With the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show coming up in a month’s time, I’ve been busy finalising the details of my ‘Coffee Street’ landscape design – see here for details. All shortlisted entrants effectively project manage the entire construction of the garden. Last Thursday, I went out to Lynbrook to meet up with Simon Lindsay from Plantmark to chat about plant selection. Here’s the synopsis.
Dichondra ‘silver falls’ – a beautiful creeper with grey foliage that drapes/weeps in a manner that evokes the iron lacework commonly associated with row housing. He’s put aside 30x 140mm pots – in a month’s time, they will be draping gracefully to soften and frame the faux terrace house.
Senecio serpens – blue chalk sticks – the ‘it’ plant for several seasons now, this blue succulent has vertical spikes, which for me creates a mini side fence, formally similar to picket fencing.
Coffea arabica trees – for obvious reasons, given this garden gives a sense of coffee! This tree is typically grown in tropical environments and gives fruit in spring; the trees available in Plantmark are only in 140mm pots, so we’ve decided to group several of these in milk crates and add a Macadamia tree (chosen for its similar appearance) to give height.
Black mondo grass – 1500 of these tubestock plants are going into coffee cups, mounted on a steel mesh grid vertical wall. Yes, I thought it was crazy too, but the good people at Landscaping Victoria thought it just might be feasible. These were chosen to represent the bluestone blockwork found on early Melbourne terrace houses.
White foliage plants – yet TBC due to quantities, but 1200 of these are also going into coffee cups to represent mortar joints between the bluestone blockwork.
Carex comans brown, carex buchannii and carex frosted curls are the grasses chosen for the mass planting at the front. Gradations of brown to white are intended to depict a giant cappucino cup! These plants were chosen for their fine foliage and ability to blend colour, and for their consistency of little variation – there are no flowers or branches, etc. Their simplicity is what makes these great plants.
Acacia cognata ‘dazzler’ – I know this is another ‘it’ plant of late – one of the many minicogs going around – but this was chosen for its similarity in form to the carexes, but it also doesn’t grow as high. This is intended to provide a backdrop to the carexes, allowing their colours and height to really be emphasized. Also, this will appear as lawn, not too dissimilar to some terrace houses that use turf in their front yards.
The quantities of plants here are enormous – as there is no actual planting due to inability to penetrate the ground plane of the heritage listed Carlton Gardens, all plants are kept in their pots, so they are placed as closely as possible. All up, approximately $50k of plants go into each garden – a remarkable loan from the supplier!
Will keep you up to date on further progress…I can say that the kind folk Matt Perger and Salvatore Malatesta at St Ali will be supplying coffee cups, coffee beans for ‘gravel’ and some coffee grinds for fertiliser. Stay tuned for photos under construction…
