SILVER SHOW GARDENS 'AUD' By Mark Browning Landscape Design Mark Browning’s show garden, 'Aud' is a tribute to his late mother, Audrey, a passionate gardener and a formative influence on the designer’s own landscaping career. In his signature style, Mark uses bluestone exclusively for the structural elements of the garden, eschewing rectangular shapes, in favour of organic, flowing lines. A humble pavilion sits centrally, amid a collection of eclectic plantings, reminiscent of Audrey’s own gardening style. Mark wrote: 'Visual access to 'Aud' is deliberately compromised to just a couple of locations to enhance the mystery that Audrey was to horticulture and structure. Audrey’s gardens were always to be enjoyed from within and she had a strong indifference to showing them off, they were hers and never intended as an ego statement. 'Aud' possibly fails the show garden pub test as it is a tribute to a woman with no design or horticultural qualifications. What Audrey did possess are some things often absent in landscape design: personality, possibility and a wildly experimental spirit.” 'AUD' was the recipient of the Mark Bence Construction Award which recognises excellence in landscape construction.
'Resilience' By Steve Day for Tree & Shrub Growers VIC Originally designed for the postponed show in 2020, the message behind ‘Resilience’ resonates even more loudly in 2022, in the wake of the global pandemic. The ‘Resilience’ Show Garden at MIFGS 2022, is a demonstration of how an urban garden can be attractive, inviting, easy to maintain, and good for our resilience, which in turn improves our health and wellbeing. It is also a good physical example of a resilient garden – with plants species selected for not only their aesthetic qualities, but also their resilience to pest and disease, drought, and the threat of climate change. In describing the significance of gardens in boosting resilience, especially during Melbourne’s protracted lockdowns, designer Steve Day wrote: “Residential gardens became one of the most critical parts of the home, and gave people the much needed respite from the world, and the reconnection to nature, that helped lower stress at a very stressful time.
The green helped people be more resilient during all the uncertainty. Let’s never forget how important our local parks and home gardens were during this time.” “We hope it inspires everyone to surround themselves with nature and recognise how every garden has a part to play for the improved resilience of our families and the whole community.”
