Colleen Southwell, The Garden Curator, on how to create a sense of place in your garden

My childhood country garden was a simple one. There were no perfect lawns or manicured edges; rather, a tangle of flowers and fruit laden trees — a palette of plants guided more by heart than textbook. Mum was a gardener and for her the making of a garden was the growing of home, a place to nurture family and engage with nature. I’ve carried this on in my own gardens, from the dry west to here in the hills of the Central Tablelands of New South Wales.

For generations, rural women have been growing home gardens through a connection with the land they cultivate and the community in which they sit. These gardens are filled with plants shared over fences and woven with stories gathered across the years; they wear the blemishes of tough seasons, kangaroos and rebellious livestock; and declare ‘take me as you find me’.

These gardens are founded on a desire to make a home, a readiness to roll up sleeves and get stuck into it, balanced with pauses for tea and smelling the roses. Having discovered through experience the importance of working with the environment rather than against it, gardeners of this ilk are a source of wisdom to others.

I learned about tending roses while living on the Hay Plains where the women are rose-growing champions: they taught me to water from beneath, deadhead by pruning to the first set of five leaves, and encourage repeat flowering by cutting armfuls of blooms for the kitchen table or to decorate the church on Sundays. I remember morning teas in rickety chairs on wide verandahs, the heady scent of lemon-scented gums, and dogs waiting for crumbs nearby. Garden visits were wrapped up with tried-and-tested plants bundled in wet pages from The Land newspaper, and the recipe for the shared cake.

Most experienced gardeners are known only to their local communities, but one celebrated gardener with this generous approach is Sarah Ryan at Hillandale, not far from where I live. She makes and tends the garden herself and has learned and grown with it. The garden is glorious and Sarah is a skilled plantswoman, but her garden has character that reaches beyond first impressions to reflect its maker: kind, joyful and considered.

Some plants in my garden have been grown from seed collected by Sarah; these gifts sit alongside Siberian iris and pentstemon from my mum, honeysuckle from the little bush school our boys attended and teucrium grown from cuttings from a friend. As I wander our garden I think of these people and places and feel at home.

Through these connections I’ve learned the importance of sense of place, of growing a garden with belonging. There is more to a garden than a collection of landscaping materials and plants, and the best gardens have roots that sink deeper than appearances: they nourish our hearts and bellies, exercise our minds and muscles and tell our story. They also feel at ease in the landscape, not awkwardly plonked upon it.

Before sinking spade into soil, it’s worth pondering on those gardens and landscapes where you have felt most at home: perhaps the garden you grew up in, the welcoming backyard of a grandparent, or the paddocks you walk daily. What is it about these places that resonates with you? What can you draw from these experiences to grow a garden that is meaningful to you?

TO ACHIEVE A SENSE OF PLACE

• Take cues from what you see in the local landscape, and use locally sourced materials as much as possible.
• Learn the history of the site and reflect it in the garden.
• Weave your own story into the garden through links to people and places you know.
• Grow what you love and is meaningful to you.
• Consider the way you live, and how your garden can enrich your day-to-day life.
• Grow an honest garden that will thrive in your location.

It’s also important to get to know the limitations and opportunities of your environment and how you can best work with them. A garden grown in partnership with the site and conditions will feel as though it fits, and will thrive in the long term.

Take cues from the plants, materials, colours, forms and textures that occur locally, and use them to visually link the garden to the landscape; the intention is not to replicate the landscape, but take inspiration and guidance from it. In my garden I’ve used curves and rounded plant forms to echo the hills and domes of eucalypts in the distance, and grasses to blur the line between where the garden ends and the paddocks begin.

Together, these things weave story, character and relevance into the garden.

With every season of my 30 years as a garden maker, I’ve learned and adapted: the gardener’s path is a lifelong adventure.  In future columns for Graziher, I’ll share the knowledge I’ve gleaned along the way, to help you plan and grow a garden that is functional, beautiful, and meaningful.

Colleen Southwell, the Garden Curator, is an artist and gardener. Visit her website and see Sarah Ryan’s garden on her Instagram. 

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