6 days to go: BUILD DAY 6

We're halfway there but if this was a mountain, we'd be keenly looking for the way down right now. There's some crumpled looking bodies arriving in the mornings, mine included, needing many shots of caffeine before any reasonable decisions are made. I think in athlete's terms this is hitting the wall. We're all using muscles over and over again that continue to be shocked from the day before's insults, yet we're starting to see it come alive and are immensely proud at the same time. It really is a marathon.

Gorgeous plants everywhere starting to come together

Our site is heaving from deliveries of plants, mulch, sand, rock, timber... it goes on and on. We try to locate each one in the place we will use it, but seem to be relocating things constantly anyway. Kris and I are racing to get plants in position so we can get more room for more of them in the holding area. It's amazing how many disappear into each little area. All credit to the guys at the nurseries growing these though - it's been spread across 3 but the absolute bulk of it has been grown at Humphris Nursery in Mooroolbark. Kris and I worked on a planting plan to approximate numbers with no real conviction that it would work out like that. We organised the deliveries to be placed on trolleys designated for each area, but have found that we are mixing it all up anyway. Some things are working as we imagined and others just aren't. Somehow though, the amazing dispatch and nursery teams at Humphris have positively jumped into action with every frantic call for something different to be delivered 2 hours ago. This isn't easy to achieve I know, it's not easy to rustle up trucks at a moment's notice when stores all over Australia need their deliveries as well. I hope when every member of the huge Humphris team visit their stand and see how exquisitely beautiful their plants look in this setting, they'll forget the agony of the last little while and just feel really proud of themselves. Kate has taken on an enormous job in the Humphris office, slipping in to manage the administration side of this whole display and the mountain of paperwork it creates. I remember my first year at the show and the wall of forms that looked like wallpaper with red deadlines all over them. A daunting start to every day until it was over. Without these magnificent plants we don't have a garden though, and because of them, we have something really special. thanks team Humphris!

The Arbour elf

Today's build started with rain and more rain, but luckily it cleared quickly and they guys could get on with putting up the beam that arrived today, then finish the roof of the shed. Stewart got to play with his blowtorch to age it quickly - having way too much fun with the fire extinguisher close by. We had his team of students with us this morning, and they were great helping me move the massive trees that arrived yesterday. The flooring is at a grinding halt while more fence palings were sourced, so we got them going on the framework for the sales tanks. Each cut down rainwater tank will be packed with either plants or flowers for sale, so we're building a false bottom for them to sit on.

Meanwhile, the Arbour team were up on the roof with Stewart finishing off the sheeting. It looks so amazing from the hill behind the heritage listed parterre garden - the photo shows the wave shape and the stunning colours of the tin. Later today they got going on the retaining wall for the sand dune - part of the coastal garden area. I'm looking forward to filling the sand dune up tomorrow and getting the horticulture student team working on the planting of it. It's going to look fantastic with the gorgeous yellow beached boat at the end. We're aiming to have the sand dune done and the family garden done tomorrow - a big day again, but we all need to tick some things off! The BBQ has arrived, I'll find a salad and get some music organised - morale is everything as people get tired and the best way to boost it is have some fun!

The shed from the back with parterre in front.

19 days to go..

8,500 plants have been ordered today from the nursery. They'll be trucked in from various sites depending on how large they are. Huge 4 metre high trees have been grown for us on one site in 1 metre wide bags of soil. We'll need forklifts to shift them into place, so they will go onto the site in the first few days of the build. Kris has worked hard today on our CAD program to work out how many of each we need - it's a rough guide planting plan that will have plenty of artistic interpretation when we get on site. We need something to direct the horticulture students who are helping us though, and to enable the nursery to load the plants in trolleys specifically for the right area of the garden.

One of our advanced Eucalyptus in flower

I feel like we're rehearsing an opera of thousands to be played out on a postage stamp.

Transrock have delivered walling rock to Swinburne today - a beautiful new product called yellow mud stone will form a heart shaped garden bed and a lovely curvy wall in the contemporary garden where the new King in the Garden range of plants will be shown. The Swinburne stone walling students will practise the build of the wall over the next 10 days, sort the rock and pack it onto pallets that make sense to how they will construct it on site. The walls are one of the last things to go in because the students are only in this class once a week, so our construction order is being worked to include them in as much as possible. I'm sure Ben, their teacher, will guide the team like a well oiled machine on the day.

Transrock's yellow mud stone - soon to be drystone wall with attitude

I have a few things to organise tomorrow before spending the day at Swinburne with the entire team. Many of the retaining walls in eucalyptus branch and corrugated iron will be constructed next week, so a review of details is on the agenda. We have some new signage from the sponsors that must be included safely without digging a hole and because sub contractors are involved, we have to pin down the right day for them to come in.

Tomorrow the shed walls will go up, and I'll be able to stand in the structure for the first time. I'll be going over the details of the floral wall with Sandra, our Swinburne floristry teacher. Sandra's group of students will also be helping her construct a pergola across the front of the shed in dried gum nuts and the like - some 12 metres long. Floral exhibits are usually confined to the Exhibition building during the show, so this is something special that we'll have such a cutting edge display in an outdoor garden.

The Yarra Burn winery have supplied our fabulous full size (not full with wine sadly..) wine barrels that form the tables in our cafe. This idea was a family affair, hatched at Robe while catching up with my brother and father one weekend. There was a wine barrel table in the caravan park, and I was nutting out with them how to have a table with a standard grevillea growing up through the middle without it falling over. Dad remembered the wine barrels and so the glass of EB Red Pepper Shiraz was abandoned (criminal really) to go and check them out. The details were finessed somewhat in the course of the evening to hatch what is now a wonderfully quirky growing table that quite a few would like to see in their BBQ areas. Tomorrow I get to see one pretty much finished and that's going to be fun..

Plotting the growing table while the Shiraz breathes...

Have I mentioned the 2 tonne slab of red gum that's being craned in as our bar? Tomorrow perhaps..

42 days to go

In a mere 42 days 'imagine' will stand in 600 square metres of previously inocuous lawn in Carlton Gardens, Melbourne. MIFGS, as we fondly call our once a year flower and garden spectacular, is on again. This year I am lining up for a mammoth effort with a cast of thousands, truckloads of reclaimed tin, tortured eucalypt branches and thousands of gorgeous australian native plants woven into every corner of the design. This blog is the story of a dream as it unfolds in its final preparation phase, into the build phase and finally, the drama of the awards.... will it be good enough?


4 years of garden show experience has given me a healthy fear of disorganisation, a respect for risk management, a love of excel spreadsheets and a resourcefullness that allows me to sniff out a material with character from kilometres away. I like to tell a story with a show garden - I think a garden needs to connect to people who visit in a personal way, so I wanted to find materials to work with this year that celebrate Australia and our rural heritage. My fondness for wide open spaces and the simplicity of a childhood in the country was the seed for this collection of gardens inviting exploration from all. This year our garden is yours to wander through, pause in, learn in and take home. 'Imagine' is for everyone...



So, where are we up to?





Meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings and more meetings. Spreadsheets follow a close second, and this week we may actually see some hammer and nail action with the beginnings of our massive 9 x 12 metre shed starting to be framed up. Swinburne University Wantirna campus in Melbourne are the generous and creative bods making all the pre-fabricated sections of the garden. This week the building students are poring over the engineer's drawings, trying to wrap their creative minds around the difficult structural requirements of the show. There are no holes, no pegs, no star pickets or concrete used to create this garden as we are committed to protecting the beautiful gardens that are heritage listed. So, the floor of this shed is like a miniature stud wall, braced and braced some more just in case we have the gale force mini hurricane that ripped through the site during last year's show.



The old corrugated tin was the starting point for the shed - I just love the range of colours and find myself wondering how many winds strained metal on metal while it stood as a shed on the nursery property. It will be our fresco wall, a painting in itself of hard work, purposeful practicality and perhaps, hope. Our posts are fallen eucalypt trees patterned with lichen and insect trails, bending at just the right places to snuggle a beam or brace an angle. Everything needs to be aged to fit in; the floor a rhythmic patternation of discarded fence palings, the bar a mammoth redgum that fell and was lovingly split to just be. Precious parts of Australia come together to foil a carpet of greenery ready to take on climate change.... We begin a massive task in so many ways.