"There is one common thread running across all of the gardens opening for this month's Garden DesignFest: each is the work of a "professional designer". This designer rule has been in place since the biennial festival was established in 2004 and the chairman Phil Mortimer says it is the main point of difference between this two-weekend display and other open-garden events.
Top of the list is that the crazy paving craze continues with irregularly shaped paving stones laid like shattered windscreens in gardens everywhere from Camberwell to Buninyong. While this paving form had one of its first outings in the marble floor of an ancient Roman forum, it really came to the fore in the 1950s and '60s when its playful air became its very point.
But the 2018 Garden DesignFest reveals how, in the intervening decades, crazy paving has only loosened up more. The pavers might be smashed concrete and the gaps in between are just as likely to be filled with mondo grass as mortar. Moreover, by allowing water to soak into the ground between stepping-stones, crazy paving can do its bit for sustainable water management.
Responsible water use is also behind many of the plant choices with designers continuing to embrace drought-hardy species. Lawn is on the wane and native grasses are on the rise, often in big, billowing blankets. Clipping continues to move beyond hedges to include all sorts of tough shrubs strewn in all manner of places and often juxtaposed with freewheeling climbers, succulents and self-seeders, some of which might be edible. Like fire-pits and pizza ovens, the inclusion of food plants everywhere can make gardens seem less sterile and a more central part of daily life.
It also introduces an air of informality, which is also reflected in the current popularity of the curvilinear line. Whether you're talking gravel paths, timber decks or concrete seating walls, the stand-out form of the festival would have to be serpentine. Everything meanders.
Since the event started 14 years ago, some of the most arresting spaces have been by those designers who own the place as well. Their plantings have been more bold and brazen. Everything has seemed less polite. Even when these owner-designer gardens are small, everything has been writ larger.
The Garden DesignFest, run by the Rotary Clubs of Kew, Brighton North and Central Melbourne, opens gardens in rural areas on November 10 and 11 and gardens in Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula on November 17 and 18. Gardens are open from 10am to 5pm, tickets are available at each gate and vary from $5 to $12. A joint ticket for all of the rural gardens is $40 and for all of the Melbourne/Mornington Peninsula garden is $60, available at any gate or online. For more information, see gardendesignfest.com.au​
Published by "The Age", Saturday, 3 November '18.
