Episode #6: Tackling an Overgrown Garden and Boosting your Property Value with Andrew Winter

Charlie Albone:

Hi, I’m Charlie Albone and welcome to episode six of That’s. How We Grow in partnership with STIHL Garden Power Tools. Your home is your castle and few countries rival Australia for passion around home ownership. Plenty of time is spent discussing the importance of the interior of a home prior to sale, but you can’t underestimate the importance of a well presented garden. Your garden can reflect and present your home in the best possible light. It can show the beauty of your home and demonstrate all the living options to the next owners.

Charlie Albone:

The garden will become an additional room for the home. So preparing your garden prior to sale should not be ignored. You’ll clean and decorate the inside. So don’t forget to do the garden as well. And it doesn’t take much to give the garden a tidy up, give it a quick clean head out to that neglected patch or shrub that’s quickly doubled in size. Fertilize your lawn to ensure it’s green and lush, prune your trees to help give them shape and get your pressure cleaner out to the hard surfaces. All of these small jobs will make a huge difference come sale time. Today I’m speaking with my old friend from Selling Houses Australia, Andrew Winter. Now Winter is an expert on real estate, but he is a pretty ordinary gardener.

Charlie Albone:

I’m very, very excited this week. Because finally we have the elusive Andrew winter with us. He’s finished fake tanning. He’s finished waxing his body completely at the salon. Thank you for joining us, Andrew.

Andrew Winter:

I’m not the real one.

Charlie Albone:

You’re just an actor.

Andrew Winter:

I’m still at the tanning salon.

Charlie Albone:

Very nice. How have you been Andrew?

Andrew Winter:

Well, very good. I’m obviously missing you deeply.

Charlie Albone:

Obviously you are you. What [crosstalk]

Andrew Winter:

Why are you calling me?

Charlie Albone:

Well. We’re going to have a little chat about… Don’t worry. We won’t talk gardens, we’ll talk property.

Andrew Winter:

Thank goodness for that.

Charlie Albone:

But I see that you’ve got a levee or list it out as well. That’s pretty good. Well done. You’ve got something done in this last year.

Andrew Winter:

Listen mate to be quite honest, it’s good to still be working quite a surprise obviously at my age that I’ve still got a job.

Charlie Albone:

We worked for 13 years together on Selling Houses Australia. It must have been a joy for you.

Andrew Winter:

It was a delight. Absolute delight. We first started working together in a little suburb called Botany and I remember meeting you first beside a pond.

Charlie Albone:

Did we?

Andrew Winter:

Yes. You were at the pond at Botany. You were looking at the pond at Botany, you were about eight.

Charlie Albone:

I was about eight. I wasn’t shaving back then. Certainly I’m now.

Andrew Winter:

Because it was growing all up your back of your neck and everything.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. Everywhere, we won’t go into that. But as a property expert, what do you think a garden can do to a property’s value?

Andrew Winter:

Actually I really hate in front of you to admit this, but quite a lot because the truth of it is if you’ve got a free standing home or actually even with a terrace or a townhouse, the landscaping, especially on the street frontage, it’s almost like a frame. If you don’t do it properly, if you don’t surround the house, you’ll never see any artist impression. If you see an architect, do an artist in impression of a new construction house, you’ll never see it without some kind of greenery and it is literally the framing of it. So reluctantly, yet it is very important.

Charlie Albone:

So you’d say it’s probably the most important thing of a front facade?

Andrew Winter:

Of anything ever to be honest, Charlie. No, if the house still looks revolting then it… Actually, that’s not even true because you can disguise a fairly ugly house with good planting too, and needs to be fairly mature. In fact needs to cover the whole facade. Which is a bit of an Australian passion for some people, they love to hide their home with greenery, it can enhance even the most dry building. You can really give it a lift with a good garden.

Charlie Albone:

Just cut holes out for the windows, to lighten the house.

Andrew Winter:

That’s the one.

Charlie Albone:

Must be gardened. That’s what I say.

Andrew Winter:

And that’s what you learn for 13 years.

Charlie Albone:

It is. I learn from the best. Can you tell the difference between a garden that has been done up for sale and one that has matured over time and sort of you’ve got one end of the stick, what we used to do, go into a mad cleanup and get it looking smart for sale. And then you’ve got people that really care for their gardens, that put the time in week after week and they get a sense of maturity. Can you pick the difference? And what difference does that make to a value?

Andrew Winter:

Yes, I can tell you, I can pick the difference. It’s usually the maturity of the plants. Because, we all know that the more mature a plant costs, that the higher the price. So if trying to do a quick fix to sell, you obviously can’t necessarily afford or even warrant big expenditure on huge, huge plants. So you’ll see a plant border that’s nicely planted, very neat and tidy, but the plants might not be very big.

Andrew Winter:

Whereas somebody that’s tended in love to garden, you’ll see mature hedgerows and full shrubs and flowers and everything all neat and mature. And that would be the difference. The difference between a completely ignored garden space and a cared for at least I’ve made an effort attempt, does have an impact because even a neglected garden, if you’ve renovated the house and you’ve renovated the interior and you’ve ignored the outside space. The first thing it tells any buyer is that in theory, you’re not interested in the property and you haven’t maintained it, even though you have, because the first thing you’re seeing is the outside space. So that’s why it’s important. It’s that home. It’s the impression of being well maintained and being groomed and a beautiful mature garden that’s loved. Even me can tell the difference.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. So it tells people that the roof doesn’t leak if the garden’s looked after, but if the garden’s not looked after people think the roof’s going to leak and the gutters are going to be awful and all that sort of stuff.

Andrew Winter:

Would you like me to tell you a little bit of a gardening secret that I have at a house that I sold many years ago?

Charlie Albone:

Go on.

Andrew Winter:

I sold an old cottage in England in a place called the Cotswolds and this cottage was on a hill and it had probably a four to five meter retaining wall holding up the front terrace. So it’s some little steps to the left of it. And this whole beautiful for Koontz hold Stonewall was the retainial. It was so bowed and at any minute could collapse, but luckily enough, it had this beautiful ivy growing all over it. So my dad and I cut the ivy into shape so that you didn’t see the bow in the… So it was a very thin in the middle and very thick on the outside. The wall looked absolutely straight.

Charlie Albone:

So what you are saying is you’re a dishonest real estate agent.

Andrew Winter:

I wasn’t the agent on that.

Charlie Albone:

That’s unlike any real estate agent.

Andrew Winter:

A friend of mine sold it for me. Obviously I wasn’t the real estate agent at my own property. But I think they may have had to rebuild the retaining wall at some point.

Charlie Albone:

What tools did you use to get the ivy into shape? Because, I find it shocking that you did any gardening.

Andrew Winter:

Oh no, I did. Because in those days I couldn’t afford to have someone do it for me. And when my dad would say, “Can you help me?” And it was a big wall. It was four or five meters high and about six or seven probably about eight, nine meters long. It was a big wall and that, you’re going to have to help me. He gave me some cutting things.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. So you probably had a long handled hedger.

Andrew Winter:

Yes. It had a great long pole on it.

Charlie Albone:

[Crosstalk]

Andrew Winter:

Probably, yes. But unfortunately my dad had a lot of hand tools rather than power tools, which I think is an appalling thing. You should have power tools. Why wouldn’t you want to recharge or plug your garden tools? I can’t think of any reason you’d want manual ones.

Charlie Albone:

What do you say to people who are trying to sell their house? And they’ve got one thing to do in the garden. What’s the one thing you get them to do? It’s always the front of house for you, isn’t it?

Andrew Winter:

It’s always the front of the house, but it’s the same as the inside. It’s just tidying up. I think the trouble with outside spaces, I remember you’d look at houses, and the first thing you’d often say is, “Just get rid of that, get rid of that and get rid of that.” There’s usually dead plant pots. Dead plants, a big thick bush running down one boundary that just needs pruning. It’s usually those basic things. And suddenly it looks back to that maintenance thing. It takes it back from looking like a tip to looking like something somebody loved. But usually for me, it’s just getting rid of the stuff that garden spaces seem to accumulate.

Charlie Albone:

And cob webs, pressure washers are pretty good for that sort of thing.

Andrew Winter:

Now you’re talking now I like a good pressure washer.

Charlie Albone:

Mine so powerful, I ride it around like Harry Potter’s broom.

Andrew Winter:

I’d like one of those because unfortunately the last house we sold as a family, the buyer wanted to buy with everything. So I lost my pressure washer.

Charlie Albone:

You can get STIHL one. They’re pretty good.

Andrew Winter:

Yeah. I’m going to get STIHL one because I need a really high pressure, STIHL power washer because you got your driveways and all your eaves and all the rest of it and that they are for an Aussie garden, they are hugely important. And trust me, I want one I can plug in or use an engine with. I don’t want any of that manual rubbish.

Charlie Albone:

Now you do joke around that you’re rubbish in the garden, but you confess to me the other day, you’ve just built Winty Towers and you’ve had a new garden put in. And you said you’re enjoying pottering around in the garden. Are we going to make a gardener of you?

Andrew Winter:

Well, you know what? I actually kind of am, but I think that’s because it’s manageable. This is the first time we had it all beautifully landscaped and the last home we had, but I remember we’d blown all the budget on the house and the plant quote came in or the plant allocation, and I said, “We don’t want to spend all that on plants. We’ll get them little ones.” Of course. So as my wife keeps reminding me, most of those didn’t survive because they were so little and we ended up replanting. This time Mrs. Winter said, “You know the plant budget, that’s staying as it is.” And so we got a lot more mature plants in. So it’s one of those gardens that for you, you’d hate it, because it’s way too small and way too low maintenance.

Andrew Winter:

But in fact I kind of like it because it’s something like you say, you can potter and enjoy weed it, keep it pruned, keep it tidied. And now I want to get a pressure washer. I want to keep all the pay pathways and decks and all that, clean and tidy. It’s got a pool, but there’s not huge amounts of greenery going in it. So it’s what I call a nice manageable garden… And lots of pots as well. I must admit there’s a massive fashion, not just outdoors. There’s indoor plants as well. You long of moving inside.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. Sorry we do that.

Andrew Winter:

Geez.

Charlie Albone:

We take cold.

Andrew Winter:

We never had plants inside until recently.

Charlie Albone:

They’re good for you and they’re good to have inside.

Andrew Winter:

They’re very good decorative accessories. I’m liking them. We’ve actually just got our first olive tree.

Charlie Albone:

Have you?

Andrew Winter:

Yes.

Charlie Albone:

Not inside though.

Andrew Winter:

Yes. It’s going to be inside I believe.

Charlie Albone:

You need more sunlight for it.

Andrew Winter:

Is that okay?

Charlie Albone:

It’s going to go all spindly and horrible. And then you’ll put it outside.

Andrew Winter:

Does it need to be in a sunny spot?

Charlie Albone:

Very sunny spot.

Andrew Winter:

All right. I’ll bear that in mind

Charlie Albone:

It’s Mediterranean plant. So it needs lots and lots of sun. You can put it up on your roof terrace.

Andrew Winter:

That’s a good idea. Yes. How’d you know, I’ve got a roof terrace?

Charlie Albone:

Because you’ve invited me to your house once. I looked from the outside, you let family in [inaudible]

Andrew Winter:

Your family is more than welcome.

Charlie Albone:

One reason why you don’t get lots of stuff in your pool is because you’ve got fake grass as well. Haven’t you?

Andrew Winter:

Yes, but that’s good. It’s tiny amount of grass. What would I want to…

Charlie Albone:

You’re only one on this podcast and anyone listening to this podcast that likes fake grass.

Andrew Winter:

I love it.

Charlie Albone:

I’m going to get you into an iMOW. I’m going to put down grass for you and put robotic lawn mower, it’s just the same. It’s better for you.

Andrew Winter:

It’s not that. It’s that it’s such a small area that trying to keep it looking green and perfect in such a tiny space is very hard, whereas…

Charlie Albone:

Get iMOW. They do it all day, mow every day and it’s perfect. You don’t have to empty it. It’s healthy. [crosstalk]

Andrew Winter:

I don’t mind mowing it. We got so small amount of it. It really doesn’t matter, but I know your argument about it, but you know I love it.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. Like you like fake tan anyway. Your previous house to Winty Towers or previous houses. You don’t let people in on this secret very much, but you used to have acreage didn’t you?

Andrew Winter:

Yes. That was many years ago.

Charlie Albone:

How did you handle the maintenance on that?

Andrew Winter:

Did you speak to my wife before this podcast?

Charlie Albone:

Oh, your wife did it, did she?

Andrew Winter:

No. There were many incidents with chainsaws. Unfortunately one of the presents I got was a chainsaw because we had 16 acres of which probably about 14. I have to confess my wife and I actually never actually went into. I remember my eldest taking my two youngest and another friend. They were going to go into the other 14 acres one day. But my youngest daughter got trapped on a barbed wire going through the fence or came in tears. And that was the only time the Winter’s ever attempted to go into 14 of their 16 acres. So we possibly weren’t the perfect people to have acreage. But the two…

Charlie Albone:

The take home tip for you is get something manageable for your level of gardening, right? You tried acreage and failed.

Andrew Winter:

Lets put it this way. What happened was we bought a house that needed total renovation and extension. Beautiful, it was a lovely piece of architecture, but what the previous owner who lived there for 25 years had done was daily gardening. He’d be like four or five days a week. That’s what he did was look after the garden. So we looked, this is a perfect garden. Then renovated the house and realize what was going wrong. He left.

Charlie Albone:

So you’d have to do some pretty massive clear outs before you sold it for sure.

Andrew Winter:

No, the reason we sold it was because we’d want to do things on a Sunday and I would literally be clearing up palm fronds and greenery and vegetation. It would fill the whole day. That’s not what I call fun.

Charlie Albone:

That sounds like heaven, gardening all through the weekend, it’s great.

Andrew Winter:

Although the chainsaw bit was quite good fun, but I just kept breaking the chainsaw. Then I could never put it back together again. So it ended up being very expensive.

Charlie Albone:

What were you taking it apart to try and tighten it or something like that?

Andrew Winter:

No. It would just come off and I lost limbs.

Charlie Albone:

That sounds dangerous.

Andrew Winter:

I lost limbs. Most of me is plastic.

Charlie Albone:

I don’t really know what to say about that. Finally you agree with me?

Andrew Winter:

It’s not true though. Have you got STIHL top on?

Charlie Albone:

I got a STIHL jumper on. Oh goodness.

Andrew Winter:

I haven’t got one of those.

Charlie Albone:

It’s nice. Isn’t any performance.

Andrew Winter:

Gosh, I’m just quite nice.

Charlie Albone:

Nice to see. You’ve got a hoodie on as well, Andrew tonight. Make yourself look cool youthful, but do you know where I’ve been today?

Charlie Albone:

Where have you been?

Andrew Winter:

Top of a mountain in the snow?

Charlie Albone:

Are you filming?

Andrew Winter:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Charlie Albone:

So tell me about the house you are doing. Is there much of a clear out to do on that?

Andrew Winter:

You couldn’t have asked on a worse one. It’s a couple of acres with an old schoolhouse on it. And the guy’s a sculptor except he’s into industrial sculptor. So if you can imagine every bit of machinery that’s ever available on Gumtree, he’s the one that collects it and buys it and stores it and then makes things out of it. You’d love the place, but I mean to try and sell it’s just incredible. But of course we decided, we ought to, even though it’s had a season, we pop up and have a little look at the snow. Because one of our team as a Queenslander has never actually seen the snow.

Charlie Albone:

Really?

Andrew Winter:

Yeah. Is that what we talk about to see the snow very cold’s.

Charlie Albone:

Gracious. So for our listeners that are wanting to turn their properties around quickly for a sale. Yep. What’s the first thing they should focus on. I mean, I know they’ve got to get onto the front, but what’s the first thing they should really be doing in the garden.

Andrew Winter:

It’s that clearer. It’s getting rid of all those extra things that you’ve accumulated. Don’t forget, if they’re good plant, but often they’re really good plant pots. They’ve just got this sort of bit of soil left. You know what I mean, little bit of soil left in them and nothing else just clean them out and put them in the back of the garage, ready to move with you. It’s just about clearing out that first thing because, when you’re selling a house, if it’s a free standing house or even if it’s a townhouse or a terrace, just do the walkup test, go halfway down the street, walk back up to the house as if you’ve never seen it before. And just look around, you’ll know my bug bear about screen doors. Screens and that are covering cob webs and they’re tired.

Andrew Winter:

And if there’s any old plant pots or dead greenery or dead grass or anything like that are concrete at all. You don’t concrete at all. Actually. No, you really don’t concrete at all. That would be terrible and fix the garden gate’s not perfect, if you can’t afford a new one, just take it off. It’s one of those things, it’s about the aesthetic overall. And like you say, Charlie, and I hate to agree with it, the greenery and that fresh looking plants and nicely mowed grass does look great, has a massive impact.

Charlie Albone:

There’s a fine line between ripping everything out and trying to control everything you need to tidy up, obviously, but then you need to get your hedges in control and you need to get them to a level where they’re manageable. So you need to use a hedge trimer, or like we said, a telescopic hedge trimmer to get them sorted, clean out any brambles or anything like that, any overgrown stuff you might need a chainsaw to do that. The lawn brush cutters, that sort of stuff just really get on top of everything and trying to make it look as tidy as possible. We never got the time on selling houses to do it properly, where we’d go in, smash it over and then open it up straight away. Ideally you want to be doing it, a couple of months in advance, don’t you? So your garden can kind of recover relax, put on a bit of growth and look less staged.

Andrew Winter:

Even I can agree with you there. If you cut a hedge back today for the first week, it doesn’t look great. It just needs that little bit of extra maturity. And the other tip really for not just the facade of a home, but all around. If you do have greenery close to the actual building itself, make sure it isn’t covering all the windows because there’s nothing worse… There’s nothing wrong with the bit of shading, but actually cover just creates a darkness and gloom. And also you can get green mold on the outside of the house and it causes all sorts of problems and can even invite those love little termites in and two. So just keep that greenery back from the actual building itself.

Charlie Albone:

Or put in decent protection to stop that stuff from damaging the…

Andrew Winter:

That’s a good idea too.

Charlie Albone:

And then tell the people who are trying to buy your house, how much work you’ve done to it.

Andrew Winter:

Yes. And don’t mention the word termites.

Charlie Albone:

No, don’t mention don’t mention the termites when it comes to a back garden, how important is sort of having a purpose in that back garden? Or is it better just to clear everything out?

Andrew Winter:

Actually that’s the fun thing with properties. Because as Charlie will have seen it on the years selling house, we did a lot of older properties sort of things that were built 50 sixties and seventies and the backyard then was a very different thing. The backyard had the Hills hoist in it. It was where you hung washing. Your kids might play backyard cricket, you grow a few vegetables. And that would be really the purpose of the backyard. You didn’t really sit there or entertain. Whereas, today the whole focus is different. It’s about having a space to sit with friends or family play out there. The trampoline’s out there, you might have a backyard pool. That’s probably going to be in the backyard. It’s all about having this private retreat at somewhere on your property. So that area has to have absolutely has to have a purpose and some definition.

Andrew Winter:

So you want a bit, that is where you would sit and you want a bit that where you’ve got your greeny, but the trouble is the place you sit always… I often see the trouble is, has to have something to look at. It’s no good just looking at a boring fence. I’m not obviously wanting to give you any credit here, but in fact, I remember Charlie Albone the places used to actually really do amazing stuff and would tend to be the really tiny garden spaces where you’ve got a five meter by five meter courtyard. And if you’re going to sit there, you are just looking at a boring old fence. And those are the ones that were the real challenge to actually create an outdoor space that you’d want to sit in yet you could still do it in a tiny area like that.

Charlie Albone:

You know why I did so well of the small ones?

Andrew Winter:

Why?

Charlie Albone:

Because you never gave me any money. So it goes a lot further in the small space.

Andrew Winter:

The new people bring their own money. It doesn’t matter.

Charlie Albone:

So are you seeing any trends in gardens that are really attracting buyers’ interest?

Andrew Winter:

I think it’s more of the use of the garden than anything. I probably do subconsciously note differences in plants and things like that. But I think that the important thing for me is that the garden matches the house. I remember we were shooting Love It or List It last season. And we were in a lovely old part of Sydney in a lovely suburban street. And there was a single fronted bungalow there, and it had the most beautiful. What I would call cottage garden, lots of flowers and lots of little pathways. And it was really… But it was in had the facade of a 1900 home behind it. It looked absolutely glorious, but that wouldn’t work on a black modern day box.

Charlie Albone:

Sometimes if you have a very different garden style to your house. It can work, but you have to get it spot on. If it’s just slightly off, it can look terrible and very difficult too.

Andrew Winter:

And it’s a general design theory for insides as well. You have to be sort of really good at being able to get away with something that breaks all the rules. So generally it’s better to play it safe. And if you’ve got that sort of big classic six or 700 square meter garden, then one of the reasons people are attracted to those is because usually it’s got lawn space, it’s got space for kids and animals and that. So you don’t want to clutter it up with greenery everywhere. It’s about framing.

Charlie Albone:

That you want lawn is still greenery.

Andrew Winter:

Yes. But framing that lawn space and hiding the dry fencing and things like that. So that it’s got a nice backdrop, but if you’ve got a courtyard garden, then obviously again, you need to free up the floor space and push everything to the fences. So that you’ve actually got somewhere to sit and the style of it. it’s nice if it does kind of blend with the architecture, very contemporary garden with a very contemporary piece of architecture is lovely.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, the small garden, if you want to make it feel a bit bigger, trying to blur those lines where fences meet the floor and they meet in corners by putting your planting around the outside will make it feel bigger. Because you don’t have that instant knowing exactly where your boundaries are. So that’s good. Like you said, people like big gardens and if you’re getting a house with a big block, you want the whole garden want the big lawn and you want the mature trees. You want the hedges because you’re interested in looking after it or as you would guessing [inaudible].

Andrew Winter:

Absolutely. The one trend that actually just thinking about it that I have seen and that I’ve even tried to start with my own home is of course trailing plants down facades, even apartment buildings, you’ve done tall gardens on buildings and things like that. And there is actually where I live on the Gold Coast is there’s only, I’ve only seen it once. There’s an apartment building, they built probably a year or two ago. And they’ve got all these front balconies with the plants, the green new drill. It is stunning. It’s just the most beautiful thing. And each apartment obviously has access to the plant. So it’s not actually that hard to maintain. You don’t need to get cranes or all that sort of complicated element to it. But the difference how it softens the building. So it’s actually okay making the frame part of the building. But I really like that. I think that blend of the building and the planting looks stunning.

Charlie Albone:

It’s all about getting the right plant for the right spot though. It’s a very harsh life living on the side of a building and your maintenance requirements have to be pretty low because obviously getting to it is quite difficult, but it does look good. It’s good for the building as well. It helps to cool it down and, and has lots of benefits for the local environment as well.

Andrew Winter:

But as you say, choosing that planting that’s when you really need good advice, isn’t it? Because I know when we wanted to choose plants, we would like trying to work it out and you end up having to get. Because you are in a coastal location or you are in a street. Obviously if you’re in a street, you’ve got a lot of pollution to deal with a plant or if you’re in direct sunlight or if it never gets sun, I suppose there’s quite a lot of elements to that. You need somebody that would really good at their good in their field.

Charlie Albone:

Are you talking plants and how to pick them. I know you’ve changed next. You’ll be talking about how important the soil is. Goodness gracious.

Andrew Winter:

Oh, that’s the mucky stuff. Isn’t it?

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Or in your case, the sandy stuff.

Andrew Winter:

Very sand, oh my God, we don’t have any salt. It’s just sand.

Charlie Albone:

What difference do you find between your new place, which is right by the beach and your acreage, which obviously was not near the beach as when it comes to the garden?

Andrew Winter:

I remember clearly the acreage, the soil was absolutely dark red. If that makes any sense. And all I know is that I remember when we came, my wife and I decided to go and have a big clear up and tidy all these borders up and everything we weeded and we cleared and all the rest of it. And then we got some rain the following day, by two days later, all the weeds are just regrown. It was just like, oh my God. It was such fertile soil. We then had another home after that, that we didn’t really realize was built on clay. Oh my God, that was a disaster. You can’t dig into it. And then you find it’s got water gets trapped in layers of clay and then turns up. And we had a one of my favorite plants, which is a grass tree. And we put a grass tree in a particular spot and it died. And when we lifted up, we found as a pool of water there, because that’s exactly where the clay funneled the water.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Grass trees are tricky actually, because, and here’s a fancy word for you. They have a symbiotic relationship with fungi in the soil. What that basically means is that…

Andrew Winter:

Is that sex talk?

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. That’s rude talk. But basically they survive by having a certain bacteria in the soil with them. So when you move them, you can kill that bacteria and you can of the tree. However, you might not know that the tree’s dead for up to six months. So you could already be buying a dead grass tree and it looks alive. You get it and it dies. So they’re really tricky.

Andrew Winter:

We’ve replanted. So we’re now I like you saying in a beach side location and literally it is all sand other than what the landscapers are put on the top and we have planted a grass tree that we had in a pot and so far so good. It seems to be okay, but it’s a plant. We like. The trouble is that they seem to be one of those plants that if it’s happy, it will thrive almost through neglect. But if it isn’t happy, it just dies. There’s no sort of halfway with it.

Charlie Albone:

Absolutely. When you are coming to sell a house and we talk about Australian native plants, like the grass tree. Do you ever like putting a certain style onto a garden that you’re trying to sell or is it better to just try and keep it as broad as possible to attract as many people as possible?

Andrew Winter:

It depends who you’re targeting. Your average family bar, that’s looking for a decent size garden is probably going to look for lower maintenance. So native plants that don’t need too much TLC things that just need watering every now and again and weeding and pruning and stuff like that. Tend to have a more mass appeal. I have seen places that have beautiful, intricate garden get, and people get frightened by them because they might be like me thinking, oh my God, that’s going to take a lot of maintenance. So it does, it does kind of depend on who you’re targeting. High maintenance gardens are all well and good, but they don’t appeal to a lot of people.

Charlie Albone:

Well, a lot of people that you don’t talk to, you don’t talk to gardeners, a high maintenance gardener very attractive to gardeners. Why? I mean, look at my place. I bought it and you said, “Oh gosh, think of all the maintenance you have to do?” And I was filled with joy. I was like, yes, I could be gardening forever.

Andrew Winter:

I do understand why you live on five acres because it does mean that you are very busy. You don’t have to go and see people.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. Like you. I can stay well away from you.

Andrew Winter:

But that is not just me. You know, I like people too.

Charlie Albone:

So anyone so Winter, I’m trying to get you an iMOW for your fake grass, so you can replace it…

Andrew Winter:

Sorry. A what?

Charlie Albone:

An iMOW. It’s a robot mower so you don’t have to do anything. It just cuts the grass and…

Andrew Winter:

And so wait, wait, wait. I don’t have to do anything. It does it for me.

Charlie Albone:

It does it all for you. It’s all programmed. Yes.

Andrew Winter:

Okay. I want one of those.

Charlie Albone:

How much would something like that be a benefit when you’re selling house? Things you could add to that as well would be an automated irrigation system, lighting, sending all your garden information through a tech system in the house. Is that a good selling point or does it just make a house more desirable or doesn’t actually add value?

Andrew Winter:

Whether it actually adds specific value. It’s part of the package, I guess. But these days, that sort of tech where you can turn your air-con inside on or off, but to it, to do your irrigation outside and think while you’re on holiday, actually I think it’s fantastic. It’s one of those little selling points that do make a difference. Obviously with your lawn mower that’s not necessarily something that’s going to be left behind, but certainly irrigation systems and lighting, which are these days crucial part of the garden to have those linked to it, to your wifi network it’s a real selling feature.

Charlie Albone:

Would you say if you’ve got, spend a bit of money on garden lighting, is it important to have that open house when you can see the garden lighting? Or are you just a real estate agent? You tell everyone it’s fabulous.

Andrew Winter:

No, you would do twilight inspections because the outdoor lighting create… Even in the most plain go and suddenly looks stunning with really good lighting. And again, it’s something that a lot of people don’t bother to do. So if you’ve done it, you really want to show it off.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. It’s one of those things you need to do straight away, as soon as you move in somewhere. So you get to enjoy it rather than do it to sell it.

Andrew Winter:

And a little tip I would give people is that if they’re ever going to do it, do plan this because there are, oftentimes I see that the trouble is they can’t run the connection or the power under the concrete driveway to get into the other side. They want the lighting on both sides of a driveway or a patio and they can’t run the cable underneath it. So yeah. Planets, you say Charlie, if, if you are about to redo your garden, incorporate the lighting, an irrigation system into the plans from day one.

Charlie Albone:

You need to think, even if you’re not going to be putting them in immediately, you need to have the provision for it. So understand. Well, you need to have a loop basically that runs around your garden, a continuous loop. So you need to make the provisions for that.

Andrew Winter:

And that does hardly cost anything to do at the time of a build or renovation. And it’d like you say, you can then add to it at a later stage and then connect it up to all your wifi network. What is the wifi network again?

Charlie Albone:

The thing that you don’t have a very good one of, at the moment.

Andrew Winter:

I don’t, but that’s because I’m in the snowy mountains.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Set are you?

Andrew Winter:

I know I go everywhere. Just not home.

Charlie Albone:

So what is, I guess you said your number one tip when it comes to selling a house is just make sure it’s neat and tidy. Is that what people should be taking away from this.

Andrew Winter:

That really is it. But the other trick that you used to use at selling houses is also that livened up any garden space, front, back, or side, whatever is the use of plants in plant pots. Because the beauty of those is if you do spend a little bit too much, they’re not necessarily included in the price so they can come with you and they can liven up the next garden area. That’s always a good tip. If you really want to liven up the facade of a house and use pots and lovely plants and take them with you

Charlie Albone:

That could not have been more said like a real estate agent, if you tried, “Oh, you can take them with you.”

Andrew Winter:

Yeah. Said he did this.

Charlie Albone:

Someone who’s never moved a plant pot in his life.

Andrew Winter:

Excuse me. I have. Goodness sweet. As I said, I didn’t always be able to get people to move them for me.

Charlie Albone:

Well, Winter, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I guess I’ll ask you two more questions. One is, is it Miami Knight or is it Rio Beach?

Andrew Winter:

What’s that?

Charlie Albone:

Your fake tan? Because I’m thinking of doing it myself.

Andrew Winter:

Yes. Okay. Well it’s all natural, unfortunately. I am sorry. You know that we know your hair isn’t but my tan is.

Charlie Albone:

Is not true. It’s not. Mine’s a wig.

Andrew Winter:

And the second question is?

Charlie Albone:

How much do you miss me on selling houses?

Andrew Winter:

Were you the Charlie or Shayna? I can’t remember that.

Charlie Albone:

You got rid of both of us. I left and then Shayna left because she couldn’t stand you without me.

Andrew Winter:

No, you know what it is, mate? You need it on better homes and gardens. I need it on the next selling. Hey, we need a cheating scandal.

Charlie Albone:

There you have it. To garden you need a cheating scandal.

Andrew Winter:

Actually that’s what re selling real estate is a little bit, but we won’t tell anybody that. Yeah. We call them here for tips.

Charlie Albone:

I’ll be sending you a pressure washer to clean your house up straight after it.

Andrew Winter:

Brilliant. I shall be doing it in my buddy smuggle as soon as I get back into Queensland.

Charlie Albone:

Oh God, I hope not. Well, thanks for your time mate.

Andrew Winter:

It’s been absolutely your pleasure.

Charlie Albone:

It has.

Andrew Winter:

So now it is time to get onto our community questions and we’ve got a couple here. The first one is from Elise, from Summerville in Victoria. She says we’ve just moved into a new house with a bigger garden. The previous owners unfortunately were not keen gardeners. They trimmed the trees and hedges, but they left all the clippings on the lawn and in the beds we’ve cleared the year’s worth of trimmings, but not much has been growing lately. What would you recommend to get everything growing? Well, Elise, first of all, I hope you haven’t removed everything off site because that sort of stuff in the garden beds and on the lawns makes fantastic compost. So you could pile that up and use that in the gardens once it’s broken down.

Andrew Winter:

But because that’s going to take a little bit of time to compost down, you’re probably going to want to buy some in. Now you can use this as a mulch in your existing garden beds. The earthworms are going to come and drag that into the soil, help it hold onto water and nutrients. If you’ve got open garden beds, you can dig that compost through the player and it’s going to start working even quicker. Now, when it comes to your lawn, you’re going to want to run an air through it or just get a garden fork, plunge it into the soil and get some air back into it. You could then top dress that with core sand and that’s going to stop the holes from caving in, but it’s going to still maintain that air level. Then what you want to do to the lawn and the garden beds is fertilize everything. So for your lawn, you want something high in nitrogen for your garden beds.

Andrew Winter:

You just want an all purpose fertilizer and then you’re going to soak everything with a hose and give it a really good soak for a couple of weeks just to make sure all that fertilizer, all that compost and all that aerating really, really goes to work. And then your garden is going to be looking cracking. Don’t forget the more you prune stuff, the denser it’s going to be. So for your hedges, don’t let them grow up really tall to the height you want. Just keep trimming things back, keep on top of it and your garden should be looking great.

Andrew Winter:

Our next question is from Lynn in new south Wales. Now Lynn asks, we just planted a clumping bamboo last spring with the aim of creating a privacy screen from our neighbors. Unfortunately 12 months later, it has barely grown. Is there anything we can do to encourage growth? Or what else would you recommend we plant? Now, clumping bamboo is excellent for screening. Don’t get mistaken with running bamboo. Now running bamboo is a terrible thing that once you plant it, it will end up in your neighbors and in the next 10 suburbs along, it’s a horrible thing.

Andrew Winter:

But clumping bamboo does exactly what it says on the tin. Basically, if you’re using something like a slender weaver, it will only ever get to a meter and a half across, but it will get to six meters in height and they’re all like that. They all do exactly what each variety says it’s going to do. So it’s a good option for you. However, you’ve got to remember it is a member of the grass family. So it’s going to like all the things that grass likes, lots and lots of water to really kick it on and lots and lots of nitrogen, rich fertilizers.

Andrew Winter:

So you could use a lawn fertilizer on it. I would start with that, probably improve the soil around with some compost, put some fertilizer down and lots and lots of water. And hopefully it should kick on. If it doesn’t, you might want to think about replacing it with something else. And you’re going to want to go with something that can be kept really slim line and grows up tall. Deciduous plants like capital pairs are perfect, but I understand that you’re after some screening, so you’re probably going to want to try something evergreen, like a water housier. This is a rainforest tree that can be kept comfortably to three meters or it can grow up to eight and it really responds well to pruning and can be kept quite thin. If you’ve got a bit of a darker spot, you might want to try something like a poto carpus.

Andrew Winter:

It is quite slow growing, but it will go really high and really thin. So best of luck with it. Well, do you have a gardening question you’d like me to answer? Send me an email, charlie@stihl.com.au. A big thank you to my old friend, Andrew Winter for joining me today. It’s always good to have a chat with Winter but what did we learn? Well, I didn’t learn, but I was reminded that Andrew is still a hopeless gardener. You can’t underestimate the importance of a beautiful garden, making a great first impression and having a well maintained garden, paints a picture for your whole property. If the garden is well maintained, then the house will be in good condition as well. Even if you have a small garden, there are things you can do to make a big impression, but you have to focus on the details and don’t forget to add in some greenery.

Andrew Winter:

Thanks for listening to That’s How We Grow in partnership with STIHL Garden Power Tools. On our next episode, we’re going to be speaking with David Laughlin from the Sydney Botanic gardens, and we’re going to be discussing all things, garden maintenance. Do you need the tools to take on any garden challenge, go to the STIHL website or hit your local STIHL dealer today. You can find STIHL on Instagram, which is @stihl_au and you can follow me on Instagram as well @charlie_albone. And don’t forget to check out the STIHL blog with plenty of great gardening advice. I’m Charlie Albone thanks for listening until next episode. Goodbye.

Listen to the audio recording of this podcast here.