In my recent posts on waterwise gardening and sustainable gardening practices tailored to Perth conditions, I have sung the praises of the Great Garden Seminars. These free workshops are held throughout the year all over the metropolitan area. They’ve become increasingly popular over the last 5 years, and you now have to book ahead to ensure you get into your chosen seminar.

I can’t recommend the Great Gardens seminars highly enough. The GG crew include “celebrity gardeners” Sabrina Hahn, Josh Bryne and John Colwill, but all the presenters are experts in their own right, and represent the extreme cutting edge in contemporary sustainable garden design and practice in Perth and WA.

I was fortunate to happen upon the Great Gardens seminars early in their development, and can state without exaggeration that they turned my head around. I wasn’t even a terribly keen gardener at the time, but have since been inspired to create a thriving backyard organic vege garden and a waterwise native micro-environment back and front.

Where we once had crappy lawns and wimpy Euro plants like gardenias and camelias gasping in the gutless, water-repellant grey sand “soil” and wilting through the withering heat of summer between frequent (and irresponsible) dousings of water, we now have self-sustaining natives and waterwise plants, and a proliferation of native birds.

We’ve replaced the wasteful and inefficient spray irrigation with a hi-tech sub-surface drip system, and our water bills have shrunk, while the garden has flourished.

Rather than a time-wasting, buck-eating, water-guzzling, fertiliser-insecticide-and-weedkiller-dependent pain in the arse, our garden is now a source of daily pleasure and satisfaction. Cooking with your own organic veges and herbs is a unique joy, and one I would now not want to do without.

All these fantastic changes to our once run-of-the-mill front and back yard are a direct result of applying the principles revealed at the Great Gardens seminars. I have attended many since that first one that literally revolutionised gardening for me, and never fail to learn something new.

The Great Gardens seminars are an education in sustainable living that can, and should, be accessed by anyone with the remotest interest in better gardening practices, in saving money through practising waterwise strategies and domestic energy efficiency, and in adjusting habits to assist in preserving the local environment, rather than contributing to its degradation.

“Pro” gardeners, especially, are in need of the crash course in local gardening education that the Great Gardens crew provides, since many of these guys are stuck in old, destructive patterns of gardening behaviour without knowing it. It is fair to say, I believe, that if you have not attended a GG seminar, you are probably doing a fair bit “wrong” in your gardening, no matter how experienced you are. Many of the golden rules of yesterday have been exploded as damaging myths by the Great Gardens crew – these guys are up with the very latest! If you’re not open to listening to experts, your arrogance is blocking your learning. Think about that.

Go to a Great Gardens seminar with an open mind, and I can all but guarantee you will walk out re-born as a gardener, wondering why you didn’t work out for yourself that our soils and climatic conditions are a unique combination requiring unique gardening practices, and that what works in the Eastern States, or Europe, does not necessarily work here. The GG crew demonstrates this with compelling and unchallengable logic and evidence based on the very latest research tested by practice.

I’ve more or less gone through all this in previous posts, so why this repeat sermon?

Well, there is a fantastic opportunity this Saturday to see the GG crew in action, walking their inspirational talk. They are doing a Great Gardens sustainable garden makeover onsite in Armadale. If you’ve been to a Great Gardens seminar, you won’t want to miss this. If you haven’t, here’s a chance to cut right to the chase and see for yourself why the Great Gardens seminars have gathered such momentum and changed so many people’s perception of gardening. MAKE THE EFFORT. You won’t be sorry.

Here are the details:

Great Gardens Sustainable Garden Makeover
Saturday 6th December
10.00am-1.00pm
185 Neo Drive, Seville Grove, just off Lake Rd, Armadale

The team will transform a ‘blank canvas’ into a wonderful sustainable garden, putting all their theories into action. They will demonstrate:

As always, there will be light refreshments, prizes and giveaways. There is no need to register for this one. Just turn up.

See ya there!

Details about this and upcoming Great Gardens workshops can be found here.

Note: I am in no way associated with the Great Gardens Seminars, other than as an inspired and enthusiastic practitioner of their gardening principles, and a repeat attendee of their workshops.

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