Feeling gloomy about your bare winter garden? This one might inspire

He is also not averse to a can of spray paint. Instead of cutting down his Miscanthus x giganteus when it goes dormant, one of Ryan’s winter tricks is to peel back the leaves of this ornamental grass and artificially colour its canes. He has spray-painted them red (“the first time I had everyone fooled”) and yellow (“most people didn’t pay it much attention”) and is this year thinking about going sky-blue (“that will be interesting, it won’t look real”).

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But mostly his garden is the result of decades of refining. “I like a garden that keeps you busy,” Ryan says. “I always remember [English gardener and author] Christopher Lloyd saying he didn’t want his garden to be low-maintenance because it would always look like it. I want this garden to keep me energised and enthusiastic. I want to be here in another 20 years, still planting, still pulling things out.”

Ryan and his partner, botanical artist Craig Lidgerwood, each spend between one-and-a-half and two days a week in the garden. During pre-COVID winters, they would leave the place to its own devices and go overseas for about five weeks. “It doesn’t tie us down.”

Unlike the higher parts of Mount Macedon, which sports rich mountain soil, the block that Ryan acquired in 1983 contained not a shred of topsoil. After he and Lidgerwood met in 1988, the pair broke up the clay with a crowbar and filled trenches with any organic matter – spent potting mix, kitchen scraps, manure – Ryan could lay his hands on.

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In 1999, the couple acquired the block next door and, in 2001, bought an unused section of road reserve as well. Their garden now extends to every boundary and they have never stopped nourishing their soil.

“People want to know what to feed their plants or what to mulch with,” Ryan says. “Any different thing you can get – different manures, mushroom compost, other compost, peastraw, lucerne, woodchips. I use diverse mulches on top of other mulches to improve the soil with different minerals and different textures. I am a net green waste importer, I am always bringing stuff in.”

This month, you will be able to see the benefits for yourself.

Tugurium is open July 24 and 25, 10am-4.30pm, $10. Craig Lidgerwood’s botanic art (craiglidgerwood.com) will also be on show. Tickets should be booked and pre-paid online but, if there is enough space, entry will also be available at the gate. opengardensvictoria.org.au

In other gardening news …

Citizen science

Become a citizen scientist on a guided ClimateWatch Walk looking at how climate change is affecting the seasonal behaviour of plants and animals in the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. During the tour, participants will be asked to collect data that will be used by the environmental organisation Earthwatch. The free 90-minute walk will be conducted at 11am on July 18 and August 21. Register at rbg.vic.gov.au.

Public greening

Little Baillie Street in North Melbourne is one of the latest beneficiaries of the City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Strategy, with plans afoot to introduce an avenue of Nyssa sylvatica (black tupelo) street trees as well as garden beds. To offer feedback before July 25, go to participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au.

Compost

Composting workshops being run by Helena Buxton in Geelong on July 10 have sold out, but Buxton is now running an online workshop on July 11 from 10.30am to noon, $10. Bookings at opengardensvictoria.org.au