Dream Gardens host offers advice for all gardeners

Growing up Michael McCoy had no interest in gardening.

The 53-year-old host of ABC’s Dream Gardens said it was being made weed the garden of his parents semi-rural property in Victoria that meant he hated it with a passion.

Speaking to Starts at 60 McCoy said it was the sudden death of his father while he was still a teenager that made him discover the new interest. “Looking back it was somewhat a stress response,” Michael McCoy said. 

It was the end of McCoy’s senior school studies and his father went into hospital for an operation and never came out. His days were spent driving his mother to hospital every day while his father was still intensive care, and waiting around at home in-between. He noticed his mother propagating plants by shoving a broken off piece in a glass a water, which he found fascinating.

“With a scientific brain I went how ‘how incredible is it that you can grow something, just break a piece off and put it in a glass of water’. In my mind I’m thinking ‘imagine if you could take a finger off and grow a piece of your body back’. So I started to take an interest in the idea of plant propagation, cuttings.”

“I went mad with it and ended up with a veranda chock full of plants, then I started thinking, I’d best start putting some in the ground. I had no interest in using the plants once I propagated them, but once I got them in the ground I started to enjoy who whole thing of them looking good with each other, visually.”

He found the process of acquiring information on his now found interest really difficult. He said gardening books didn’t address the questions he had, and found the first five years of his research was frustrating, even while he studied botany at Melbourne University. He had a book loaned to him, written by famous British gardener Christopher Lloyd, which he admits at first he didn’t even read until it was time to give it back to the owner. Feeling he should at least read a few paragraphs so he could make polite conversation before he handed it back, he was surprised by what he found.

“I thought this is it, this is what I’ve been looking for. This is my method. So I then absolutely devoured anything I could, written by him. He was the most prolific garden writer by far. And then I met him, and then he asked me to work with him in the UK. It was ridiculous.”

He described it an extraordinary alignment of the planets that allowed him to work with him. “I cannot overstate how important and influential this man is. If you knew a muso who worked with Mozart, an artist with Picasso, that is the equivalent.”

He described the experience of working in the UK as extreme horticulture. Although Lloyd died in his 80’s a decade ago McCoy still has an open invitation to visit his former residence, which is now a place for students learning horticulture. McCoy said in the 1960’s many people gave an audible sigh of relief that they no longer needed to garden for food, as supermarkets were becoming the main supply of vegetables. He said even 20 years ago gardens were more about the structures and paving, but now naturalism is emerging again, largely in Europe. “It is really interesting to see a rebirth in planting.”

Having written a few gardening books himself, this year McCoy has been hosting the eight part ABC television series Dream Gardens, featuring real gardens around Australia. The show can be seen on Digital HD and is now available on DVD.

“It’s been an amazing privilege to be part of the stories. A garden doesn’t have to be a high difficulty level garden to please me. While I love high horticulture gardens, I love the idea of good design, and very often that is about minimalism, simple solutions. People don’t have time for a high maintenance garden.”

Read more: How to grow your own turmeric at home. 

Design tips

“Planting needs to be separated into two parts; are they plants for decoration or for structure? An easy way to explain is like interior design; is it the soft furnishings and decoration or is the ceilings and the walls?

Small spaces

“Concentrate all your floral impact in one area, and don’t dot it around the garden. Make one part of the garden like the absolute craziest, something that makes your heart sing.

Advice for all gardens

“Its not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels. It’s not about looking smart, it is about feeling like you can’t resist being out there.”

What is your favourite activity to do in your garden?