WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE IF YOU COULD HAVE AT MIFGS 2020

Aurum by Mint Pool + Landscape Design

A highlight on the annual calendar for the garden industry, the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show (MIFGS) would have celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2020 – had it not been scuttled by a global pandemic.

Hosted in the heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens, MIFGS features the best landscape and floral talents from Australia, along with a selection of global competitors.

Along with masterclass experiences with floral designers, opportunities to meet with key landscape designers and industry experts, and an avenue of exhibitors selling everything from bulbs, plants, tools and garden accessories, MIFGS is about Show Gardens.

A big drawcard for many, the show gardens give landscape designers chosen to participate the chance to ‘strut their stuff’, delighting attendees with their design prowess and expert knowledge. An enviable delight that has many an attendee racing home to measure their space for a new water feature or plan out a patio each year, it was a disappointment for all that MIFGS 2020 had to close before everyone got to be inspired. So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to show you a little of what you missed.

Check out the offerings that would have been from a few leading landscape designers of MIFGS 2020: Phillip Withers of Phillips Withers Landscape Design, Dean Herald of Rolling Stone Landscapes, Mark Browning of Mark Browning Landscape Design, and the talented team from Mint Design.

The Gallery by Rolling Stone Landscapes

THE GALLERY | ROLLING STONE LANDSCAPES
The inspiration for The Gallery show garden was to challenge the expectation of garden art or a sculpture piece set within an outdoor space. Art is subjective and comes in so many elements, and for this design I have selected a timeless piece that to many would be considered art and to others will certainly open minds to what a feature piece can be.

The art piece will be housed in a gallery-style structure with stone blades and large glass walls for a seamless connection with the garden. The design will also provide individual areas forming a dining space and separate lounge area, all positioned to gain a direct connection with the visual piece.

The Gallery challenges the expectation of garden art in an outdoor space

A water element surrounds The Gallery, providing movement and sound in the space, while enabling additional reflection of the art piece. The detailed planting layout will provide foliage contrast in colour, texture and shape, and will bleed between the hard elements.

Collaborators: EcoOutdoor (wall and floor stone supply), Cosh Living (outdoor furniture supply), Gardens at Night (outdoor lighting supply), Alpine Nurseries (plant supply)

See more from Dean Herald and the Rolling Stone Landscapes team @rollingstonelandscapes

It's Our Time by Phillip Withers Landscape Design was inspired by the natural landscape of The Great Ocean Road

IT’S OUR TIME | PHILLIP WITHERS LANDSCAPE DESIGN
It’s Our Time is the first garden we have looked to create a completely local landscape whereby everything that is contributed to the garden is from our state. We aimed to create a landscape that celebrates our remnant vegetation and natural local materials inspired by one of Victoria’s most prominent areas, the Otway and Warrnambool plains and Otway ranges — a world class landscape otherwise known as The Great Ocean Road.

The landscape starts with a bluestone lookout, which introduces the viewer to the native environment. The natural landscape is full of remnant plant life, a mix of grassland swales that drift through the lower plains to the shrub and grassland that rolls up the sand dunes. The topography changes to reflect the sand dunes, with rammed-earth cliff structures that protrude from the ground plain and sculpture-like natural detail to emulate our amazing coastal environment. A bluestone boardwalk then floats above the landscape to take viewers down from the lookout across the natural plains and towards the beach.

Phillip and the Team chose to features plants, herbs and grasses native to Victoria

The landscape features some of Australia’s most beautiful and iconic plant life, such as Common Heath, Epacris impressa, the sculptural Moonah tree, Melaleuca lanceolata and Grass tree, Xanthorrhoea johnsonii. As well as Banksia marginata, Luecophyta brownii or Rice flower Pimelia humilis, and native herbs and grasses such as Carpobrotus rossii and themeda triandra that create cultural connections to our indigenous history.

Images by Amelia Stanwix (@ameliastanwix)

Check out more from Phillip Withers and the team @phillip_withers

Aud by Mark Browning Landscape Design

AUD | MARK BROWNING LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Aud is our show garden for the 2020 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, named Aud as a shortening of Audrey, a lady who succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease a couple of years ago, as too many people do. Although Audrey died from this disease and other ailments, Alzheimer’s never defined her.

Audrey was a competent and enthusiastic gardener, a golf champion in younger years, and most of all a loving family woman. Our Aud is a testament to her gardening prowess, a fusion of otherwise confused mixed and varied plantings and off-beat structural landscape ideas.

Central to this garden is a humble pavilion — the sort of thing Audrey would have a coffee in mid-morning. Set amid plantings that otherwise define 60s and 70s Melbourne, stone mushrooms and shards of sawn bluestone and steppers intersperse the space — a bit like the sort of paraphernalia that adorned Audrey’s gardens. Raised planting areas surround with yet more eclectic plantings, while the walls are natural finish (earth encrusted) bluestone offcuts.

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.

A stunning landscape in support of Dementia Australia

Aud is a tribute to a woman with no design or horticultural qualifications. What Audrey did possess was somethings often absent in landscape design: personality, possibility and a wildly experimental spirit.

Aud was presented by Bamstone, designed by Mark Browning Landscape Design, site managed by Dan Foreman, constructed by Kiama Landscapes and Pools, in support of Dementia Australia.

*Audrey was, and remains, Mark’s Mum. To this day she is his primary role model in this profession.

Get more at Mark Browning Landscape Design @mark_browning_design

Aurum by Mint Pool + Landscape Design

AURUM | MINT POOL + LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Aurum (latin word for gold) is an exploration of form, materials, texture, pattern and colour in the landscape. Much like the modern Hollywood style, Aurum is unashamedly hedonistic and glamorous yet grounded in nature.

This show garden design weaves elements of modernism and Art Deco together, reinterpreting them using contemporary design principles. The fresh colour palette brings aesthetics to the fore in a design that is climate-conscious and people-centric. Where contemporary design in Melbourne has sought to separate architectural form and nature into disparate ideals, Aurum demonstrates how the two entities can sit comfortably together.

Aurum weaves together elements of modernism and Art Deco design

Aurum consists of a series of spaces that flow cohesively without a social hierarchy. It is a garden to be used casually, a space to relax and enjoy, and to create memories.

Like all art, Aurum is an exploration of balance within the landscape; bold versus delicate, manmade and natural. The result is an elegant resolution, a garden that flows in a cohesive narrative.

Discover more delights from MINT Pool + Landscape Design @mintdesignau