This is not one of our regular blogs.
It’s more of a personal rave from me, Andrew Whyte, founder of Whyte Gardens.
It’s something I want to share with you because it means the world to me.
You may not be surprised to know that I am absolutely passionate about nature.
From my childhood in Scotland, I have always loved being in nature, surrounded by plants of every kind, wide open spaces, the sky, the sun, and of course, in Scotland, the rain too!
When I came to Australia I could not believe it. So much more open space. So much nature everywhere. It was like landing in paradise.
To this day I still love the chance to be with nature. I take every opportunity I get to be outside in the elements.
It’s not surprising that I got into gardening and then landscaping.
It’s my way of being around nature as much as I can. In both my work and in my leisure time.
(I also live on the Mornington Peninsula where I am blessed to be surrounded by nature always.)
Creating gardens with my team every day is my way of giving back to nature by bringing more of it into people’s lives.
But I have some concerns about the future. And that’s why I’m writing this article.
First I need to ask an important question:
Are we still the Garden State?
Victoria was once formally called the Garden State. Remember it was on our car number plates for many years?
That statement was not an idle boast. When you look at Victoria, and especially Melbourne, you see wonderful, fabulous gardens all over the place.
Our stunning Royal Botanic Gardens; Kings Domain; our whole city is ringed by gardens.
And when you travel across the whole state, you will find that every major city has its own Botanic Gardens. Then there are literally thousands and thousands of other public gardens as well. In even the tiniest towns.
But it’s not just public gardens that have earned us this worthy title in the past. It’s the millions and millions of private gardens in people’s front and back yards that really make us the Garden City and the Garden State.
Just take a look at this snapshot of a Melbourne suburb from Google view.
What can you see? Every home is surrounded by plants. Some big trees. Some small trees. Lawns and shrubs abound. There are gardens everywhere. In fact, where there isn’t a house or a street, there is a garden.
This is the Melbourne I grew up with and grew to love.
But what has happened to the Garden State? What about its future?
The origins of the Garden State are older than you think
You might think the phrase “Victoria – The Garden State” was just an advertising slogan the government came up with a few years ago.
The truth is the expression actually goes way back to 1908 and even earlier.
Here is an image from the front of a State Government brochure promoting Victoria as “The Garden State” for intending settlers.
It was published in 1908!
The brochure was distributed to people in places like Britain, South Africa, etc encouraging them to come and settle in Australia, but particularly Victoria.
It promoted the state as a wonderful place to grow anything. Fertile soil. Plenty of water. Heaps of sunshine. It basically said that you could almost grow anything in Victoria.
It was true then. And it’s true now.
This is a wonderful state for growing lots of things. And it’s a wonderful state in which to plant a garden.
So Victoria has been The Garden State for a lot longer than you might have realised.
I think we have a pretty good claim to that title.
You only need to walk around the suburbs of our wonderful city and down on the Peninsula to see so many beautiful gardens.
But, and this is where my fear kicks in about the future - I don’t know for how long we will be able to claim this title of The Garden State.
Are we losing our claim to be the Garden State?
Sadly, I fear we are losing our passion for gardens. Real gardens, with real plants and trees and shrubs and flowers and grasses.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of clients who have come to us requesting a “low maintenance” garden.
When they say that, what they really mean is “I want a garden with not too many plants!”
They want fewer things they need to trim, water, take care of, mow, etc
Increasingly this trend to “low maintenance gardens” means that lawns are getting replaced with ground cover or worse still, paving.
While I don’t mind ground cover as at least it’s alive and natural, the kids can’t run around and play on ground cover like they can on a lawn. You can’t talk your shoes off and walk around on ground cover like you can with lawn (and let it tickle your toes!)
I’m always still a little bit shocked when someone comes to us and requests a back garden that consists solely of a swimming pool and a paved area. That’s it. Not even a little narrow garden bed along the side fence with some flowers in it. Or a small patch of lawn against the back fence. No greenery. Nothing alive. Nothing at all.
If this is my client’s wish, I am of course happy to design and build it. I can see a certain aesthetic in the minimalism of it. But there’s a little part of me inside that keeps wanting to suggest a little bit of garden here or there.
I know that everyone claims that we are all leading “busier lives” but I suspect that might not be all of it.
(And part of me doesn’t even buy the “busier lives” story. Don’t we all have Alexa and Siri doing everything for us now and Robot Vacuum cleaners and fast-acting this and super-quick that… where’s all our time going? Or are we just wanting more time to binge-watch Netflix? I don’t know!)
But sadly, over the past decade or two, I’ve been noticing a bit of a trend. The “low-maintenance” thing has taken over and people are creating gardens with less and less, well “garden” in them.
Fewer plants. Fewer trees. Less lawn area.
Now I’m not trying to suggest in our busy lives we all spend more time in the garden, but guess what, if what you have isn’t really a garden, maybe that’s why you are wanting to spend less time in it!
For me, a garden should be a place to connect. With family and friends. With nature. And with yourself.
Sure it’s great to entertain and share wonderful moments with friends. But if all you have is a pool and a large paved area, you’re not really going to want to just sit out there on a day when it’s still warm but not hot enough to go swimming.
But if you have some nature around you, you might be tempted to take a book outside, and sit in the shade of a lovely large tree you’ve been nurturing for the last decade and sit among the fragrant flowers, the buzzing bees and the chirping birds.
Personally, on a warm day, I love to be able to take my socks and shoes off and let my bare feet sink into the cool long grass. Or just walk around on the grass. It’s a beautiful feeling. I think it’s called “grounding” or something like that.
To me, plants are like children. I have two children of my own so I know what it’s like to be a parent.
Kids can be very demanding. They can exhaust you. They can wear you out. They take time and money and just when you want to relax and chill there they are, demanding to be taken care of.
But the thing is, for all the hard work and effort you put into them, you are rewarded many times over. The joy that your children give back to you is immeasurable. It might just be a tiny moment, an unforgettable memory, a few simple words they once said to you. Suddenly you feel everything you have ever done for them is worth it all.
Plants can be a bit like that too. Sure they can’t give you a cute hand-drawn Father's Day card. Or hug you and say “I love you, daddy!”.
But plants can still fill you with immense joy. That tiny little sapling you raised and cared for and nurtured through freezing winters and boiling summers when it grows and flowers and spreads its branches and gives you back shade and fragrance and beauty and joy… it can mean so much. It’s like it’s returning the love you gave it.
A garden, a real garden, with flowers and shrubs and feature trees and grasses and lawns.
A home for birds and bees and butterflies. Alive with colour and fragrance.
The magic of a garden
To me, there is nothing more special and uplifting than spending a lovely spring afternoon in your own garden. Just relaxing. Maybe reading a book. Being surrounded by all your “children” – the plants that you nurtured and grew and raised. The ones you embedded with your own love and care.
I think that people who request a “low maintenance” garden can be a bit like those who look at kids misbehaving in a supermarket and go “Oooh, I don’t want any of those! They look like so much trouble!”
A garden can LOOK like a lot of work to someone who doesn’t have one. But it’s a labour of love. A passion.
We gardeners make the effort because we love the reward that comes from it.
So I have a vision. Or a dream. (To paraphrase someone more famous than me!)
Not just reviving the idea of Victoria as the Garden State. But even more, focussing on Melbourne as the Garden City.
When I think of the future, I don’t want to see row after row of tightly packed houses with nothing between them and only little strips of concrete or paving out the front and back.
I don’t want to see gorgeous, old established gardens dug up during a frenzy of knockdown/rebuilds and transformed into a modern minimalist garden with the least possible number of plants and the greatest possible expanses of stone or gravel.
(Don’t get me wrong I love a Zen Japanese Garden, but with these, I usually expect to see a lot of Bonsai!)
What I would love to see is more gardens, not less.
And by that, I mean more green gardens.
Gardens with the life force of nature in them.
Gardens that are full of life.
With everything going on with our climate, surely we want to see more plants that can absorb CO2 and exhale oxygen.
If we all plant more plants and trees in our gardens we’ll help reduce CO2 levels.
Gardens also help enormously with what is called the “Heat Island” effect.
Trees, plants, shrubs, lawns, and grasses all have a natural cooling effect. (Compare walking on a road on a 40° day as opposed to walking across cool green grass on the same day.)
Here’s an image that graphically shows the difference:
Every time I drive down somewhere like Mont Albert Rd on a hot summer day, the canopy of trees does such a wonderful job of cooling the environment.
So I guess my rant applies to councils too. I’d love to see them plant even more trees on our nature strips. And let residents plant whatever they like on them to increase the greenery. It doesn’t just have to be lawn.
In conclusion, I guess I want to ask you what kind of world do you want in the future?
A cooler, greener world?
A world with lower CO2 levels and higher oxygen levels?
A world where you have your own, private green sanctuary to escape to when the world gets too noisy, too hectic.
Somewhere, you can call your own, where you can commune with nature and reconnect with yourself.
All of these are possible with a garden. Personally for you and collectively for all of us.
I’d like to revive calling Victoria the Garden State. I’d like to see it back on our number plates and in the media to help us all have a renewed focus on gardens.
Maybe I’d like to call for Melbourne to be known as the Garden City.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
What do you think? Let me know.
