On a sun soaked autumn day we visited Simon Rickard’s Open Garden.
The thrill of inspiration is always on my radar, whether it be a self-sown masterpiece or a lovely cultivated combination. Nature and man both have enough lessons to pack my head full to buzzing and I forgot how great it is to blog it out. Recording and unraveling my thoughts and sharing these beautiful places with you.
So there is nowhere better to start than a quiet little street in Trentham, bursting with produce and an ornamental walk that would have impressionists reaching for their brushes. Simon Rickard, (ex-Digger’s Club head gardener, author of Heirloom Vegetables and modern bassoonist), with his curled mustache and suspenders could have stepped straight out of Portlandia’s song Dream of the 1890s. It takes panache and swagger to carry of a Mo that ornate and I think Simon just made gardening a little bit cooler.
The arbitrary nature of what humans deem beautiful or not must somehow connect back to our primitive brain and its associations with nature. Is this curving walk through soft swaying stems in mauves, greens and pinks an echo of a safe meadow where we could lay down a head for a nap?
Simon certainly has perfected the art of the cultivated wild. No doubt each plant has been carefully selected and situated but the overall appearance is effortless.
Pruning timed expertly before each plant burst into autumn colour so they are compact but not topiaries. When I started the Flemington Food Forest I thought I could just let things take their natural form, but found in the limited space some plants were too unruly and I had to rescue their neighbours from imminent smothering. He also allows big blocks of colour and plant. It’s hard when you begin gardening not to plant things to close together, after all they are tiny when they go in. Careful construction of a perennial armature filled in with mulch, annuals and groundcovers seems like it would save time in plant wrangling in the future.
Simon’s garden plot is surrounded by a post and wire fence which is a direction we are trying to head in at the Norfolk Terrace Rehabilitation garden. It’s so lovely to see that vertical space protecting as well as delineating the vegetable plot. The evergreen edible hedge to the west with a row of sunflowers behind is where we got our first glimpse of Simon, a hipster cowboy with bewitched older ladies in tow. To the north thornless cane berries reached taller than I had ever seen before and the other compass points espaliered deciduous fruit trees.
What’s your favourite part of Simon’s garden? Which private or public gardens inspire you?
The veggie beds themselves were overflowing with produce, laid out in more of the European style rows than the riot of companion planting I’m use to. He does mix onions and carrots, but even those are in neat little groves. There is something nice about a lovely straight row of lettuces, but with chicken’s like mine scattering the tastier leafies is the only way they can survive hiding behind spring onions and lavender. A fence of juicy red apples, pumpkin’s as big as your head and teepees of beans… what an eden! It’s a lovely reminder, nay reinforcement that edible gardens can have a lush sort of beauty that can hold its own against any ornamental.
