Road testing garden plants at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney

I don’t think gardens are sanctuaries. Gardens are bakeries.

Sanctuaries are a retreat from life. Bakeries are in the main street, open to all, with the bustle of community coming, going and enjoying what they have to offer. Bakeries are the stuff of life. And so it is with gardens. They are messy, they are busy – they are alive! I cleave to this idea more and more, particularly in the time that I have taken care of the trial garden at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (RBGS). I could write here about plant selection and care, instead I offer my more aphoristic musings that I hope generate gardening joy. To begin let me walk you through my garden.

The RBGS trial garden is essentially a 1,700m2 research site for ‘road testing’ plants. As a public display garden the trials must also work as aesthetic green spaces so design plays a big role. The garden has around 200 cultivars growing at any one time. These include both native and exotic plant species. The sole aim of these trials is to test for plant vigour and impact in Sydney’s climate.

Trial gardens as a genre may be unfamiliar to some, but they could be seen as similar to the way many gardeners intuitively go about it at home, popping a plant in and seeing if it lives. The difference is a trial garden has quite a
bit more structure and record keeping to it. The RBGS can use the resulting growing and performance data to inform plant selection for the botanic garden.

We also release resources to the general public about the best performing plants each year, and I chat to many garden visitors each week that pop in seeking advice.

Plants are potent receptacles of memory

I first acquired the gardening fever as a child on regular visits to The Garden of St Erth in Blackwood, Victoria. In my subconscious it is now one of the paradigmatic gardens I gauge my horticultural endeavours against. I expect
my memories of walking through with my family, entranced by the summer flower borders and vegetables, will never go away.

I planted sweet peas in the trial garden this year. During their flowering period, at least a dozen groups of people said to me that they reminded them of their parent or grandparent.

Pick plants you love and you will be making memories with and for your loved ones.

A garden that is loved is better than a garden that is fashionable

Good gardens are designed around the needs of people. Great gardens do this while enhancing local ecology, being sensitive to site context and creating meaning. There is no shortcut to this.

Discerning the plants or garden style you are going to use is an immersive thing.
There is everything to be gained by following up research into plants and design with experimentation and finding your own particular style. Fashionable gardens are often resource intensive and template like. Fashion changes but plantings you choose will mean something to you, enhance your desire to care for them and create ‘place’.

You are reading this because you love plants, so go and experiment with different species. There is a huge diversity to pick from beyond the commonly featured garden plants – some of them are in my trial garden! Don’t feel you
are limited to planting native plants as a shortcut to sustainable gardening either.
Do this if you love them for their own sake. If you want plants that will deal with your local climate and soil then you have a huge global palette to choose from.

The basic unit of gardens is care and curiosity

Gardens are not simply about plants; they are systems. This is not magical; it is science. Care through sensitive observation and learning about landscape, plants and insects will be rewarded. I grew a bed of brassicas in our edible garden last winter including cauliflower, kale, cabbage and broccoli. I sprayed an organic insecticide on only three occasions in six months. There was no pest
damage to the final crop. Why? I knew the main insect pest is the cabbage white butterfly and that it was only active in the warmer part of autumn. Life is easier and less resource intensive if you learn about and observe your garden and the systems involved.

Gardening is a language that is global, ageless and community sustaining

The edible garden bed is by far the one about which I receive the most questions and discuss with the widest range of garden visitors. Growing food is one true universal. I have engaged with visitors from Thailand and Vietnam about varieties of corn, shown excited kindergarten kids how to eat okra, and assisted high school students in identifying crops.

Ignore the stereotypes that gardens are the sole purview of any one group – in my experience they are the social glue we need more of.

I recommend starting a verge garden on your street. I have done it since I was in share houses as a student and continued right up to this day. I can literally say that I got to know all my neighbours through growing herbs to share.

Embrace record keeping

I won’t lie, there is no substitute for a gardening journal. It is why head gardeners have kept them from at least the 17th century. They are a great learning aid. I keep one daily recording my garden activities. Especially useful is weighing and documenting yield once you pick your edibles.

You might be surprised at the varying productivity between two cultivars of
zucchini for example (a 40kg difference in one of my trials!). You might also record when a plant began flowering and when it ceased. We like to think we remember these things but over the seasons when reading back you will find a wealth of data that can be mined to improve your garden.

My job is to care for the trial garden but I have learned that all gardeners will benefit from an experimental approach – it will enhance your ability to dive into the messy, busy aliveness that is gardening.

Written by Bryn Hutchinson, horticulturalist at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney trial garden.