Episode #8: Garden Planning and Design with Michael Bates

Charlie Albone:

I’m Charlie Albone and welcome to episode eight of That’s How We Grow in partnership with STIHL Garden Power Tools. Garden design is a massive passion of mine, and in terms of professional achievements, my garden designs at the 2015 and 2016 Chelsea Flower Show stand clear. I’ve won two silver-gilt medals and I can’t wait to go back and try and claim a gold. Held in London, Chelsea is the best garden show in the world and I love to visit it every year if I can. To be able to demonstrate and show our work there is a truly amazing experience.

Charlie Albone:

The Chelsea Flower Show is gardening Nirvana. To see the different designs and ideas people present, it’s inspiring and amazing. Garden designers from around the world share their creations helping to impart their knowledge on other experts as well as those up and coming green thumb gardeners. Whilst events like flower shows are simply amazing, we can’t always recreate every part of those designs at home. The one key lesson I’ve learned is to work with the landscape you’re given as you can’t beat mother nature. Trying to use your favorite plant in an environment that it’s not suited for will very rarely work.

Charlie Albone:

So how does the garden planning process begin? Where do you start? Do you need an expert? Well, to break all of this down, I’ve invited my old friend Michael Bates to join me today. Now, Michael is an incredible landscaper and a designer in his own right. He’s got over 30 years of experiencing the game and he has been lucky enough to work on some amazing gardens. So let’s take a fresh look at the garden space and see what we can create.

Charlie Albone:

Michael, you have over 30 years of it experience in the landscape industry, and I’ve known you for quite a few years, but I’ve never actually asked you how did you start in this crazy business week or landscaping?

Michael Bates:

Well, Charlie, like a lot of people I was finishing school and back then they didn’t have the internet, they had careers books and I was a ADHD kid undiagnosed and I just wanted to work outside and I looked under the outdoor careers and saw the word horticulture, I thought it looked like a fabulous idea and I started at that. Got an apprenticeship at Swan’s Nursery as a nurseryman. And then when I got into this Hawkesbury Agricultural College, I went in a nurseryman and came out of landscaper.

Charlie Albone:

How did that work out?

Michael Bates:

Well, the great thing about Hawkesbury back then that was now the University of Western Sydney was that it had this systems learning where they basically inducted you into the whole world of horticulture amenity, horticulture and production horticulture, and gave you a very well rounded understanding about plants, and I thought I was a nurseryman, but by the end of the landscape component I was hooked.

Charlie Albone:

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you create some of the most amazing iconic gardens around Sydney and you’re a landscape designer in your own, right. I mean, you build for other designers as well as yourself. What is it that you love about the landscape industry?

Michael Bates:

Well, I think I love it from start to finish. I mean, I was designing gardens when I first came out of Hawkesbury and then I went to Rye to fill in the holes, because Rye’s horticulture back in the ’80s was this extraordinary dynamic place. And I was designing gardens for a while and then family came along and I wasn’t really getting enough work in as a designer, so I started building gardens seriously, and I think I’m hooked on that. And fortunately for me, I’ve been able over the last few decades to work with some of the greatest designers in the country, architects, garden designers, landscape architects, whole range of people.

Michael Bates:

And back in the 2017 when I launched my book, I relaunched the design practice and employed an operations man, like you have. So the day to day activity of building gardens is taken over by somebody else, the lion’s share of that, and it’s just taken off.

Charlie Albone:

I love the way that you combine the practicality of Australian outdoor living with kind of a calm cool aesthetic. Can you tell me about your approach towards garden design?

Michael Bates:

As you say, my process is a bit back to front because I start with the site and I start with doing all the site analysis, all the fundamental stuff. Where the sun is, what drainage issues are, the soil we’ve got, the level differences, access to the street, the flow spaces from the house and the interface between the interior and the exterior of the home. And so my design process isn’t on paper, it’s in the field. And so I have this collaborative on-ground workshop process with the clients and I find it’s really important to get everybody on the same page although it’s on the ground.

Michael Bates:

And so I use spray paint, string lines and mock up the garden and try and describe what it’s going to be or what the options are for the site in four dimensions, because we’re four dimensional designers. People don’t understand that the fourth dimension’s time and that time, because we’re dealing with plants and plants grow and they start like little seedlings and then they grow up and they become trees and then they provide a canopy and then they transform a space. And so trying to have everybody understand that in their own garden at home in their place, and you also get access to the knowledge of the site.

Michael Bates:

They know where the breezes are, they know where the best place to sit in winter is when you’re seeking a bit of sun, they know where the best places are in summer when you’re seeking a bit of shade. People instinctively craft their spaces even before they have a designer come in. And so you’ve got to tap into that. And the other thing I do, Charlie, which is sort of like marriage counseling psychology is that in the first meeting, which is a two hour workshop after the briefing meeting, is that no idea is a bad idea. And I do that for two reasons. I do that, firstly, because there’s always somebody who’s got a fixation or something that they’re really focused on and their partner may not agree with it.

Michael Bates:

But if no idea is a bad idea, then it gets ventilated and quite often the person let’s go because they understand that they’ve been heard and they understand that it’s in the mix, it’s in the matrix, we’re going to consider it. And so it neutralizes a whole lot of issues. And the second reason is that sometimes, a dumb idea ventilated can be discarded much easier, but also, an idea which isn’t that bright on the outside could inspire a good idea down the track.

Charlie Albone:

Could just be a spark.

Michael Bates:

It could. To activate people’s own creative energy and also to get the story about what it is, because I see myself as a facilitator, not as somebody who’s turning up knowing all the answers. I’m there just to uncover the answers and come up with the best compromise.

Charlie Albone:

You work with a client, don’t you. Inevitably, it’s their garden, you’re a designer who’s coming to help them make the most of the space, but they’re the ones that are living with it, right? Well, after it’s all said and done, you can go away and disappear, you don’t have to [crosstalk 00:07:34].

Michael Bates:

That’s what it looks like, Charlie. That’s exactly right. I always say, “When I’m finished, you’re going to pay me and I’m going to go home and you are going to stay here. So let’s make it just the way you want it. I’ll do what I want at my place.”

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, absolutely. And your place is lovely. I like the way… I’ve been lucky enough to go there. You’ve just got really simple breakout spaces to draw your outside. Can you tell us a bit about your house?

Michael Bates:

Yeah. So my home in the city, we’ve got four kids and they’re all adult kids now, but as they were growing up, you sort of realized that you have family life and what your garden brings and its connection to the home, there’s many parts to it. So what I’ve learned over the years dealing with 1200 or 1300 people and their homes is that you’ve got the infant years, the sand pit and adventure playground cubby house stage, scooter stage, and then you’ve got the next stage where in between and they still want to kick a ball and the garden’s big enough for them to do that, but you’ve got all the trade offs there.

Michael Bates:

And then you’ve got the teenage hangout and actually trying to lure your teenage kids and your adolescent children to come to your place and to bring their friends there. And then you’ve got where I’m at which is the adult children where they’re coming home and our place is the place they come to host events and bring their friends and it’s a honey pot, you get to bring their friends around and you can get to know who their friends are and you can get to know what’s happening on the ground floor of the next generation of young Australians.

Charlie Albone:

And it’s all about getting them out in the garden and having those experiences.

Michael Bates:

Absolutely.

Charlie Albone:

Which is what gardening’s about, I guess. I guess as a designer, you want something to look nice and it’s always nice to look at a picture and go, “I created that,” but really you are creating a space to have experiences in and create memories in.

Michael Bates:

Well, you’re absolutely right, Charlie. Thomas Church, the great Californian designer said that gardens are to connect house to landscape, plant to soil and humans to nature. And I mean, I can’t tell you how important it is to get the children off their screens, out into the garden to see the birds and the bugs and the fish in the pond and the frogs and all of that stuff.

Michael Bates:

And all of that stuff, if you create a nice garden, a living garden, it’s not just living plants, we’ve got brush turkeys and possums. Yeah, they’re annoying, but we’ve also got herons in the city, and we’ve got lorikeets that come down to the pond and crows and there’s all these creatures that can come into the garden and connect you to the sort of living dynamic of nature.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I know you, you’re not just an amazing designer and builder, but you’re a good gardener as well. And I think a good designer can’t be a good designer without being a good gardener. Do you agree?

Michael Bates:

Well, definitely the knowledge of plants is gained by hands-on experience with them.

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Michael Bates:

But what I’ve discovered in my process over the past three decades is that I started out with the plants and that was what was driving me. And then as a young man, it was all about building the best most sophisticated highly engineered, all the hard works, the stone walls and the steps and the pergolas and the greater, the bigger the better was very exciting. And then I’ve come around back to the plants because they’re the most transformative and the most therapeutic component of it. When I go to the blue mountains, I’ve got to place out in the mountains which you’ve been to as well.

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Michael Bates:

I just spent last weekend gardening. And I mean, other than having a sore back, it was the most worthwhile thing I could do, was to get out there on the Toro. Actually, I got this new STIHL battery hedger, you’d be pleased to know.

Charlie Albone:

Good, good.

Michael Bates:

Well, I am mad about it. There’s no more starting petrol things.

Charlie Albone:

So good, yeah.

Michael Bates:

And the battery, I couldn’t wear it out. I was going into the dark.

Charlie Albone:

That’s it. I find I can’t wear it out before I’ve charged another one by the time. They’re amazing. It’s so much better than petrol.

Michael Bates:

Oh, it sped everything up and less noise. The thing about gardening is it’s a very optimistic activity. I mean, you don’t dig a hole and put a plant in the ground unless you think it’s going to grow.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Bates:

And the more you do of it, the more you know. The more you do of it, the more you know. It’s this beautiful virtuous cycle where if you clean the house, it gets dirtied again, it gets messed up again. But if you do something in the garden, next time you come past, the plant’s grown, the plant’s responded to what you’re doing. I like to do the stuff where there’s visual transformation. I like to get out there and do some pruning and do some clearing out where you put in the least amount of effort and get the most visual transformation?

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Michael Bates:

The boring weeding stuff, I leave that to other people, but somebody said to me once, “You’re a glory guy. You just do all the stuff that everybody notices.” And I said, “Yeah, mate, why wouldn’t you?”

Charlie Albone:

I like a bit of both. I do like glory gardening, as you put it, but then my meditation is weeding. I think it’s never done. It’s like cleaning the house, you always have to do it. And as soon as you realize that, then you can just keep doing it and it doesn’t matter when it stops and starts. Because it’s something that’s always going to be there and always keep going.

Michael Bates:

Well, it’s funny you say that. I was on the phone the other day in the garden and I didn’t even realize I was doing it and I turned around to finish this very long detailed conversation. It was a pile of words, you could fill a green bin.

Charlie Albone:

It just happened. I know.

Michael Bates:

It was like, “Oh, that’s fantastic. I didn’t even think about it.”

Charlie Albone:

So do you like building your own gardens or do you prefer building gardens by other designers because you work for a lot of Australia’s finest designers, what do you prefer, designing or building or [crosstalk 00:13:36]?

Michael Bates:

Well, I like both. I think one of the great things, fortunate things about my career path is that I’ve ended up sharing and being firsthand involved in other people’s design process, their creative process and how they work and how they develop the ideas as we are physically building the garden. Because if you’re doing proper landscaping, you’re really changing the space. And if you think you understand exactly what should be done at the outset, then you are very clever.

Michael Bates:

Most of us are halfway through and realize that you need to make that slightly longer or that slightly taller or that’s slightly… When you actually feel it and the materiality. But still that you’re informed you say that feels it’s like any building of a house. There’s moments where it feels really big and there’s moments where it feels really small. And then hopefully when you’re finished, it’s just right.

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Michael Bates:

So I like working particularly with these younger designers. I think it keeps me fresh because some of the fashions and some things that we thought were gospel 30 years ago have just been discarded and I think they’ve been well discarded. I think what’s going on is… I mean, I hope I remain open and interested in what other good practitioners are doing for the rest of my life. I want to be Russell Page, I want to work until I’m 92 and still be learning.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. When it comes to garden design, I guess, like you said, there’s no wrong answer, but there’s plenty of ways to do things. There’s millions of different layouts for each and every garden and it must be interesting to see how different people approach that as well as the way that you would approach it if you were the designer, I guess.

Michael Bates:

And I think that’s helped inform my process. And it’s not just the process, it’s actually the styles and the aesthetics, and there’s people who have got plant driven design, there’s people that have got a particular stick, a particular approach to gardens and they try and bend each garden to their particular approach. And then there’s people that want to invent a new thing every day.

Michael Bates:

And I see the two key ingredients of good garden design as being context. So making sure that whatever you are designing is going to fit in with its surroundings. The surrounding street scape, the architecture of the home that you’re actually living in, the way it flows and encourages you to go from inside to outside. And the second component is that it works. That you’re living in a flourishing growing transformative garden.

Michael Bates:

And that it’s the same as your children. That it starts out, and if you don’t think of your garden in terms of the same sort of time period, if you’re not thinking about it in seasons and years and decades, then you’re always going to be disappointed and you’re going to really miss the point of what it is to live in a great living, breathing, moving dynamic system that is a garden.

Charlie Albone:

Well, like a family, it’s the things that you invest the most amount of time in are ultimately the most rewarding. We live in this crazy society where we check our phones the whole time. And if we don’t see something new on Instagram, we get annoyed. But really, it’s the things that you take the most amount of time with that are ultimately the most rewarding and that is your family and your garden, you nailed that one.

Michael Bates:

Yeah. For sure providing those facilities and amenities for family life to happen, the fire pits and the outdoor lounge and the teenage hangout and outdoor shower and the dining and all of those different spaces that Australians want to do their activities inside, they want to do the same activities outside. There’s that component to it, but I think also, it’s a way of life. It’s an acceptance because I think we should have two gongs in our gardens. We should have one in the front when we come home, it’s a gratitude gong and you just bang, “I love my beautiful home and I’m so glad to be here.”

Michael Bates:

And you’re going into the cocoon, you’re going into the sanctuary, it’s an escape, as you say, from the busy bustling stressy life that we tend to live, and it’s your place for refuge, it’s the place for regeneration, it’s the place for rest? And I think recent times with people working from home, I couldn’t think of anything worse. I think home’s home, work’s work and separating those two are important.

Michael Bates:

And the other gong, Charlie, I think is the acceptance gong, and that’s out the back and it’s like if you’re not feeling grateful, you need to accept that the world’s not perfect and that the snails are going to come and eat your hosts. And the weeds are going to grow faster than the other plants, and that the tree that you thought was going to do hasn’t performed. All of those things, there’s a certain amount of acceptance.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Yeah. So on top of building and designing and maintaining and all that stuff, you’re an author as well. You penned The New Australian Garden, I’m finishing a book myself and that’s about inspiring people to get into gardening. But at what point do you think someone should get a professional designer in to help them with their new landscape?

Michael Bates:

Well, I’m somebody who thinks that professional advice is absolutely imperative in all parts of life. So whether you’re getting good medical advice for your health or you’re getting good advice for personal trainer, physiotherapist, if there’s something wrong. If you’re going to write a book, talk to a publishing author, publishing lawyer, don’t just talk to any old lawyer. I mean, if you’re going to deal with industrial relations, don’t deal with a lawyer who doesn’t do anything but industrial. So I’m a believer that specialist knowledge where people have spent decades gathering experience and have instincts and intuition that’s developed from real practice over those years.

Michael Bates:

So I think everybody needs help in that area. Having said that, some people who are prepared to make mistakes and learn from their mistakes and be very diligent and hardworking, they can do it on their own. But I see so few gardens that have been crafted by amateurs, that are as inspiring as people who are doing it all of the time. So I think everybody needs help.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a bit about Mayfield. Now This is the largest privately owned garden in the Southern Hemisphere out in Oberon, and you’re the creative director there, is that correct?

Michael Bates:

No, no, I’m just a creative consultant.

Charlie Albone:

All right.

Michael Bates:

The creative director is still the owner and the person who decides what’s what. So it’s been going for 25 years and it’s an extraordinary garden. It’s a sub-temperate garden, Oberon as you say, three hours out of town. And so we’re working on a number of things. So at the moment, we’re working on the Paisley garden, which is a whole lot of Paisley-shaped clipped colored hedges, clipped colored plants in the bulb garden, because what we discovered was the bulb garden was looking great when the bulbs were out, but the rest of the time people didn’t walk down there and so we’re trying to create a pattern in there.

Michael Bates:

The other thing we are doing is creating curated walks because the garden’s so big and there’s a big section of the garden that’s open 364 days a year, but there’s this whole bunch of other private gardens that are opened only in the seasonal opening so there’s festivals, the spring festival, summer festival, winter festival, and autumn festival. So we are actually connecting those things now to ensure that when people come, because you’ve got to go more than once in order to see the whole garden, it’s so big. And some of the best elements of the garden weren’t immediately available to the uninitiated visitor.

Michael Bates:

So we’re starting to create curated walks so that people see all the good stuff and some of the best landscape features which have been developed. People don’t miss them.

Charlie Albone:

Is that bit of a daunting task when you’ve got such a large area and a garden that is going to continue to grow. Where do you start? Where do you stop? Like you said, no idea is a bad idea, but is it a bit daunting?

Michael Bates:

Well, it can be, but I think it’s important that you’re not daunted by it. That you understand that in a big garden like that, it’ll be there for generations. And the owner Garrick Hawkins has set out for it to be in his family for generations and it’s a long term thing. So his stewardship is finite and so he’s now got the next generation, Alex, his daughter, who’s very, very keen and who we are working with to bring more, to Mayfield, to inject more color into Mayfield and to make sure that people really understand how good it is and to attract more people to come out and look at it.

Michael Bates:

And so I’m not daunted in as much as I think we just need to do the things that are in front of us that are determined as the priorities of the day as well as they can be done understanding that we’re just the people who are working on this great garden at this time.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. There’s a legacy element to that, isn’t there? Your stewardship or your role in there will be handed over to somebody else somewhere down the line that will continue on and that’s what will make it a fantastic [inaudible 00:23:06].

Michael Bates:

And the plants don’t care about that. They just keep growing. They just keep growing. The seasons change, the plants drop their leaves, they put on new shoots. It rains, there’s droughts, there’s pandemics, but they just keep growing and responding to… So the trees don’t care.

Charlie Albone:

No, they don’t care about trends, do they? I mean, trends, they come and go. It might be a fire pit, it might be a succulent garden or a Prairie Star medal or something like that. What do you think every Australian garden can’t live without though? What sort of trends have you seen that live on? Keep going?

Michael Bates:

Well, it’s interesting the trend piece. And I mean, going back to working with young designers, I always thought clipping things was for the uptight people. And then I had this garden up in the mountains, you just clipped things, you couldn’t stop. And then I’m working with all these people clipping things. I can’t believe it, but I’ve just designed a cloud band and I spend the weekend out there clipping. Yeah. And okay, so they’re not box edges in neat rows, but they’re still clipped elements. There’s still this, this need to dominate, to shape, to craft a composition of albeit living things.

Michael Bates:

So look, I was interested in native gardens and I had this chainsaw gardening phase where I wanted to force the Mary stem, force the Mali habit into some of the Australian plants that respond to fire and animal disturbance and form multi trunks. And I wanted the clients to cut the plants down in winter to imitate fire and I even had some sections that I thought we could burn in the grasslands and no one ever got behind that, Charlie. [crosstalk 00:24:55] Thanks to my [crosstalk 00:24:56] gardening.

Charlie Albone:

Strangely. Now I know why you didn’t start a bush fire garden, or no.

Michael Bates:

But then I moved on to rainforest gardens, and then there was a period where I went with Mercy Hosking we were I was just mad about cottage gardens, the subtropical gardens. I mean, it’s never ending and I think I’ve been very fortunate to go to lots of places and see gardens all over the world. And I think that every time I go and I’ve got to be careful that I’m not typecast as the landform guy at the moment, but ever since I went to Scotland and saw the garden of cosmic speculation and all the other gardens that jinx has made doing those grass land forms and I just ran with the ball, Charlie. I’ve been playing up in the mountains again over the long weekend.

Charlie Albone:

I’ve seen your Instagram about the earthworks you’re doing at your house. Now, for those that don’t know, a land form garden is sculpting the land and you just put grass over the finish, and you just get this amazing effect of sort of depth and perspective. It’s interesting. I guess you have to Google The Cosmic Garden.

Michael Bates:

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. So Google that to really understand it, but you are starting to play with that here in the state. Well, you’re making room for yourself doing it.

Michael Bates:

Well, I’ve got to stop it because I’ll be top casting for [inaudible 00:26:12] because I don’t know what the next phase is going to be. But the piece to that, Charlie, that’s really important to understand is it’s about elevation. It’s about changing the perspective of the viewer. So you walk out on the land form and I don’t know if you’ve climbed up on the roof, but if people climb up on the roof and they look at their garden from the roof.

Charlie Albone:

With a harness on of course, I mean be safe.

Michael Bates:

Yeah. If you’re going to do this at home, make sure you do it very safely.

Charlie Albone:

Yes.

Michael Bates:

But in the event that you’re very safely up on your roof, you’ll see your garden from a different angle and land form gardening is about changing elevation uninterrupted in space and seeing how the landscape feels bigger.

Michael Bates:

And the other thing I’ve discovered by making them is that you can actually create space where it doesn’t exist, because if you’ve got a sloping ground, when you level it up and then you make an extreme angle and then level it up, you actually create these spaces that weren’t there before and create these negative spaces and these little sculpted cutouts. It’s very hard to describe it without experiencing it, but you actually create space where it wasn’t before, and it’s enchanting.

Charlie Albone:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I think what it does well is there’s nothing worse than looking out your window garden and seeing everything there because it doesn’t inspire you to go. You want something to draw you out and then when you get out, be amazed and then you go down this rabbit hole of exploring the garden and that’s what landform gardens do really well because they change the elevation and the angle. You’ve always got a new view, you’ve always got something to look at and it draws you into the space.

Michael Bates:

Absolutely. That’s a key ingredient. That’s a key. Yeah. Because as you say, I mean, we need to consider. I call it the flight deck. We need to consider what the garden looks from where you live most of your life. 90% of waking hours has been in the area called the flight deck. So in the kitchen looking out and island bench, sink, dishwasher, cooking for the family, cooking for friends. I think you need to craft the composition so that it looks good from there but also that it draws you out, absolutely draws you out. It’s a really important element so I couldn’t agree with you more there.

Charlie Albone:

Yeah. Michael, look, I could talk to you for hours about landscape design and different theories and different styles and different ways to enjoy your garden, but it’s so nice to talk to someone who’s so passionate about gardening and design, construction and maintenance. So thank so much for your time.

Michael Bates:

Thanks, Charlie. It’s been great.

Charlie Albone:

So now it is time for our community questions and Peter has asked quite a tricky one. He says, “I’ve got lots of nut grass in my lawn and I’ve been told not to pull it out because it will multiply, and to spray it with a special nut grass weed killer. Now I’ve tried this, but it seems to be taking a long time to die off. Am I going about this the right way? If you could just confirm the best way to approach the removal of the nut grass and winter grass in my lawn, that would be great.”

Charlie Albone:

Now, yes, this is a very tricky question and it will take you a long time. Now, nut grass is very much like onion weed. It’s the bane of my existence. When you pull it out, you’re basically pulling a bulb out of the ground and all the baby bulbs fall off and create more plants so you actually make the problem worse, so pulling it is not the best way to do it unless you’re removing huge amounts of soil. The best way to do it is to spray it with a specific herbicide, but the ones you can buy over the counter don’t really pack the punch you need to kill this horrible thing off.

Charlie Albone:

So I would contact a local lawn care company that will have access to some decent chemicals that can then apply it and spray it for you. Now I don’t suggest you trying to get your hands on these chemicals because you need to be qualified to use them and to make them work to their best. So get in touch with a professional and to get them around to help you out.

Charlie Albone:

Now, Miriam says, “My daughter accidentally cut the tops off my frangipani tree.” Doesn’t sound like an accident to me, Miriam but, “What can I do to save the tree? Do I cut the branches back?” And she’s attached a photo. She said, “This is not the only branch she did.” So let me describe this. This is a frangipani that looks like it’s had the branches snapped off it and then Miriam’s gone up to tidy up the cuts so I don’t judge her daughter.

Charlie Albone:

But don’t worry, it’s a frangipani tree. It will come back. It does look a little bit sticky at the moment, but I wouldn’t cut it back any further. I would just leave it, allow it to shoot. And from each point. It will shoot maybe two or three new branches. You can remove the ones that are going to cross over with each other and rub, you could remove the ones that are going to give an unsightly looking tree, but just give it time, it will come back.

Charlie Albone:

Do you have a gardening question you’d like me to answer? Well, send me an email. charlie@still.com.au. I really could speak with Michael Bates for hours about garden design. It was great to hear his thoughts and share his passion of ours with you today. The key points to consider when designing a gardener, don’t be afraid to talk to an expert. Now this can be a collaborative experience. A good garden designer will guide you in drainage, layout, soil health, and so much more.

Charlie Albone:

I mean, talking to an expert works in every part of gardening, including getting the right tools for the job. And for that, you need to hedge your local STIHL dealer. Design your garden from the flight deck. How is your garden going to look from the spaces where you spend most of your time inside the house? And remember that designing a garden is a long term project. Give it the time it deserves and it will reach its full potential.

Charlie Albone:

Thanks for listening to That’s How We Grow in partnership with STIHL Garden Power Tools. Do you need the tools to take on any garden challenge? Well go to the STIHL website or head to your local STIHL dealer today. You can find us on Instagram as well at stihl_au and follow me on Instagram as well, charlie_Albone. This is the final episode in the series. Thank you so much for listening.

Charlie Albone:

If you haven’t already, please leave a review wherever you’ve downloaded the podcast from. Maybe go one better and start from episode one again, because just like the garden. We’ll be here for 12 months of the year. And don’t forget to check out STIHL’s blog with plenty of great gardening advice, tips and tricks. I’m Charlie Albone and thank you for listening. Until next time, goodbye.

Listen to the audio recording of this podcast here.