The team at Ian Barker Gardens were excited to be mentioned in an article that appeared in The Age on Friday entitled ‘Memo to the Flower and Garden Show: give us some real gardens please‘, written by journalist Megan Backhouse.
In the article Megan laments the lack of achievable and realistic gardens on show at the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show this year, especially in the show garden category.
We were very flattered to be named as one of her “hands-down favourite” show gardens, along with our good friend Daniel Tyrrell, with both of our gardens being described as having “a real-life context and an effortless-feeling whimsy“. Megan went on to state that our garden contained “interesting plants that could – in the hands of the right gardener – actually grow together in a real Melbourne backyard. It was, in short, instructive“.
Our goal at MIFGS over the past four years has been to show the public how the naturalistic planting style, popular for years across Europe and North America, can be adapted to suit Australian conditions. Although building a garden over a lake might not be the most practical idea for the average gardener, the naturalistic style of planting we have used in this, and our past MIFGS show gardens is definitely achievable in both large and smaller scale garden spaces.
We really do hope that our gardens have inspired MIFGS visitors to give this planting style a go!
