Enjoying My Garden

THERE are logical reasons Debra and Gavin Ottway can boast a colourful and varied garden while many of us are struggling to keep plants alive under water restrictions.One is that Debra is letting the plants understand how they are going to be treated. Now that they are accustomed to only one serious drink a week, they are toughening up and responding accordingly.

Another is that if a plant is faltering in full sun, it won't be replaced a similar one. If Gavin really wants to fill a gap, he'll find a tough shrub or a sun-hardy species.
Then there's daily dead-heading of the annuals. And plenty of compost and mulch.
Harness grey water and give the whole picture a deep weekly treat. Invest in a rainwater tank.
But all of the above advice is immaterial without a passion for plants, and the Ottways have that in truckloads – their social life is put on hold when they're preparing for a garden competition, or for the public to wander around their botanical baby.
"This year we've planted half the number of annuals and twice the number of flowering shrubs," Debra said. "After the annuals give up we let them go to mulch so we can keep the shrubs alive."
In the north-facing front garden of their Regents Park home, south of Brisbane, the Ottways have added more rose bushes, and, for spring colour ranunculus, primulas, petunias and tiny violas known as "jolly jump-ups".
"They're hardier than pansies," said Gavin, who is also impressed with the differing textures and architecture of unusual plants scattered throughout the tiered gardens. Ornamental cauliflower and variegated chinese lanterns stand proud next to callistemons; there's italian parsley and several varieties of tough salvia, bright bougainvilleas, and allysum at the edges.
Standing guard over these hundreds of specimens is an advanced brilliant pink bauhinia – its leaves perfect mulch.
Gavin, who works for an irrigation company, and Debra, a sales representative, have several gardens on their property, an awkward-shaped 799sq m that backs on to four neighbours.
The only area that could be dug for a swimming pool for their kids when they bought the land 12 years ago was in the middle of the back yard, because service pipes ran along the back of the property. So the shapes of the gardens were thrust upon them.
By the pool are elkhorns, staghorns and cordylines in countless colours. Some are in pots, others, including one grand pinky-orange leafed sample, defies the dry and gets fed only occasionally.
There are bromeliads, antherium lilies, several dracaena varieties including outstanding marginata and potted azaleas.
A herb garden near the undercover entertaining area has rosemary, oregano, basil, mint and thyme. Other perfumed plants that add to the evening scent are frangipani, lavender, rhondeletia and brunfelsia. To the side of the house is the Water Walk, with a bubbling water feature – a pottery head of a nodding croc emerging from under a rock. Crotons, broms and buckinghamia line the path.
Debra is persevering with a rose garden in one hidden corner that was a small orchard years ago. A loquat, lemonade, grapefruit, mandarin and tangelo tree remain, and Gavin has a novel method of keeping fruit fly away: "I brew my own beer, and I put the sludge from the bottom of it in these plastic bottles with holes punched in them. It works."
The temperature rises markedly in a fernery tucked between the house and a side fence, with shade-cloth screening a forest of tropicals including ardisia, variegated croton and stripey-leafed caladiums.
Gavin uses no poisons on the property. They installed a 3000-litre tank, which filled several weeks ago in one of Brisbane's freak downpours. Gavin has used this for plants around the pool. Debra harnesses the grey water from the household wash.