Gardens Illustrated Magazine (UK)
Wildcoast Garden ‘Led by the Land’
Words by Natasha Goodfellow / Photographs by Will Salter
The southern point of the Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne, Australia, is a landscape of two halves. The inner shore, on Port Phillip Bay, is calm and sheltered, a place of holidaymakers and sun-seekers. The outer coast is a different beast entirely. The site of former Australian prime minister Harold Holt’s drowning in 1967, and bordering the infamous, shipwreck-strewn Bass Strait, this is a much harsher environment where storm-force, salt-laden winds can blow for days and where summer temperatures regularly top 40°C. It is, as landscape designer Sam Cox says, “a tough place to be a plant”, meaning that plant selection for this garden, which sits high in the dunes there, was more vital than for most.
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To read more open this link Wildcoast @ Gardens Illustrated
Sam Cox’s Wattle Glen Garden Opening in November 2023
When our garden opened in spring, 2016, it had endured some of the toughest drought years this area has known. It was a period of transition and renewal where many of the original plantings were no longer coping with the changed conditions. Some areas had been replanted but they were yet to reestablish. Since then, better-than-average rainfall and a run of mild summers have benefitted the garden immensely. We are so pleased to be opening again, seven years later as the garden has matured and come into its own.
Sam chats with Jonathan Green on ABC Radio National
Tune in to my conversation with Jonathan Green on Blueprint for Living. Jonathan came to visit our garden on a cold day in winter... and we chatted about Gordon Ford, naturalistic design, creating habitat with understory and other topics.
Atlas of memory: Gordon Ford’s natural Australian garden
With a career spanning six decades, Gordon Ford was a grand master of the Australian natural garden. Briony Downes looks at the key elements of his practice and how a new exhibition sheds light on his enduring legacy.