Matthew meets a Garden Clinic member whose garden is a classic tapestry of beautiful flowers, with dancing delicate fuchsias the current stars.
On a warm autumn day in Sydney Chris Shale’s garden is showing off. The blooms of roses, camellias and clematis easily rival a spring show. It’s all visible from the street, with no fence or hedge to hide a garden which harks back to an older time when diversity in perennial flowers was king and the subtlety of the owner’s design style cherished. The generosity of the planting, and the view, is echoed in the gardener herself – when I arrived I found Chris sharing notes with a fellow keen fuchsia grower. They were enthusiastically discussing the merits of each fuchsia variety and admiring some of the 200 beautiful specimens growing in Chris’ garden. Fuchsias are Chris’s plant crush of the moment, following clematis, judging by the number of these stunning climbers in her garden!
It is odd that two plant groups not renowned for growing well in Sydney are the main two jewels of Chris’ garden, and she explains that the key is in choosing the right cultivars. Chris gets plants and insider tips from specialist fuchsia nurseries and at the annual Fuchsia Festival in the Blue Mountains, as well as from other keen growers. She also reveals that having Parkers Nursery less than two hundred metres from her door gives her great inspiration, as well as being a source for clematis. The location of the garden also helps, with the temperatures being more stable and the rainfall more regular in this part of Sydney.
When Chris and her husband Donald moved in, in 1981, the garden was mainly shrubbery with hydrangeas and azaleas in the beds and some camellia sasanqua plantings around the fence line. They laid out plans for front and rear gardens that Chris admits have changed many times over the years. Luckily she says, she “loves to garden so the time and effort put into it is a hobby and a pleasure, rarely a chore.”
The soil has been transformed from heavy clay soil “with barely a worm in sight” to a “rich, moisture-retaining loamy soil”, thanks to bags and bags of cow manure, sand, gypsum and compost. The initial planting involved deciduous trees such as birches and maples that “give the garden a mixture of sunshine and filtered sun”. Donald showed off his skills building the rose arbours that add an extra height dimension to the garden and a lucky discovery at a local development site gave them all the sandstone they required to build the low garden walls and edges that form the solid backbone of the garden.
Water restrictions have had little effect on the garden as Chris waters predominantly by hand, using water from tanks and bladders. Feeding is not neglected. “I try to feed the garden regularly,” she says. “Each spring I add lots of cow manure and Organic Life and mushroom compost.” As well as these soil-building organic foods, she adds liquid fertilisers through spring and come summer hits the plants with potassium-rich foods such as Phostrogen and Bloom Booster.
Injected into the landscape are many personal touches that make the garden feel intimate and unique. Many of the plants have come from friends, and Chris makes great use of repeat-flowering plants such as cranesbills, hellebores, ageratum, plectranthus, campanula, cerastium and iris. One garden vista offers a potted and heavily contorted “Lace Lady” Robinia under an arbour covered with ivory-coloured roses and clematis, surrounded by salvias, roses, heliotrope and cleome. The planting style has a certain romance to it, as it is not dictated by straight lines of hedging. Instead perennials and annuals are allowed to gracefully roll and spill in a well-crafted knit of colour and texture.
Chris’ garden was open this year in mid-March, and inspired us and hundreds of visitors alike, reminding us why we love Australia’s Open Garden Scheme! Don’t miss out on this gem next year.
Clematis for warm climates Chris says the viticella cultivars of clematis are reliable in warm climates. She even gets them to flower in spring AND autumn, by cutting them back by one third after their spring flowering. Look for: Polish Spirit, medium-sized with rich, royal-purple blooms Etoile Violette, small deep-purple flowers with conspicuous golden stamens Venosa Violacea, large white flowers blushed with purple
Fuchsias for warm climates Chris recommends these for Sydney. They are all easy to propagate and perform well. Remember that most trailing varieties will also make a beautiful trailing standard. The tougher varieties of fuchsias are quite forgiving so if you're not happy with the shape you've created, you can give them a hard prune in winter and start afresh the next spring. Look for: Chequerboard, needs at least half-day sun to grow and flower well, will trail from hanging basket, grow in pot or in ground, bush, standard or espalier, single flowers in red and white Ambassador, needs at least half-day sun to grow and flower well, purple and rose flweors, with a flush of white Pixie, single rose-pink and red flowers Annabel, beautiful white flowers with a blush of pink Joy Patmore, pink and waxy white
Best fuchsias
Name: Bianca Description: Beautiful double white flowers show well against lovely green foliage. Size: Approx. 2m. Special Comments: Longer and taller growth than most other varieties, allows training. Beautiful specimens are seen espaliered in Chris's garden. Button: espalier
Name: Beacon Rosa Description: Bushy variety with beautiful soft pink flowers. Size: Smaller grower to approx. 50cm Special Comments: Other bushy varieties to try include Jack Stanway; Margaret Pilkington; Deep Purple. Most of the pot varieties grow well in ground as well. Button: pots
Name: Checkerboard Description: Beautiful scarlet corrola and white sepals. Size: Medium grower to approx. 1m. Special Comments: Can also be made into a taller standard or trained as an espalier. Button: garden
Name: Tara Nicole Description: Rose sepals, corrola white veined with red. Size: Medium grower to approx. 1m in height in the ground - smaller in hanging basket Special Comments: Other trailing varieties to try in a hanging basket include Postiljon and Deep Purple Button: hanging basket
Name: La Campanella Description: free-flowering, flowers are semi-double with white sepals touched with pink and a deep, foliage is mid-green and hear-shaped purple corolla. Size: Smaller grower to 50cm Special Comments: Beautiful fuchsia once established. Button: hanging basket
Name: Harbour Bridge Description: Double flowers with pale rose sepals tipped green and lavender blue corolla. Size: To approx 1m Special Comments: The growth is strong and upright on this variety. Button: garden
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