SERIES 16 | Episode 04
Jerry visits Bayside, Brisbane, where you'd least expect to see an English-style cottage garden, but he's found a young gardener who is succeeding exceptionally well in doing just that. Shane Simonsen is a 27-year-old biochemist who has been gardening since childhood. He lives with his parents in a typical suburban house in Brisbane where they've lived for 25 years.
Shane's interest in gardening began when he started reading books about English country gardens and alpines. Ever since he's wanted to grow them in his own garden.
Shane took over the garden from his parents about 10 years ago, when the weather turned much drier and the roses and azaleas they used to grow couldn't cope any more.
He says all the plants in the garden have earnt their place - they either live or they don't. Most of the plants come from the Mediterranean, South Africa or Mexico, so they really love the subtropics. For example the Soft Snapdragon Antirrhinum molle that comes from the Pyrenees in Spain loves the climatic conditions in Queensland.
To a degree all the plants have to be drought tolerant, but they also have to be able to cope with humidity and occasional downpours in the middle of summer.
One of Shane's favourite plants in the garden is the Tinnea rhodesiana. It gets wonderful, almost black flowers that are followed by very persistent inflated bracts that last all year.
People down south would be blown away to see Michaelmas daisies in Brisbane but it's actually one of the toughest plants in Shane's garden. There is a Heath Aster ericoides flowering in Shane's garden in the middle of summer in the driest part of his garden.
There are a number of things that Jerry loves about Shane's garden. The first is the effort that he's put into selecting the right species. Jerry loves the way that they grow in a naturalistic fashion, and it's always a delight to see plants like the rose malle from Western Australia, that just shouldn't be growing well in Brisbane. There is a Salvia discolor which is much prized for its black flowers, is very drought tolerant, and no cottage garden is complete without a salvia.
Shane is always very keen to propagate things as soon as he get his hands on them because he doesn't feel like he owns a plant until he's propagated it himself. He's also started hybridizing his own plants.
Scent in the garden is really important to Shane. So he has planted Spanish wood thyme Thymus mastichina and scented geraniums, and loves nothing more than, in the middle of summer, when everything looks half dead in the heat, to have all the oils wafting through the house. It makes it all worthwhile.