{"id":40023,"date":"2024-09-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/98e66e95-c775-402f-8070-0db6634742f8"},"modified":"2024-09-10T18:31:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T16:31:21","slug":"how-to-make-a-small-suburban-garden-and-the-surrounding-street-a-truly-magical-space-with-super-blooms-jac-semmler","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/rss_feed\/how-to-make-a-small-suburban-garden-and-the-surrounding-street-a-truly-magical-space-with-super-blooms-jac-semmler\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make a small suburban garden, and the surrounding street, a truly magical space, with Super Bloom\u2019s Jac Semmler"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the middle of suburbia, Super Bloom\u2019s founder Jac Semmler has created a floral wonderland that spills out on to the street. Words: Georgina Reid, Photographs: Caitlin Atkinson <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 06:00 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Six years ago it might have been possible for a plant lover to drive past the red-brick house on the corner block in Melbourne\u2019s southern suburb of Frankston without causing a traffic incident. Low brickfence, neatly mowed grass verge, front lawn bordered by clipped shrubs: nothing to see here. But then, in 2019, Jac Semmler and her partner Matt moved in. The front lawn<\/a> was soon ripped up, the concrete slab suffocating the backyard broken up, and in came the plants. Thousands of plants. Now, it\u2019s impossible to miss.<\/p>

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Jac is one of the most enthusiastic plant people you\u2019ll ever meet. She\u2019s a qualified horticulturist and educator, and founder of Super Bloom, which brings horticultural expertise to projects ranging in scale from residential gardens to art installations and public domain projects. She\u2019s also written two books, Super Bloom<\/em> and The Super Bloom Handbook<\/em>, and has a third on the way. <\/p>
Neighbours of all backgrounds really love the garden, and often have very insightful observations about it. <\/p><\/blockquote>
Given her penchant for plants, and childhood spent in rambling country gardens, 400 square metres of soil was never going to be enough. But true to her nature, Jac sees the size constraint as an opportunity.\u201cI\u2019m really interested in creating landscapes where plants are the main event,\u201d she says. \u201cThis property, with its open spaces at the front and back, has allowed us to explore naturalistic planting on a suburban scale.\u201d<\/p>
The back, dry garden is not watered past establishment and features a mix of endemic and exotic species, such as Podolepis jaceoides, Calandrinia grandiflora, Verbena officinalis \u2018Bampton\u2019, tall Digitalis lanata \u2018Caf\u00e9 Cr\u00e8me\u2019 and Dianthus deltoides \u2018Brilliant\u2019. \u00a9 Caitlin Atkinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>Jac began at the front, experimenting with what she describes as \u201ca big block planting\u201d \u2013 her interpretation of what an Australian perennial garden<\/a> might look like. It\u2019s a blousy, full planting, and theonly area of the garden which is fed with compost<\/a> and irrigated in summer. Tall, gangly limbs of several cultivars of smoke bush (Cotinus<\/a> <\/em> coggygria<\/em>) and tree poppy (Bocconia frutescens<\/em>) frame and shadethe house in summer, while Australian wildflowers<\/a>, bulbs<\/a> and perennials<\/a> create seasonal interest.<\/p>
$\"Garden$
Small as her garden is, Jac has still managed to squeeze in an outdoor bath behind the potting shed dominated by broad-leaved Farfugium japonicum, which enjoys the sheltered location, as does the chocolate vine (Akebia quinata). \u00a9Caitlin Atkinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Moving through a gravel<\/a> courtyard, under a pergola<\/a> dripping with glory vine, and past the outdoor bath and potting shed<\/a>, Jac is trialling a dry, dynamic planting. \u201cI\u2019m not quite sure how else to describe Australian naturalistic planting,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s naturalistic, but it\u2019s for a dry summer and it responds to where we are, using a lot of indigenous wildflowers.\u201d<\/p>
Through the garden, we can take clients and collaborators on a journey around what\u2019s possible. <\/p><\/blockquote>
It was inevitable that Jac\u2019s garden would eventually spill out on to the verge. \u201cI wanted to test more dry, rain-fed plant mixes and didn\u2019t have the room,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was initially about space. I feel like I\u2019m gardening now more for the community.\u201d The verge garden has become beloved by locals and visitors from afar, and the conversations provoked by it continue to shape Jac\u2019s work. \u201cIt\u2019s busted a lot of my assumptions around what the public want,\u201d she says.<\/p>
\u201cSix years ago, I would have said that while I like a messy garden, my neighbours won\u2019t, because I don\u2019t see any examples around surrounding me. But neighbours of all backgrounds really love the garden, and often have very insightful observations about it.\u201d Many, she says, are on flower watch: \u201cThey might be the first person to see something has started flowering, or changing. They like the complexity and the flux.\u201d<\/p>
$\"Garden$
The narrow path to Jac\u2019s potting shed is lined with an eclectic and colourful mix of plants including kniphofias, salvias and the rust-coloured Achillea \u2018Feuerland\u2019 while potted Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii at the door add an exotic touch. \u00a9Caitlin Atkinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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The gardens, within and beyond the boundary, play an integral role in Jac\u2019s professional life. They\u2019re a living lab, in which she\u2019s constantly testing new plants, planting combinations and management techniques. In the verge gardens, for example, she\u2019s testing layered plant mixes consisting of Australian shrubs combined with grasses<\/a>, drought-tolerant perennials and bulbs.<\/a><\/p>
$\"Garden$
Jac uses the street plantings to test new plant combinations and care methods. Here low-growing Nepeta \u2018Prussian Blue\u2019, grows alongside Australian native Lithotoma axillaris, Pelargonium \u2018Graveolens\u2019, Papaver \u2018Flanders Field\u2019 and the delicate pink flowers of Clarkia unguiculata.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
<\/p>
$\"Floral$
Some might see a tight budget as a constraint, but Jac sees it as an opportunity. She re-uses existing materials, such as the pavers in this path through plantings of Delphinium \u2018Blue Sensation\u2019 and Achillea \u2018Feuerland\u2019, and propagates around half of the plants herself. \u00a9Caitlin Atkinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Jac applies the lessons she\u2019s learned from her own garden to those she designs for others. \u201cThe style of planting we\u2019re doing at the moment is quite unique in Australia because it\u2019s not a replication of what naturalism is in the Northern Hemisphere,\u201d she says. \u201cThrough the garden, we can take clients and collaborators on a journey around what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>
$\"Floral$
A narrow pathway finished with local pea gravel leads through the front garden. A low hedge of Euonymus \u2018Tom Thumb\u2019 frames plantings that includes the exotic-looking plume poppy (Macleaya cordata).<\/figcaption><\/figure>
For Jac, \u201cthe garden means everything\u201d. Not only is it essential to her work, it\u2019s a place of deep meaning \u2013 connecting both present and past, personal and professional. Rose pelargoniums<\/a> from her grandmother\u2019s garden and bearded iris from her aunty jostle with an ever-expanding cast of plants to test, propagate and observe. It\u2019s a beautiful merging of life and work. <\/p>
$\"Yellow$
Jac\u2019s partner Matt built the sunshine-yellow picnic table, a colour Jac loves. \u201cIt\u2019s such an iconic Australian plant colour,\u201d she says. Climbing up the nearby pergola is the grape vine (Vitis labrusca \u2018Concord\u2019) and a Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki \u2018Fuyu\u2019), which provides fruit in late autumn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Jac\u2019s design tips for small-space gardening<\/h3>
Scale is key when it comes to small-scale naturalistic planting, according to Jac. She suggests using arrangements of smaller plants, allowing for \u201cthe repetition, the big sweeps and the drifts of plants in your field of vision\u201d while also maintaining a sense of diversity and openness. \u201cIt feels expansive,\u201d she says, \u201cnot this thing pressing in on you and you can\u2019t move around.\u201d<\/p>
Somewhat counterintuitively, Jac also suggests filling the space with plants and keeping hardscape to a minimum. \u201cToo often, I see a lot of small gardens where the plants end up being edge confetti \u2013 a big table at the centre and planting only on the outskirts \u2013 while you could actually have planting right through and then just have a little seat or table within it.\u201d<\/p>
$\"Woman$
Horticulturist and author Jac Semmler in the suburban garden she\u2019s named Heartland. Her first home garden, it\u2019s become a real plantsperson\u2019s paradise in just five short years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Recently, Jac did a project in a tiny courtyard using naturalistic planting principles in five large pots. \u201cUsing small species, such as bulbs, herbaceous perennials or Australian wildflowers you\u2019ll have different things emerging at different points in time. You might not have a massive drift, or a massive peak of colour, but you’ve got little smattering fireworks throughout the year, all these little complex moments.\u201d<\/p>
In brief<\/strong><\/p>
Name<\/strong> Heartland<\/li>
What<\/strong> A small, naturalistic garden in suburban Melbourne, with extensive and experimental street verge planting. <\/li>
Focus<\/strong> on blending native Australian and exotic plants. <\/li>
Where<\/strong> Victoria, Australia. <\/li>
Size <\/strong>400 square metres. <\/li>
Soil<\/strong> Sandy loam. <\/li>
Aspect<\/strong> The house faces south.<\/li><\/ul>
<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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