It’s difficult to describe Ralph Bristow’s garden, a space expressly designed to be in a state of flux? The whole idea behind it is that nothing – not the colours, textures, heights or density – sits still.
“People who come to see my garden at this time of year and then come back in winter can’t get their head around how much it changes,” Bristow says. “Visit now then come back in a week and there will subtle differences. Return in a month and the differences will be dramatic.”
Those keen to see Bristow’s magic themselves are in luck. His garden in the foothills of the Victorian Alps is open to the public, through Open Gardens Victoria, this weekend. And the Formal Garden he designed for the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah in NSW is just as dynamic and open to the public daily.
“Ralph taps into the emotional core of gardening,” says Marion Whitehead, supervisor ornamental gardens and nursery Mount Tomah.
Bristow, who is an artist as well as a garden designer, likes gardens that are teeming with plants that are endlessly moving between “full galloping mode, running like the clappers” and a quieter go-slow state. The ramping up, the winding down and everything in the middle is celebrated. Various waves of exuberance and calm roll through all year long.
Perennials are crucial to this seasonality with his space at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, which Bristow began redesigning in early 2023, composed almost entirely of these. But his 1.2-hectare home garden in Barwite near Mansfield, contains many other layers as well.
As well as perennials, there are trees (everything from zelkova, parrotia and arbutus to allocasuarina and eucalypt) that thrive in his rich deep loam. In his Barwite garden, there are also punchy, architectural shrubs (lots of different species of nolina, dasylirion, xanthorrhoea and yucca) that Bristow uses for “rhythmic punctuation” alongside cacti and other succulents.
Grasses (stipa, miscanthus, calamagrostis, panicum and much more) catch the light and the breeze and help fuse everything together while bulbs (including daffodils, hyacinths, alliums and tulips) fill the downtime between when the perennials are cut back in late winter and re-shoot in spring.
It’s a tight juggling act to get all the combinations right. “I think of it as a community of plants living cheek by jowl and I visualise the colours, flowers, the attributes of all the plants at all times and in all seasons,” Bristow says.
His garden experiences both baking hot summers and cold winters, and it was in high summer, when his garden is in peak flower, that he originally intended to open this year. But the planned early January opening was cancelled due to nearby bushfires and so he settled on the cusp of autumn instead.
“Lots of things are still in flower, but the dryness of summer is starting to pass, and it feels like the garden is quieter and not as intense. You can just enjoy the seasonal change”
“I love foliage a lot,” Bristow says. “It brings a sense of drama.” There are spiky-leaved nolinas and dasylirions, cussonias with deeply lobed leaves and lobelias (Lobelia giberroa and Lobelia aberdarica, for instance) with swirling leafy rosettes (and towering flower spikes.)
While many of the perennials that Bristow grows in Barwite are also growing in the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, the diverse altitudes and climates of the two sites mean there are differences too.
Bristow says everything in a garden should also be considered in terms of how much maintenance the space will receive. “A garden is only as good as its gardener and a fantastic garden only looks fantastic for a year or two if you don’t maintain it,” he says. “People think that in a wild garden you don’t have to do anything to it, but there’s a lot of intervention going on.”
In addition to cutting back, thinning, planting, weeding and staking, Bristow does much mulching, topping his soil with mixed-species woodchips that enhance the microbial life below and helps provide diverse nutrients for plants.
He also lets the plants themselves “have a say” in how his garden moves forward.
“While you guide the garden and make decisions you also have to listen to it,” he says. “Sometimes I say to a plant, I am just going to let you run because you are so happy and doing great things. There are lots of happy accidents.”
Ralph Bristow’s Barwite garden is open on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. Go to opengardensvictoria.org.au for more information.
The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden is open daily go to botanicgardens.org.au for more information.
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