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Australian Native Plant Lovers Garden

Official commission for the Australian Garden Show Sydney

2013

Our dream of Australia is of never ending landscapes and wide-open skies. As global travellers wherever we have come from and wherever we are it’s these skies that bond us together and link us back to our different homelands. The inspiration for September Sky came from those spring skies when days become longer and the light becomes clearer, where colours are sharp, crisp and silver.

This garden uses typical Australian native plants from a perspective of the outsider to the country, a fresh eye in a contemporary setting where strong architectural forms engage with a much wilder planting.

Designed in collaboration with Tom Harfleet and constructed with a team of volunteers and specialists in Sydney. “Andrew must be a walking plant encyclopedia, as he designs gardens in cool climate UK, tropical Jamaica, the Mediterranean and, occasionally, now in dry subtropical Sydney. His understanding of our delicate, fine-textured native flora is really impressive, and the contrasts of the large dark, cycads are exactly what they need to show them off. Maybe this is the advantage of not being hamstrung by our strange cultural obsession.” Catherine Stewart Garden Drum Australia