AUSTRALIA’S BEST BACKYARDS

6:30pm (G)

This week on AUSTRALIA’S BEST BACKYARDS, a thriving parkland style roof garden used by over 400 residents living in a warehouse conversion in Sydney; a Melbourne backyard steeped in mythology and ancient symbolism; and of the most celebrated tropical gardens in Australia.

As a former industrial area of inner Sydney, Pyrmont is not somewhere you’d expect to find an impressive backyard, or any backyard for that matter. However on M-Central, a modern warehouse conversion, there is a thriving parkland-style roof garden that is a welcome patch of greenery for the 400 residents that live in the building. Around a hundred years ago this building was a wool warehouse and the roof was never intended to bare much of a load, especially that of a garden. So, to achieve a garden with minimum of 300mm top soil, extensive structural work had to be undertaken.

You don’t have to step back in time to find a backyard steeped in mythology and ancient symbolism. In fact you only have to go as far as the Melbourne suburb of Northcote. Owner and designer Philip Stray is a self-proclaimed devotee of all matters spiritual, mythological and Celtic which you can see throughout the layout of this eclectic backyard. He loves all sorts of symbolism and has sections of his backyard devoted to the energy and stories behind the arts.

Just twelve minutes from Brisbane you will find one of the most celebrated tropical gardens in Australia. The owner, Dennis Hundscheidt is passionate about tropical gardens and has created his own enchanting nirvana. It may only be situated on a half acre block but because Dennis has sectioned it into so many rooms it looks massive.

Living tree sculpture, arborsculpture, does not yet have an official term to describe it, although it has a history that is centuries old. With the current surge in environmental awareness the concept has literally started to take root.

In the Sydney suburb of Clovelly you will find a compact backyard which not only makes fantastic use of a small space but also features a groundbreaking Australian first that takes sustainable living to a whole new level. The owners of this remarkable backyard are passionate about saving water and doing as much for the environment as possible. One of the water saving solutions they have installed is a plant based terraced grey water filtration system.

AUSTRALIA’S BEST BACKYARDS, hosted by JAMIE DURIE and featuring landscape designers FIONA BRUYN and ANDREW O’SULLIVAN, takes a peek over back fences across the nation in search of the country’s best backyards.