reticulation choice and creation of microclimates to develop sustainable, water-wise gardens.
The information given in the talk was invaluable although for me depressing – I came to the conclusion that I was fighting a losing battle. I decided that the best thing I could do for my garden was move to a more salubrious climate. One that lacked ‘the worst agricultural soils in the world’.
Unfortunately many of the garden practices and design theories I had learnt previously are unsuited to WA. Just that week I had been engrossed in doyenne of the British Gardening Media, Monty Don’s, Ivington Diaries- the story of his own, very English garden in Herefordshire. So it was with a wee bit of despair that I went along to hear him speak as part of the PIAF Perth Writer’s Festival.
Which is when I realised why Monty Don has become such a popular figure in garden media. Looking jet lagged and buffeted by one of Perth’s warmer summer weeks, Don enraptured with his stories of his love affair with gardening. Starting at age seven at the behest of his ‘kind of like Mrs Thatcher, only not quite as friendly’ mother, he spent ten years loathing gardening. Until one day, just holding carrot seed in a trickle of sunshine, he caught the wonder of the garden around him.
Talking through his travels as part of the Around The World in 80 Gardens TV series, he gave an inspirational insight into the gardens he had visited – ranging from Alice Springs to Bangkok to Trømso, 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle. In each place gardeners had worked with the climate to create their own food, shelter, medicines, ego-enhancing folly or private vision of paradise. Despite climate or income, according to Monty, everyone has a garden inside them and gardeners across the world were making their inner gardens real.
So as this month Marches on, my inner garden and I are developing the soil, planning new plantings and dreaming big garden dreams. With any luck April, rain and some cooler weather are all on their way and then we might even go outside.
Zoe Carter
