- 1 day ago
Monty Don is so shocked by the Australian obsession with lawns that he declares "It could be Surrey!" Imported plants have replaced the native fauna, which disappoints Monty. In New Zealand, however, he is inspired by a magical rainforest garden created from native plants.
蒙蒂（Monty）的澳大利亚之旅始于悉尼——正如当年的殖民进程一样，起初在发展农业方面困难重重。当地的一座公园和皇家植物园展示了大多数观赏植物是如何从“母国”欧洲引入的（而欧洲本身也是从其他地方引进这些植物的）。沙漠中一处看似野生的本土植物公园，则引发了人们对“何为花园”这一问题的思考。随后，他前往澳大利亚的“园艺之都”——墨尔本。最后，他跨越海域，抵达了新西兰。
蒙蒂（Monty）的澳大利亚之旅始于悉尼——正如当年的殖民进程一样，起初在发展农业方面困难重重。当地的一座公园和皇家植物园展示了大多数观赏植物是如何从“母国”欧洲引入的（而欧洲本身也是从其他地方引进这些植物的）。沙漠中一处看似野生的本土植物公园，则引发了人们对“何为花园”这一问题的思考。随后，他前往澳大利亚的“园艺之都”——墨尔本。最后，他跨越海域，抵达了新西兰。
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00:00I believe that a really good way to understand a culture is through its gardens.
00:05This is an extraordinary journey to visit 80 inspiring gardens from all over the world.
00:11Some are very well known, like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.
00:16And I'm also challenging my idea of what a garden actually is.
00:21So I'm visiting gardens that float on the Amazon, a strange fantasy in the jungle,
00:26as well as the private homes of great designers.
00:29And the desert flowering in a garden.
00:32And wherever I go, I shall be meeting people that share my own passion for gardens,
00:37and my epic quest to see the world through 80 of its most fascinating and beautiful gardens.
00:54200 years ago, this was regarded as the most remote and the strangest place on the planet.
01:09And I shall be taking a journey across this vast continent, looking at its landscape and above all its gardens,
01:16to see how it's evolved from colonisation to gradual use and acceptance of the native flora to become the independent
01:28modern society that it is today.
01:34My journey begins in Sydney, where the British first settled over 200 years ago.
01:39I'll then head inland to Alice Springs and a garden in the heart of the continent's vast burning desert,
01:46before I turn south to the garden city of Melbourne.
01:49Finally, I'll cross the Tasman Sea to New Zealand to look at gardens filled with their native plants.
02:00By the edge of an unremarkable beach on a huge natural bay in the southeast of the country is a
02:07very special plant.
02:08This is a banksia, and its strangeness to British eyes and its name acknowledges the beginning of Britain's colonial occupation
02:16of this continent.
02:19The stone obelisks behind me marks the spot where Cook made his landfall after his epic voyage.
02:28And the bay that he stopped in he called Stingray Bay because he found so many of those fish in
02:35these waters.
02:35But travelling with Cook was a young botanist called Joseph Banks,
02:40who went on to be the first curator of Kew and one of the great figures in botanical history.
02:46And Banks found so many new and extraordinary plant species here, around the edge of the bay,
02:53that Cook renamed it in his honour, and he called it Botany Bay.
03:01The Banksia is only one of the many thousands of spectacular native plants that thrive nowhere else on earth but
03:08here.
03:08It was a sheer number of unique species that made the plant's namesake, Joseph Banks, realise that this was more
03:14than a new island.
03:16This was a whole new continent.
03:25They went back home with news of this extraordinary discovery.
03:29And 18 years later, the first fleet of settlers and convicts arrived.
03:34I'm arriving on the same route today, on the Manly Ferry.
03:39When the fleet landed in Botany Bay, where Cook had landed,
03:43and then they discovered there was no water, they had to decamp and move.
03:46They came up knowing there was an entrance, but they didn't know what they would find.
03:50So they came in here, out of the open ocean, hopefully to find a more sheltered place to land.
03:58And 200 years later, we know this as Sydney.
04:17Unlike those first settlers, my boat docks in a large modern metropolis.
04:22But despite the skyscrapers, Sydney's past remains close to hand,
04:27and my first Australian garden is slap in the middle of the city.
04:33Behind the Opera House are the gates to the Royal Botanic Garden.
04:44What I particularly like about this garden is that you have the juxtaposition
04:50of this fabulous natural harbour on the one side,
04:53and then on the other side, the city right on top of the garden.
04:57And its 74 acres are packed with extraordinary plants.
05:04But this is not just a botanical reserve.
05:08It is in one of the most spectacularly beautiful urban positions in the world,
05:13and has always been at the heart of Sydney's life.
05:16It is constantly used by Sydney's citizens,
05:20either for their rather relentless exercising, or just to relax.
05:29One of the reasons that I've chosen to visit the Botanic Gardens
05:33is not just because it's beautiful and interesting,
05:35but because of its importance in the history of the entire occupation of Australia.
05:42What the first settlers needed most urgently of all was fresh water.
05:47They came up the coast, and they found a creek fed by fresh water.
05:52And this pond is fed by that same stream.
05:57So, famously, they created a small farm of nine acres of wheat.
06:01And, in fact, the bay out there is still called Farm Cove to this day.
06:10The modern Botanic Garden is rich with healthy, lush plants of every variety.
06:16But it wasn't always so.
06:18In fact, life for the original settlers was almost unimaginably hard.
06:22And to clear the farmland, they had to clear wood and forest and scrub.
06:28They blunted their axes, they couldn't dig out or get rid of the trunks,
06:32so they sowed their corn in amongst them.
06:35And this is a recreation of that first crop,
06:39which is really hardly a crop at all.
06:41We're filming this on the 1st of December.
06:42That's the first day of summer, which is pretty much near harvest.
06:45This is what they would have had to feed them.
06:48Doesn't really look like a crop at all, but their lives depended upon it.
06:51And they had to sow into this very, very thin soil.
06:55Now, this has had 200 years of improvement,
06:57but then it was practically pure sand.
07:04But they had little choice,
07:07because any convict trying to escape the colony and its struggling crops
07:10faced almost certain death by starvation in the dense Australian bush,
07:14which was also filled with unfamiliar and sometimes dangerous creatures.
07:24The most astonishing thing for me in the botanic gardens
07:27is not a plant, but the fruit bats.
07:31They hang from the branches like sacks and occasionally extending a vast wing.
07:39Or the whole tree at times can be fluttering as they move to cool down in the sun.
07:45And it's like bellows expanding and contracting.
07:48And you can imagine for the 1st settlers, seeing these strange animals,
07:54either vast versions of what they saw at home, or completely different,
07:58must have been an extraordinary thing.
08:05As the colony developed, the farmland became the governor's garden.
08:09And then in 1816, the botanic gardens were officially founded.
08:13But that original settlement, by the shelter of Farm Bay,
08:17is still at the heart of the garden,
08:19and is the symbolic beginning of the modern Australian nation.
08:27As Sydney became established,
08:29it deliberately recreated the appearance and style of the homeland.
08:33These mixed borders of Government House could be part of any British stately home,
08:37albeit on the other side of the world.
08:40This represents a kind of homesickness.
08:43And it's that urge to create a reminder of home
08:46that's key to the next wave of Australian gardens, further inland.
08:55The first inland town took shape here in Mittagong, in the hills south of Sydney.
09:01Mittagong means small mountain and has a much cooler and wetter climate,
09:05which was perfect, of course, for those early homesick settlers,
09:09who started building modest pioneer homes.
09:12Initially, all settlement was in Sydney itself.
09:17But, gradually, people began to leave the city
09:21and create lives for themselves in the country.
09:34But, nevertheless, despite the almost unimaginable hard work it would have been bottled,
09:39there would be time just to plant a little bit of colour,
09:43just a token bit of gardening, to lift the spirits of nothing else.
09:48And this modest splash of colour to relieve a brutally harsh existence in the countryside
09:53heralded a new wave of Australian gardens.
09:58By the middle of the 19th century,
10:01people in Sydney were becoming wealthy enough
10:03to consider moving out of the city during the baking summer months.
10:08And they came south here, which is much cooler, even on a summer's day like today.
10:13It's actually positively chilly.
10:14And they were buying up the simple little shacks
10:16and enlarging them and converting them into summer homes, country houses.
10:21And wherever you get a country house, sooner or later,
10:24you're going to get a country house garden.
10:32The garden at Kennelton Green began its life in a modest way in 1860.
10:36But since then, it has grown to spread over five well-tended acres.
10:41And it includes a rose garden, a tightly clipped bay tree garden,
10:45a silver birch wood, and almost inevitably, a potashay.
10:49All divided as a series of garden rooms, centred around the original settler's cottage.
10:58Now, the thing that immediately strikes me about Kennelton
11:02is that here we are, an hour or two south of Sydney,
11:06and yet this is a garden that really wouldn't feel out of place
11:11in the home counties in England.
11:13It's an English country garden.
11:24Now, this was a deliberate thing.
11:27Apparently, the first settlers,
11:29once they'd overcome the sort of hostility of their terrain
11:33and got to the luxury of making a garden as opposed to just surviving,
11:38sent home for familiar plants,
11:41apparently violets and snowdrops.
11:44Even songbirds were shipped out
11:46so that they could recreate the gardens that they were familiar with.
11:51And it was a distinct homesickness, a nostalgia,
11:57and they built around them spaces that they could think of as home,
12:02not their new homeland,
12:03but a distant home that they would probably never see again.
12:15And, you know, from this point of the garden,
12:18I can't see a single native plant.
12:25Now, it's worth stressing that Kennelton is not a historical recreation.
12:31It's a modern garden.
12:32But it illustrates so many of the tendencies of those early Australian gardens.
12:38And this area, the bay garden,
12:41shows how that with the tightly clipped bay trees,
12:46it's conquering nature.
12:48It reminds me of the 17th century French and Dutch gardens
12:53where you use formality and topiary to show man's mastery
12:58of a hostile natural world that lay beyond the garden's edges.
13:09It's a beautiful place.
13:11Kennelton is a series of garden rooms.
13:14And as you come out of the bay garden, you walk into this wood.
13:18And it's made up just of the white trunks of birch and grass.
13:24And I think it's the loveliest thing in the entire garden.
13:33Kennelton is undoubtedly a very beautiful garden.
13:38But it's a beautiful fantasy.
13:40It's an attempt to create a little piece of England in a very foreign land.
13:46And the reality, just the other side of the garden hedge,
13:49or at least just down the road, is this.
13:51This is the real Australian.
13:54It is a completely different world,
13:57which the early gardens turned their backs on.
14:00But before I leave the Sydney area,
14:02I'm going to visit a 21st century garden
14:04that celebrates its Australian roots.
14:20When I chose this garden, it was really because it was modern.
14:24And I'd heard about it, and I'd seen pictures of it.
14:26I just thought it looked really interesting.
14:29When you walk in here, the first thing you notice
14:32are these great jagged angles of rock pushing out at you.
14:35And it's almost quite aggressive.
14:38But the way that they're balanced actually is not hostile.
14:44It's not threatening.
14:44And you start to look further and see that the plants
14:48work really well with them, with that colour.
14:52This tiny, private garden in Sydney's fashionable Mossman district
14:56has been created for its owners by the Czech designer Vladimir Sittapur.
15:00It nestles in the right angle of the building,
15:02and with its large sliding glass doors facing onto it,
15:05is an important part of the living space.
15:10The rock, all 33 tonnes of it,
15:14was quarried in Alice Springs, the red heart of Australia.
15:18The owners commissioned the garden to display
15:20their collection of drought-resisting succulents.
15:22However, not all the plants are Australian,
15:25although this magnificent ponytail palm, with its dangling water-storing roots,
15:31most certainly is.
15:34What is an Australian garden?
15:36Well, I wish to know.
15:38The garden is a culture concept to me.
15:40And first you have to define what the culture is.
15:44I don't think it's even a demand for creating Australian garden.
15:49It's not...
15:49People think that when they stick Australian plants into some space
15:53that that's an Australian garden.
15:55That's a lot of rubbish.
15:57There's hardly anywhere in the world that relishes being outdoors so much.
16:01Well, because you have such a good weather.
16:03So you would think that it was the perfect place to make gardens
16:07that could be relished all the time?
16:08If you see the garden as a stage set for your hedonistic pursuits, absolutely.
16:15No, no, but it doesn't have to be a hedonistic pursuit.
16:17It doesn't have to be a swimming pool or a tennis court or a barbecue.
16:20But this is what most of our gardens are here,
16:23you know, in those richer suburbs, of course.
16:26I think the garden, ideally, should touch you emotionally.
16:30And, unfortunately, it became, in many ways, just another commodity.
16:36In terms of just making your own and creating them,
16:42I think we'd just barely scratch the surface in Australia.
16:46Despite Vladimir's middle European gloom,
16:50I think his garden is the closest that I've come so far
16:53to feeling a real spirit of Australia.
16:56And these jagged angles have a tectonic energy that I like
16:59and which are pointing me to that burning red heart of the continent.
17:07So that's where I'm going next.
17:09The Outbound.
17:10Near Alice Springs.
17:12And it couldn't be less like Sydney.
17:22It is a staggeringly harsh, grand, bright orange landscape.
17:27But I can see echoes of Sita's design immediately.
17:31Although this vast sand country is classed as desert,
17:34it's actually full of life and empty only to the untutored eye.
17:38I'm visiting a completely different type of garden,
17:42Alice Springs Desert Park,
17:44which I hope will help me to understand the Outback a little better.
17:58The park opened in 1997.
18:01It was designed to introduce people to the plants, animals and Aboriginal culture of the Outback.
18:07With spinifex grasses, dried creeks, sand country and even a large salt pan,
18:14all painstakingly recreated to mimic the conditions of the Outback in its true setting.
18:27It's a vast site with over 100 acres of cultivated garden and over 3,000 acres in all.
18:33I was shown round by Gary Dinham, the curator of botany,
18:36and he explained to me how the spinifex, the spiky grass that grows in the sand country,
18:41is perfectly adapted to the conditions.
18:44It's got these very spiky leaves, which in fact used to be flat leaves,
18:48which have rolled around to try and reduce water loss.
18:52I tell you what, that is as beautiful a grass as any in any garden, isn't it?
18:57It's fantastic, yeah, and we're trying to get people to use them more in gardens
19:00because it doesn't use much water, it's very easy to manage.
19:04You'll find plants which are less suited to the desert often growing beside rivers.
19:08So the river red gum are eucalyptus.
19:12Eucalyptus camalgelensis.
19:13Right. They're very beautiful with their bark off.
19:16Look at this. It's sort of clear white.
19:22The desert doesn't really have rivers, or at least if they are, they don't run very often, do they?
19:27No, they're ephemeral rivers. It's the upside down rivers of central Australia
19:30where the sort of sand's on the top and the water flows underneath,
19:33and it's only after the heavy rains that you'll get the river flowing.
19:38It was quite interesting with my children as they grew up here in central Australia.
19:41When we actually saw a river with water in it, they were wondering what it was.
19:47Away from the river, either underground or overground,
19:49the harsher environment of the red desert sands means that all plants have to be highly adapted.
19:54These are only very young desert oaks. They're probably eight or ten years old.
20:01Very, very slow growing plants.
20:03It's quite...
20:04You can see that they actually photosynthesise through the stem,
20:07and that little point there is just the remnant leaf.
20:11Under cultivation, that's probably six or seven years old.
20:14In the wild, you'd see one of those would probably be 20 years old,
20:17but its root system's probably going down ten metres.
20:20Ten metres?
20:21Yeah.
20:22Wow.
20:23So they actually grow a lot more under the ground than above the ground.
20:26Yeah.
20:29Like every bit of this beautifully made garden,
20:32the park's artificially created salt pan that's completely natural.
20:37Do you get visitors assuming that this is natural landscape?
20:41Yeah, well, that's one of the greatest compliments to the staff
20:44when people think that we're very fortunate
20:47to have all these habitats sitting in this small area.
20:49So we've sort of fooled them into thinking
20:52they're in the natural environment,
20:53and the staff really love that,
20:55and that's a great compliment to them.
20:57You've created this place.
20:59There's no other word for it.
21:00You've made it with your team.
21:03Does that make you a gardener?
21:06Well, this is a fantastic garden.
21:08It's one of the best gardens you could ever create, I think.
21:12And it's...
21:13Recreating the environment is an incredible challenge.
21:17It's not that easy,
21:18but I think we've managed to get it to do it here,
21:20to get it across here.
21:21I think you have too.
21:32The Aboriginal population cohabited with and used this flora
21:37long, long before Europeans arrived.
21:40And I've met up with one of the desert park rangers, Doug Taylor,
21:43to learn about his people's subtle relationship
21:46with the plants of the Australian outback.
21:49This one here is probably one of the most useful plants out in the desert.
21:53Common name is a mulgatory.
21:54Yeah.
21:55And so you could obtain food from here, tools.
21:59So the seed would be very small, wouldn't it, on those cones there?
22:02Yeah.
22:02Yes, this one's actually lost all the seed.
22:04It would have been seeding a month or two back.
22:06Right.
22:06But there's quite large pods and this is the seed that it produces.
22:10This can be used by our ladies, ground up into like a flour or paste,
22:15baked into what we call damper or bread.
22:18This tree's timber is perfect for making boomerangs too.
22:21This is a non-returning variety.
22:24It's very good to bring down medium-sized kangaroo.
22:27Stop an emu with this.
22:29Really?
22:29One of the strangest of all desert plants is the grass tree, xantheria,
22:34which grows incredibly slowly.
22:36So these plants are hundreds of years old.
22:39The land and the people, traditional people, were as one,
22:44where our people didn't try to control the land but lived with it.
22:47And everything on the land had its place in our people's culture
22:53and had a right to be there.
22:55It was useful too.
22:57The flower spike was used to carry a glowing ember for fire making,
23:01which is fitting for a plant that will regrow after being burned.
23:07Using fire to manage and regenerate the land was perhaps the closest
23:11that Doug's people came to gardening.
23:16It involved a highly sophisticated relationship with the land.
23:19Each family group had a seasonal cycle of moving from one camp to another
23:23within their territory, which they would use as a base for hunting and gathering bush tucker.
23:28They would use small controlled burns to flush out game,
23:32and once they'd hunted out one campsite, then they would move on to the next.
23:36By the time we returned to this site, the burn done previous,
23:40which may be six to eight months later,
23:43but the burn would have then created regrowth and regeneration.
23:47There's an old expression in Australia here,
23:49Aborigine go and walk about, which is basically talking about
23:52this type of thing was what our people used to do.
23:55But I'd like to say, Aborigine went on controlled seasonal movement.
24:00It sounds a lot better too.
24:03This is the shade of a desert oak, which is a good-sized tree,
24:08but not vast, but it is very old.
24:12Oh yeah, very slow-growing desert oak.
24:15This one's quite mature, the one we're sitting under here,
24:18and probably anything up to 400, 500 years.
24:23Because these trees are so old, generations and generations of people see these trees,
24:29and the stories attached to them are like we look at them like the old men
24:32and the old women from the past.
24:36You sit amongst the desert oaks, the light breeze comes through,
24:41and it's like a...
24:43And if you sit down in the quiet long enough,
24:45it sounds like you can hear voices whispering.
24:48And that's where a lot of our people believe that the old people are still with these trees,
24:53and their spirits are still there.
24:59As I travelled back to Alice Springs, I thought about what Doug had told me.
25:03I could see just how perfectly the native people lived in harmony
25:06with that seemingly wholly hostile environment.
25:09And it was clear that the key factor to this, for plants as well as people,
25:12was drought and how to manage it.
25:19However, I'm not sure I expect this to be the case in my next destination,
25:23which is Melbourne.
25:25Melbourne is often referred to as Australia's garden city,
25:28and traditionally it has a much wetter climate,
25:31thanks to its position on the southern tip of the continent.
25:33This was my first visit, and I was surprised to see European plants and trees everywhere,
25:39and its leafy green avenues and flower-filled front yards
25:42make a dramatic contrast to the parched streets of Alice Springs.
25:47And along with the skyscrapers and trams,
25:50there still survive quaint, ornate, and now very select Victorian streets.
25:57During the 1880s, Melbourne was the second largest city in the British Empire,
26:02and many of the opulent homes from that period still survive.
26:06And my next garden is the pinnacle of the grand Australian establishment.
26:11And my host is Dame Elizabeth Murdoch.
26:21Got into Melbourne when it was dark last night,
26:24driven to a hotel, went to bed, got up and come out here first thing in the morning.
26:27And I have to say, it's a vast culture shock.
26:30I could be in another world.
26:38Hello, Dame Elizabeth. How nice to meet you.
26:41How are you?
26:42I'm very, very well.
26:43Nice to see you.
26:44And your beautiful garden.
26:45It's looking down there.
26:53At 99, she and her garden are almost half as old as the nation.
26:59She's the matriarch of Australia's great media dynasty,
27:03and the guiding spirit behind Cruden Farm and its 20-acre garden,
27:07which Dame Elizabeth began in the 1920s.
27:10And there can be few people on this planet that have gardened continuously in the same place for over 80
27:18years.
27:22Now, one of my great prides, my copper beech.
27:28I mean, it's fantastic to think I planted that only 52 years ago.
27:33And, of course, far too close to the house, but never mind.
27:36We manage.
27:37Are copper beech fairly unusual?
27:40In Melbourne, yes.
27:42When we were planning to put that in,
27:44I said to Michael, my gardener,
27:48it's ridiculous.
27:48I'll never see this, Michael, really.
27:51And he said, of course you will.
27:52You're going to live forever.
27:56But part of the pleasure of planting a tree is watching it grow, isn't it?
28:00I know. Wonderful.
28:01It's not necessarily a finished article.
28:03So you've created a landscape that is sort of like capability brown in some ways,
28:10but you've done it in a lifetime rather than over generations?
28:15Yes, well, I think, you see, everything grows so fast here.
28:18That's the point.
28:20In England, similar trees would take a couple of centuries to grow this big.
28:24I love the purple stems, that little purple-y touch on the new stems.
28:28Yes, yes, it's lovely, isn't it? Yes, I see you've got a good eye.
28:39This is surreal for me. Here we are looking at hostas.
28:42Yes, I know, sir.
28:43Having, practically 12 hours ago, stepped on a plane in the outback,
28:49where the thought of a hosta is...
28:51I know, I know, the contrast is fabulous, isn't it?
28:55Really amazing.
28:56They're looking marvellous.
28:57Yes, they are beautiful. They're beautiful, the hostas. I love them dearly.
29:01That's a great... That's quite a young denudato. It's amazing.
29:06It's very protected in there.
29:07Yeah.
29:08And you see, the possums eat everything.
29:10So we put an electric fence on the roof.
29:12Ah, so they can't come across.
29:17Mind the bump.
29:18Don't worry.
29:20It's rather lovely, isn't it?
29:22It's just beautiful.
29:35I've never been in a garden which has reached such maturity within the life of its owner and creator.
29:41And I don't think I've ever met a gardener who has quite so much personal charm.
29:50I confess that when I walked down the drive here, I thought this is so different from Alice Springs and
29:59the Outback, that there's no connection.
30:01But actually, what this garden has is a sense of place, a sense of self-confidence.
30:08So you've got your rose garden and you've got your alchemillers and all the sort of English plants that might
30:13seem a bit odd here in Australia.
30:15But it also has a real sense of place and identity. It's grounded.
30:22At heart, this is a European garden, but one that is very happily married to its native landscape.
30:32However, that cross-cultural connection is under serious threat. Climate change is increasing the already serious problem of drought in
30:41Australia.
30:42And this means that the classic English flowers and lush greenery just won't thrive and the situation can only get
30:50worse.
30:51But having seen how the tough Aussie native plants thrive in the outback, I wonder if they are the key
30:58to Australia's gardening future.
31:04My next garden could answer that question.
31:07It's the Garden Vineyard, created by Di Johnson and now extended by her daughter Jenny.
31:14The garden is set amongst vineyards in the gently rolling countryside south of Melbourne.
31:18It began just 11 years ago, but already it is one of Australia's most exciting gardens, because it is a
31:27fusion of traditional English design and planting with the contemporary use of native Australian species.
31:34It's a story which started out with an attempt to make an exact copy of a very English garden, until
31:41Di was confronted with the inescapable realities of the climate.
31:44I think that's a perfect example of how one has to adapt, because I love that little geranium.
31:50I've tried to grow it here for three years. It looks fabulous in winter.
31:54And I should give up, because look how wonderful the sedum by comparison looks. Just beautiful.
32:02We went to a brickyard in North Melbourne, and these are convict bricks, and there's a thumbprint in one of
32:09those bricks.
32:10Every 1,000 bricks, they had to mark it with a thumbprint. Every 10,000, I think it was, were
32:15two thumbprints.
32:16But these bricks were all handmade by convicts.
32:20No doubt those convicts were from England.
32:21I'm sure there were.
32:29The next stage of the garden shows the true scale of Di's ambition.
32:36The first thing that strikes me, these are socking great borders.
32:40You know, I mean, it's great.
32:42I'd probably never be able to sell it.
32:43Well, that's another matter.
32:45Nobody wants this much work.
32:48The giant borders mark the very first introduction of Australian natives into Di's garden.
32:53Tightly clipped green pillars of the gloriously named Lillipilly,
32:57which she uses for structure in the border, much as we might use you at home.
33:02The Lillipillies came in at what stage?
33:05Well, pretty early on.
33:07Not straight away, but... No, about the second...
33:09Was that your first venture into sort of indigenous planting?
33:12Yes, absolutely.
33:12I think the thing is they take the heat as well as the dryness.
33:18Follow the path round the corner,
33:20and there is a quantum leap away from the traditional English garden.
33:24It's a composition of tightly clipped native shrubs in balls and billows,
33:29set around the peeling white trunks of lemon-scented eucalypts.
33:33It looks fantastic.
33:35And it's a bit English, but it's got a lot more Australian feel about it.
33:40This ragodia is a brilliant thing.
33:42I know this is looking a little drab because we've just had to severely prune it,
33:46but it comes back.
33:47Yeah.
33:47But it's totally drab-tolerant and it grows in sun or shade,
33:52and we've used it all over the garden.
34:02After that cool modernism, there's a return to a European heritage,
34:07with a much more formal and rather grand Italian garden,
34:11using clipped coppery lillipilly lollipops,
34:14I've been dying to say that,
34:16underplanted with a sea of agapanthus and heliotropes.
34:34CHOIR SINGS
34:35CHOIR SINGS
34:37CHOIR SINGS
34:38CHOIR SINGS
34:38CHOIR SINGS
34:39CHOIR SINGS
34:41CHOIR SINGS
34:43CHOIR SINGS
34:44CHOIR SINGS
34:45CHOIR SINGS
34:46CHOIR SINGS
34:47CHOIR SINGS
34:48Go through a gate and on down a set of steps,
34:50and you arrive at the place where everything comes together.
34:54This is a dramatic and brave part of the garden,
34:57made by Jenny, critically with Di's support,
35:00using only native plants.
35:03So this, in a sort of rather simplistic way,
35:06is the evolution of a garden,
35:08and maybe the future of Australian gardening.
35:11Yeah, I think it started off with not too much thought behind it.
35:17It started off as a passion of mine.
35:20And a bit of plonking.
35:21Oh, no, but then...
35:22But plonking is the secret of good gardening.
35:24I tried to work with the colour and texture of plants
35:28and I tried to arrange plants in beds
35:31that were blended with each other
35:33in terms of foliage, texture and colour
35:35but I don't think that's that important now.
35:38I guess being inspired by the natural bush.
35:41I've always loved the natural stands of eucalypts
35:44and things that aren't too fiddled with.
35:49How do you feel about that?
35:52Well, I have realised that Jenny
35:55has been a source of great wisdom for me.
36:18I'll be honest with you,
36:19when I walked in here and saw the walled English garden
36:22I thought, oh no, this is beautiful
36:25but I didn't need to cross the world to see it.
36:27I've seen lots of gardens like that
36:29although not many have done as well as that
36:30but as I walked round
36:32I realised something special was happening here
36:34and that a garden was evolving
36:36not just through the process of the gardener
36:39but through place
36:40and then, really most interesting of all,
36:44through time and generations
36:45that as the children of the household grew up and got interested
36:48and they were Australian
36:50and this was their background
36:51and this was their home
36:53they started to evolve a style of gardening
36:55that was truly indigenous
36:57it belongs to the place.
36:59the result is something genuinely new and beautiful
37:03and most importantly sustainable
37:05in the changing Australian climate.
37:10But now it's time to leave Australia
37:12and move on for the second phase of my Antipodean adventure
37:16so I travelled 1,200 miles south-east of Australia
37:19to New Zealand
37:20and land in its biggest city, Auckland.
37:30Well, I popped on a plane
37:32and came over here to New Zealand
37:34and although it's just a three-hour journey
37:37and I'm about as far away from home
37:39as it's possible to be
37:41it's all instantly familiar
37:43it even smells like England
37:46but although much seems to be reassuringly similar
37:49there is a spectacular plant growing nearby
37:52which reminds me that New Zealand
37:54is actually very, very different from home.
37:58For all its instant familiarity
38:00New Zealand is full of very curious things indeed
38:04and this is the Pahutukawa
38:05or the New Zealand Christmas tree
38:07which is just coming into flower now
38:10as we approach Christmas.
38:13There is nothing that can prepare you for New Zealand
38:16because it's quite unlike anywhere else in the world.
38:20Before Westerners came
38:21it was the nearest thing to an earthly paradise
38:23with a very distinctive flora and fauna.
38:26This means that gardens here
38:28with a little imagination and resources
38:29can also be unique.
38:32This is Eirlees
38:33and it's the first garden I'm visiting in New Zealand
38:36simply because I've been told
38:38it's one of the very best gardens
38:40in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere.
39:00Eirlees is a garden
39:02with a dreamlike intensity.
39:03It's very large
39:05with 12 acres of dense planting
39:08and mature trees around the house
39:10surrounded by another 30 acres
39:13of planted woodland and fields
39:14that run down to the sea.
39:21But magnificent as the setting is
39:23it is the planting that overwhelms you.
39:26This is a garden that submerses the visitor in plants
39:30so you wallow in their colour, texture, shape and scent.
39:36And yet incredibly
39:37I know that only 40 years ago
39:39this was all just a series of grass paddocks.
39:46The effect of the tree ferns
39:48and the sound
39:49and the general intensity of the planting
39:53makes one think of a sort of lush, lush forest.
39:57But actually, just a few yards from here
39:59if you come back
40:02you come through the planting
40:07and it just stops
40:09and you realise
40:10that we're back
40:11to the fields
40:12that were grazed
40:13by the dairy herd
40:1440 years ago
40:15and although all the trees
40:16you can see
40:17were planted
40:19the garden is made out of a field
40:22every little bit of it.
40:25I'm shown round the garden
40:26by its creator
40:27Bev McConnell
40:28the celebrated
40:29Diane of New Zealand gardening.
40:32I mean, this is quite dramatic here.
40:34Yeah, it is.
40:35It's quite a while
40:35and I shouldn't be able to grow them
40:37more easy-eyed, rose
40:39but I do
40:39and I grow that for the hips.
40:41They're absolutely complementary colours
40:43aren't they?
40:43The red and the green.
40:44One, wonderful.
40:46And that one
40:46I mean, it's very yellow
40:48but it was born in the garden
40:49so that'll be Ely's gold.
40:51How many plants
40:52do you have named after the garden?
40:53Oh, only about five, I think.
40:55It's all five more than most people.
40:57Oh, I don't know.
40:58Have you not got any?
40:59I think there's a...
41:01Oh, look, you're very young.
41:03It's all come.
41:04You're very sweet to say.
41:05It will come.
41:06You have to be really old
41:08to have plants named after you.
41:11You don't mind me interviewing you, do you?
41:13I'm enjoying it
41:14and you're very good at it
41:16but you can tell me about your pool though
41:18because I can't answer your questions about that.
41:19Oh, isn't that interesting?
41:20Yes.
41:21When did you plant the palms?
41:23Oh, 15 years ago.
41:25Really, as recently was that.
41:41I was just astonished
41:43at the planting at Ely's.
41:46It has the widest
41:47and most ecstatic range of plants
41:49in one garden that I've ever seen.
41:51So how did one person create so much
41:54in such a short space of time?
41:57And did you come out
41:58knowing you wanted to make a garden?
42:00Yes, I did.
42:01I had it on paper,
42:02the first three acres.
42:04I married a man who's thought big.
42:06Right.
42:06Probably it was a fault that both of us did.
42:08Yes.
42:09But it had its good points too
42:11otherwise you'd end up with really nothing
42:13because a lot of farmers in those days,
42:16farmers would say to their wives
42:18if they wanted to build a garden.
42:20What do you want to do that for?
42:22Just like that.
42:23But my husband would say,
42:25why not?
42:26Let's have a look at it.
42:27So you planted these trees?
42:29Every one.
42:31There was nothing here.
42:32It was a good dairy farmer's paddock
42:36for his stock.
42:52Bev's greatest ally is the climate.
42:55There are 365 growing days a year here.
42:59The weather is never too cold,
43:01never too hot.
43:02There is nearly 50 inches of rain a year
43:04and there's much more light.
43:22I think that Ayerlees is a masterpiece.
43:25I've never seen such a wide range of plants together
43:28in one garden.
43:29But that mixture depends on a lot of exotic
43:32and introduced plants as well as natives.
43:35And in the light of my Australian experience,
43:38I wonder if this best represents the past
43:41or the future of New Zealand gardens.
43:43To try and answer that,
43:45I need to go back in history
43:46and on with my journey.
43:48I'm going to drive from Ayerlees,
43:50just outside Auckland,
43:52south and west to New Plymouth,
43:54a journey which should take me
43:55into New Zealand's wild green heart
43:57and give me a taste
43:59of its original human culture too.
44:02When I make my first stop out in the country
44:05to look at the landscape,
44:06there's no sign of New Zealand anywhere.
44:12This is a confusing country
44:14because the scenery
44:16is so like England
44:18with its green grass
44:20and buttercups
44:21and daisies
44:22and trees
44:23and cows
44:25and all the flowers
44:27on the verges of the roads.
44:28But,
44:29you look a bit closer
44:31and then there are these oddities,
44:34like these marvellous
44:35supercharged hydrangeas
44:37that we've found here.
44:38And then you have to realise
44:39that everything you're looking at
44:40is introduced.
44:41This is not the natural flora
44:43of the country.
44:45Every single element of it
44:47is artificial.
44:49And that includes the grass,
44:51the trees,
44:52the flowers
44:52and the shrubs.
44:53Everything you can see.
44:56So,
44:57back into the van
44:58and on deeper
44:59into the hills
45:00until finally
45:01I find something native.
45:03A Maori garden
45:04of formulas
45:05or New Zealand flax.
45:07Whereas I'm familiar
45:08with them
45:08as UK garden gardens,
45:09for the Maori,
45:10the native people of New Zealand,
45:12these plants
45:12were a vital source of fibre
45:14for clothes and mats.
45:1687-year-old digger
45:17Teikanawa,
45:17a Maori weaver,
45:18shows me how they're used.
45:22This is the stripping
45:23you have to go through.
45:25And you turn it over
45:26on the dull side.
45:29And about halfway.
45:32Now...
45:33So you score it through...
45:34Yeah.
45:35But don't cut it through.
45:36No.
45:36OK.
45:37Now I've got to split them.
45:38And this is the tool.
45:40A muscle shell.
45:41A muscle shell.
45:43And you get a little bit out
45:44like that
45:45and make a loop like that.
45:47Then you pull.
45:49Yeah.
45:50There it is.
45:51And that's your mukha.
45:56And you do what you call
45:57the middle.
45:58This is a twining.
45:59I see.
46:00Yeah.
46:02Easy, eh?
46:02No, you make it look very easy.
46:04I can see it's hard.
46:06Her flax threads
46:08end up as beautiful ceremonial cloaks
46:10decorated with feathers.
46:12Part of digger's heritage
46:13is a Maori,
46:14a Polynesian people,
46:15who settled here
46:16more than 600 years ago.
46:18Up there
46:19is a photo of the collection.
46:22That's the whole family.
46:23That's the whole family.
46:25Yeah, mum's made a cloak
46:26for each of us.
46:29Can I touch this?
46:30Mm-hmm.
46:30Can I just feel it?
46:32Because it's very soft, isn't it?
46:34It's not a sort of thing
46:35you can make
46:36in a month or so
46:39because it's a mood thing.
46:41If you don't feel like it,
46:43leave it alone.
46:44And are these mats
46:45that we're walking on,
46:46are these all flax too?
46:47Yes.
46:48Now I think I'm too old
46:50to get down on the floor.
46:52But I want to teach others.
46:54Yes.
46:55And just on the other side
46:57of her land,
46:58we touch on Maori spiritual life
47:01because there's a sacred tree
47:02at the end of her drive.
47:03When we were kids,
47:05they said it was very tapu
47:07and you mustn't go near it
47:08and all that sort of thing.
47:10And they were scared stiff of it.
47:14Having had a glimpse
47:15of some of the native culture,
47:16just beyond Digger's home,
47:18I get my first sight
47:19of New Zealand's native beauty.
47:24Now things are getting strange
47:26as we go farther away
47:27from Auckland
47:28because in amongst the tractors
47:29and the long grass
47:30and the wonderful flowers
47:32are tree farms.
47:34And this is distinctly exotic.
47:39It might look exotic
47:40to my English eye,
47:42but these plants
47:42are indigenous here.
47:45Yeah, turn round.
47:46Oh, there's an English meadow.
47:51It's just like Alice in Wonderland.
47:53That's what it's like.
47:54It's a dream world.
47:59Thanks to its mild climate
48:01and high rainfall,
48:02much of New Zealand
48:03was once covered
48:04in temperate rainforests,
48:06which is a cooler,
48:07a much gentler sister
48:08of the more famous rainforest
48:10of the tropics,
48:11like the Amazon.
48:11But it's every bit as beautiful.
48:21As I continue deeper
48:23into the mountains,
48:23it really feels like
48:26I've finally found
48:27what I set out to see.
48:28This is our primary forest
48:31and almost all of New Zealand
48:34would have been covered in this
48:36with these giant podocats
48:38smothered with epiphytes
48:40and the tree ferns underneath.
48:42And it's very sobering
48:44when you drive through
48:45and see mile upon mile
48:47of landscape cleared
48:49and just with a monoculture
48:50of grass,
48:52knowing that it was this
48:53that had to be removed
48:54in order to feed
48:55a few sheep and cattle.
49:15Just step a few yards
49:17into the forest
49:18and immediately
49:19you'll surround me.
49:20And you could be anywhere.
49:21And unlike the tropical rainforest,
49:24this temperate rainforest
49:26is a cool,
49:28unthreatening place
49:29with this magical,
49:31green sort of stained glass light
49:33filtering through.
49:37It's a very benign place.
49:44This is New Zealand's heart,
49:46a green, cool,
49:48song-filled heaven
49:50spilling over
49:51with beautiful plants.
49:52Thank goodness
49:53a little bit of it
49:54was spared
49:55and allowed to remain
49:56for people like us
49:57to treasure.
49:58But can this ancient
50:00botanical paradise
50:01be the inspiration
50:02for New Zealand's
50:03gardens of the future?
50:07I finally reached
50:08New Plymouth,
50:09ready to visit
50:10the last garden
50:11of this trip.
50:12And rather than
50:12turning its back
50:13on its natural heritage,
50:15this is a garden
50:15famous for taking it
50:16as its inspiration.
50:20This,
50:21slightly surprisingly,
50:22in a quiet suburb
50:23of New Plymouth,
50:24is my journey's end.
50:27And I've come here
50:28because it's a garden
50:29which seems pretty ordinary
50:31from the outside,
50:32but which I know
50:33is comprised entirely
50:35of native New Zealand plants.
50:41Te Kanga Mareri,
50:43which is Maori
50:43for peaceful encampment,
50:45is one of New Zealand's
50:46very first
50:47and best native gardens.
50:49It was begun
50:5035 years ago
50:51by Valda Paletti
50:52and her husband Dave
50:53and although relatively
50:54modest in scale,
50:55is crammed
50:56with plants and features.
50:58There's a tree-fern alley,
51:00a distressed mountain shed
51:02an alpine zone
51:03and even a glowworm cave.
51:06Rather surprisingly,
51:08all created by someone
51:09who's very proud
51:10of her colonial past.
51:12Your great-grandparents
51:14were settlers.
51:15Yeah.
51:15They arrived here
51:16in 1842
51:20and they sailed
51:21from Plymouth Harbour
51:22from Somerset.
51:23So they,
51:24Simon and Jane,
51:25set up home,
51:27farm.
51:28They survived
51:29the land wars.
51:31And a great-great-grandmother
51:34had stood there
51:36with her children
51:36behind her,
51:37defying the Maori
51:39that was threatening
51:39to burn her little house down.
51:42That story
51:43is a dramatic contrast
51:44to this garden,
51:46which is clearly
51:46in such harmony
51:48with its native land.
51:50The Mulanbeckia complexa,
51:51the wire-netting plant,
51:53you could actually
51:53jump up and down on that
51:54or sleep on it,
51:55you know,
51:55as a bed.
51:56It's tempting to try.
51:58Yeah, you can do that.
51:59I can do that.
51:59I will do that.
52:00You can leap,
52:01lie down,
52:02have a rest.
52:03You see,
52:04I'm quite squashy.
52:06Comfortable?
52:07Very nice.
52:07I would sleep on this
52:08willingly.
52:09You would?
52:09Yeah.
52:10And you see,
52:10one of the things
52:10I like about,
52:11if you were in Australia,
52:13you would know
52:13there would be
52:14some noxious spider
52:16or snake
52:17or something
52:18in here
52:19to get you,
52:20whereas in New Zealand
52:21you're pretty sure.
52:22Yeah, you'd save as.
52:23Yeah.
52:24You could sleep,
52:24sleep sweetly and soundly.
52:26this is the first garden
52:27I've ever visited
52:28where I've been invited
52:29to leap on the plants.
52:30Yeah, leap on the plants.
52:31It's Monty-proof.
52:35Now what's that?
52:36What ever comes here?
52:37I need my glasses for this.
52:39Right.
52:39Which I haven't got on me,
52:40they're in my bag.
52:40I'll go get a hand lens.
52:43Monty-don,
52:45I have for you
52:46the secret weapon,
52:48the hand lens.
52:48Because I can't see
52:49without my glasses anyway.
52:51No, you're nearly blind.
52:52Now this is gardening
52:53beneath your knees.
52:54Can I hold my own lens, please?
52:55You can hold your own lens.
52:56You're being bossy.
52:56There you go.
52:57I'm bossy,
52:58I'm a control freak, you know.
52:59Yeah.
52:59All gardeners are control freaks.
53:01All good gardeners.
53:02Oh, good.
53:03Are completely controlled.
53:05He said I'm a good gardener.
53:07Well, you are.
53:08Look at that.
53:10Isn't it perfect?
53:11This little kanzia
53:12grows up on the central plateau
53:14around the fumaroles,
53:15around the solver vents.
53:16I have never been shown
53:18around the garden
53:19via a hand lens before.
53:21Really, truly.
53:22So within the space of a minute,
53:23I've leapt on your plants
53:24and looked in my new detail.
53:27And over here,
53:28just by your knees,
53:29if you don't get up,
53:30is our lobelia.
53:32Again,
53:33it's a little darling.
53:34It's got like half a flower.
53:36It is lovely.
53:37You could spend the...
53:37I could do the whole tour like this.
53:39Yeah, we could just
53:39crawl around our hands and knees.
53:40I could crawl the whole way.
53:42I'm drunk.
53:43Look at this.
53:43Look at this down here.
53:45See, look at that.
53:47Look at that.
53:50Gee, I've never done this before.
53:52Yeah.
53:52This is fantastic.
53:54He's converted.
53:55I am, you know.
53:55Good, born again.
53:56I don't normally deal
53:57with intense detail.
53:59Oh, don't you?
53:59Oh, you wait.
54:01There's better to come.
54:09So this is the fernary.
54:11That's right.
54:12And some of these ferns,
54:13I mean, that must be...
54:14Look how high this is.
54:16Yeah, that's 30 foot.
54:18And you say you planted these in 1972?
54:20Some of them planted in 72.
54:21Well, that is a whopper.
54:26And this is the fern house here?
54:28Yeah.
54:28You call it the faranui?
54:29Yeah.
54:30Okay.
54:39There you go.
54:40And this, Monty,
54:41is a glowworm tunnel.
54:42Do you get glowworms?
54:44We do.
54:44We've got about six.
54:45Right.
54:46And it's cool and cold.
54:48And it's like, you know,
54:49sort of dying and emerging
54:50and coming out again
54:51into the light.
54:52It's a birthing channel.
54:54It is.
54:54It's a birthing channel.
54:55I didn't want you to clock onto that.
54:56So you're born again.
54:58And oh, look.
54:59Here's a sign of new life.
55:01The para.
55:03Right.
55:03And he's unfurling crozier.
55:05And now your vegetables.
55:06See, I'm rather keen on vegetables.
55:07Vegetables.
55:07So am I.
55:08Yeah.
55:08Yeah.
55:10So there we go.
55:11Vegetables.
55:13Pretty organic.
55:14This is a real culinary...
55:15This is a working vegetable garden.
55:18Right.
55:18It feeds the family.
55:19Yeah.
55:19You know, it's really important.
55:21Now this, to an extent,
55:23is what your great-grandparents
55:27would have done when they came here,
55:28when they would have cleared some soil
55:29and planted the sort of things
55:31that they were used to growing at home.
55:33Yeah.
55:33The first things they did
55:34was to get a garden established
55:35because without it,
55:37the only food they had
55:38was the rations off the other boats
55:40that came out, like the flour.
55:41Yeah.
55:42And they obviously bought stock
55:44and, you know, did animal husbandry
55:45and raised stock to slaughter.
55:47But if the crops failed,
55:50then they had trouble surviving in the colonies
55:53in those early, early days.
55:55After the veg garden,
55:57it was time to dive down into the alpines.
56:04I tell you, this is just...
56:06Do you know what it's like?
56:07It's like snorkelling over a coral reef.
56:09Mm, mm.
56:10That's exactly what it's like.
56:11Mm, it does.
56:12A bit.
56:14A hidden reef of flour
56:15reached through a magnifying glass.
56:20Do you think that the next generation of gardeners
56:23will be moving in the direction that you've created?
56:25I do.
56:26Younger people are much, much more open to the flora.
56:30They've got over the fact
56:32that gardens are flower gardens.
56:36And, um...
56:37I think there's a greater appreciation
56:39and awareness now of the flora
56:41within New Zealand
56:42and the beauty of the landscapes.
56:44You know, I think it's a coming of age
56:46for New Zealand.
56:49What a good and hopeful thought that is.
57:04So I've reached the end of this particular journey
57:09sitting on the lawn in a smallish garden
57:14in a smallish suburb of a smallish town in New Zealand
57:19and it seemed right and proper to me.
57:22Having sampled the size and scale of Australia
57:27and come down through the North Island of New Zealand
57:31that it should end up on this domestic level
57:33because that's what gardens are.
57:35They're about people's back gardens.
57:38But what a journey I've had.
57:40From the very first Australian garden
57:43and its failing crops in Sydney
57:45to homesick recreations
57:47and wonderful flights of fantasy,
57:50I've seen a series of amazing gardens
57:52in dynamic, young countries.
57:54But it's the final step that the gardens have made here
57:57which I believe holds the key to the future.
57:59It's all about working with the land
58:01and not fighting it.
58:03And that's a simple but powerful message
58:05that the indigenous people and plants
58:08could have told us all along.
58:20Join me next time as I make my first visit to India
58:24as I set off to visit some of the most sensual and opulent gardens in the world.
58:35Helping with the conservation of Cheddar Gorge
58:38next on BBC2, Countryfile is in Somerset.
58:41and I'll see you next time as I make my first visit.