EP216- Peter Donegan's Chat About His Upcoming Garden "A Moment In Time" At Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show & Much More

In this weeks episode John is joined by award winning garden designer Peter Donegan to hear the story of Peter's Gold medal at last years Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show.  We also chat about Peter's exciting entry into Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show with his garden titled " A Moment In Time".

Join the conversation with the incredible Peter Donegan, acclaimed Irish garden designer, as he makes his third appearance with us to share the triumphs and trials of his journey at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. Peter's narratives are steeped in passion and the profound connection between memory and landscape, from the Irish love story that inspired his award-winning creation to his upcoming garden, "A Moment in Time." Our discussion wanders through the poignant remembrance of fallen soldiers and the emotional labour of capturing history's silent whispers in garden design, as Peter partners with the Defence Force Welfare Association to create spaces of reflection and hope.

As the sun sets on one garden, it rises on another, and Peter's tales demonstrate the intricate dance of light and shadow in bringing a garden to life. The allure of his designs doesn't go unnoticed, captivating audiences and media alike, as we recount a particularly heartwarming encounter that transcends time. The narrative of the upcoming garden unfolds, hinting at the rich tapestry of human experiences it aims to encompass, illustrating the power of gardens to evoke a symphony of emotions and memories within us all.

Beyond the world of show gardens, Peter's involvement in various projects and lectures spotlights his dedication to cultivating beauty and meaning in every space. Peter's work is a testament to the profound impact that thoughtfully designed gardens can have. For listeners inspired to weave their own stories into their gardens, Peter extends an open invitation to connect and bring to life their vision under his expert guidance.

You can find Peter through his website where you can connect by social, email or phone:
https://doneganlandscaping.com

Find more detail on The Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show & Peter's garden here:
https://melbflowershow.com.au/peter-donegan-pocket-profile-2/

If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email:  info@mastermygarden.com   

Check out Master My Garden on the following channels   
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mastermygarden/ 
Instagram @Mastermygarden https://www.instagram.com/mastermygarden/  
 
Until next week  
Happy gardening  
John 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

How's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 216 of Master my Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is one that I'm looking forward to. It's one that I actually should have done last year, and it's with Peter Donegan, who's coming on the podcast for the third time. So we've had a couple of people on for two, but now Peter has stole the lead and he's gone into three appearances on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:33

So when I say we should have talked about it last year, peter went last year to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and won gold at that, which was the first Irish designer to go down there and do that, which was a huge achievement. And he's going back this year with a new garden and garden with a great story. The garden is teamed a moment in time and it's a really good story. I won't mention the story now. Peter can tell us all about it, but it's a really deep story with a lot of heart, culture working, the background to allow it to be delivered at the flower show this year. And, yeah, as I say, a great story. So, peter, you're very, very welcome back to Master my Garden podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:16

John, always a pleasure and great to see you again. To anyone, we always great to see you again, thank you family.

Speaker 1: 1:24

As I say, we should have spoke last year. In truth, you went just to sort of take a step backward. First you went to Melbourne last year I think correct me if I'm wrong the first Irish garden designer to go down there. So tell us about that experience, give us a little bit of an overview. I'm sure people have seen since the garden or heard about the garden. But just a little bit about that story and then we'll move on to what looks like a spectacular garden for this year.

Speaker 2: 1:55

But the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is held at the World Heritage UNESCO Carlton Gardens on Royal Exhibition Building, very prestigious location in Melbourne. So for those who are aware of show gardening, there's no digging down is the first part. And then the second part is that we took the largest show garden at the show last year, which was 200 square metres, 20 by 10, and we put 45,000 litres of water in a timber frame I'll get to that in a minute and placed ultimately what Channel 7 News Australia referred to as an Irish love story within the garden. The garden was loosely based on a grown man, in this case Irish, who couldn't say I love you, tree magic words, but ultimately waited for the woman of his dreams, his bow, to arrive, but she would never turn up until he said the magic words. And so you're caught, this sort of cyclical hamster wheel of an ever ending story. And when we set the table at the top of the garden for those who are listening in podcast form, go and Google the Bamstone Garden or Peter Donaghan, melbourne, and they'll come up for you but we left it so that the table setting was his napkin was used, hers was untouched, his glasses poured with liquid in it, his was hers was untouched and a lot of the waited on the edge of the garden and, coincidentally, the poem that was written by the edge of the garden there's a tie in here in my head somewhere was the poem that we actually wrote around the edge of the piano in the DIY SOS episode, which was Johnny and Lynn's Garden and New Ross. That you would know very well, and Johnny coincidentally I'm segueing here, but Johnny coincidentally passed in the middle of the Melbourne show. Today we got a word of gold. He passed away. So it was. It was nice to be able to send Lynn, his wife, and out to say that Johnny was in the garden with us and to say people walked into that garden with a big smile because the illustration of the garden was exactly what it became. We had a nine meter, 10 meter tall Luria Dendron, chulika Farah, which had gone into its autumnal colour, bouncing across the black water, which ran for approximately 15, 16 meters long, that length, so we could get that reflection in it, and the idea was was that it was again a grown man.

Speaker 2: 4:59

This is where the story was born, standing on Inishmore, going across to the mainland, and the illogic, if I might put it behind. It is quite simple, as I explained to Chloe Thompson, of being there, doug Dutt, who we both know. Logic tells you when it's Gale Forest 10 and you're on Inishmore and your love is on the mainland, I'll wait till tomorrow. The water's a bit choppy, we don't have enough fuel on the boat and illogic is, I'll go for it.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And no woman ever fell in love with a man who folded socks and did practical things. No love story was ever based upon that. So there's a whole sort of a journey there, but I think when you see it sort of makes better sense. And to say Melbourne sort of fell in love with that or people easily identified with that is probably an understatement. And it wound gold my first time there, working alongside Martin Semken, who's the most metal contractor in the history of the show, and his wonderful family I was going to say company, but it's a family anyway, a conglomerate or a mafioso, if I may, for all of the right reasons.

Speaker 1: 6:18

and yeah, I have to say it was a nice moment yeah it was a phenomenal achievement because, as I say, there hasn't many gone down there from this neck of the woods, none from Ireland. I'm not sure about the UK, but certainly it's not something that's done very often. I think the story obviously is relatable. While vaguely we're going to Inishmore, the essence of the story is relatable to most people.

Speaker 2: 6:46

I'm sorry to cut across you, john, but the the gas thing is is I was with Temple Street Children's Hospital standing on the island, standing on Inishmore, and myself and a couple of friends of mine were literally just chit chatting and the photograph we took was the moon bouncing across the water. And when we looked at that, took that photograph. The story then started to evolve and again I'll say it's like a scene from unbelievable something like this tree guys sitting at a bar just shooting the breeze. We were sort of saying can you imagine if your love was on the main and we had really bad weather, be your before, where we almost couldn't get off the island. And that's where the story start to evolve from and that's what it became. And so that photograph. Then we were saying how do you translate that into a guard where it's the moon beat across? So we change it to I did see a try a can to sunburst.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Sorry for your listeners, apologies, but obviously that doesn't translate to Australia very well. So we ended up changing that to a lyrical and julep of her which gave that sort of moon like reflection. And it's only when you see the images of the garden at night time that you turn around and go oh my god, it's exactly as In my head, or at least Martin Semkin, who's the contractor, tells me it's the first show card he has where he has to photograph of the garden during the day and at night time, next to the illustration of the garden. So Like in my head, my heart, that sort of who, that calling that that, that wants to be with the woman of your dreams. I mean, if you close your eyes and you listen to me for being my life romanticizing if I may, but you are close your eyes and you listen to all this writing and you get it, or you turn around and say to turn down the volume on that please, and you become very sort of Practical about things. And I get it, some people get it and some people don't. But hence the ability to be able to translate a daydream into a series of equations and make it only ever appear like a daydream is ultimately what comes down to.

Speaker 2: 9:06

And you can't bluff that amount of Australian media. I don't believe. I don't think you can bluff the Irish, irish and the Aussies are extremely similar in their sense. You were under the ability to, as my mother would say it, quick legs from underneath you when it need be. We would call it that, they would call it all puppy syndrome. But there's no. There's no bluffing hide and room in a space where you've got a hundred and twenty thousand people passing through the gates and Australia's main garden show International recognized it. Either is or it isn't what you say. It is, and I think we did okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:50

Yeah, for sure, and I was just. You're talking about a hundred twenty thousand people passing by, so obviously you know, from a judging perspective, from the Australian media perspective, the garden was super well received, obviously winning gold, which is a phenomenal achievement. Did you get much interaction with the passing public and their thoughts on the garden?

Speaker 2: 10:11

I don't believe you who stands out to me. And she came up to me in a like a walking frame and she she whispered into my ear. She said I should have, I should have called back, I'm sorry. And she went are you the Irish guy? And I said yeah. She said I should have said something. I said I don't understand. And then it transpired that about fifty something years ago I'm paraphrasing the story, but it to put it into context for your listeners sometimes she says are? He says in this case, well, I'm going. And she goes well, you go ahead and go on then. And she never called them back. I'm fifty years later. She decides to tell me because it's got, who's Peter Donovan when it comes to this. But that this story identifies with her fifty plus years later is just phenomenal and that was the level that it was that we did not want to do the judges, I think.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Walk into the garden and she walked up towards like this, like a child seeing it Circus tent for the first time. Big beam smile closer. She got the garden and when she walked off the garden she tears and rice. I said to Martin second, I don't know how In my lifetime I have two gardens maybe, where people in France in twenty eighteen, when we did the World War one centenary peace card Commemorate my policies to centenary of the ending of the first world war. People walk in with tears in the eyes, but this is the first one in my lifetime. Are people people plural walk in smiling and walk out crying. I'm not kind of is ultimately, that's the ultimate compliment. That's Hollywood movie wrapped into two hundred square meters. If I might pay myself some sort of compliment in what we say, we, the conglomerate that made the garden real, I managed to make up, and so when I say the interaction is there, I mean you know I've stood in the audience before hand, john, we've done show card in the past and I'm stood into the audience, and my favorite one, and I won't tell you which garden I was standing in, this guy.

Speaker 2: 12:50

I said to this guy beside me you know what do you think of the garden? And he went. I think it's nice, pardon my French, my apologies. I said I heard the designers Pain in the ass and he went. Well, wouldn't surprise me. And like we're having this conversation about me, and I said this to Andrew Fisher Tomlin, he said A former judge in the UK would run London College of Garden design and they've got a sister college in Melbourne and Andrew said to me that I used to do exactly the same thing, like, if you want honesty, it's it's sort of there.

Speaker 2: 13:26

But Sometimes you just you hit a card me in a, my analogies but you hit a sort of a Westlife Number one and sometimes it's one of them that's on the fence and sometimes the garden needs a little bit of controversy or it's a Marmite. People either love it or hate it, but it's good for the garden because it creates Conversation. So I don't mind people not like that, that's sure, as I don't like Shania Twain's music. Church is a wonderful woman, but I just don't know if that makes sense. It's okay not to like it, but I think it is just one of them that people just identified with. On. The story became what it was.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Looking ahead to this year and this. The story is of a similar level in terms of you know, the human aspect of it. So maybe tell us a bit about the story.

Speaker 2: 14:27

so the garden is called the moment in time, so tell us a bit about the story of this garden, and then we get into the garden itself and what it actually looks like, and so yeah, well, I think that this one I'll have to bring it back a little bit, but when I started doing the gardens in France in 2018, I was relocated there for about three and a half months in year one, 2018. Was built 2019. It was an all great with your shemsey present and the ambassadors. At 2021, we started designing second garden. During 22, the second garden was completed and all great again with your shemsey.

Speaker 2: 15:12

Partway through my first relocation and I was visiting sort of three to four war memorials, cemeteries, exhibitions per day, to the point that when I came back after the first stint, I didn't speak for about two weeks. It has an effect on the brain when you appreciate that the dried up mouth of this 13th century castle, which houses Europe's largest war museum within, there's no avoiding the harrowing numbers who passed in the first and second world wars and that you're standing on the ground where, again, bodies still lay underneath To design a garden there which, as they worded it very well, was to be respectful of the past, but with an eye to the future too, but to bring the public into a space where they never really wanted to go to and to allow people to smile. It's difficult when you consider that the castle fell in the Franco-Prussian War, the first world war and the second world war and now, as I said to one journalist, bad things only ever happened in notes. Now the job is to allow people to come in and to maybe hear them smile. It's a difficult brief and that was the only brief I got in it. That's the first part.

Speaker 2: 16:49

The second part was that they did an exhibition in 2019, I think it was called A More or Love, translated in the Bad Irish accent, my apologies. It was a paradoxical exhibition where they explained how the ministries at the time fast tracked marriages and paired the young soldiers male all at the time with a bow or a love that they would want to live longer to return to, which makes perfect sense. But when they returned to this romanticised post-war lady who they'd fallen in love with, the brain was never the same. So where the exhibition becomes a paradox is when they start to show the force. Rates go exponential because the brain was never the same. They show you the paintings of a guy called Otto Dix and Otto Dix it's a harrowing part of the exhibition and I apologize for overuse of that word, but he shows two paintings. One is the rats going through the skull of the soldier and the next one is a mutated man, a mutated head with two children on his knee looking up at him, and that's how he sort of sees himself when he get into that. The explanation, then is that the soldiers would have written in their notes the effects of the rats going do lally in the trenches and then the soldiers noting that the same thing was happening to the soldiers themselves.

Speaker 2: 18:24

And one of the conversations I had with the director of the castle, hervé Francois, was that if you have fallen, your name is on a piece of stone. If you're fallen and your body is missing, your name is on a piece of stone, but if you return home and your mind is never the same, then what is the remembrance, if I may word it that I hope that's polite enough to say it that way what's the remembrance for you? And it sort of stuck with me to how do you translate that into a garden? I don't mean to sound overly artistic, but the idea of it sort of sat in my head, and so fast track to last year and Melbourne ring me and it sort of there's a bit of a question and I was like oh, you know, we asked your friend to ask my friend, would you like to dance with me? And they find out that I'm interested in going back. But I never asked and they never asked me if that makes sense, but they didn't, and neither did I. And then we end up in a phone call, a team's call, and they said we, what have you got in your head? And I said I want to put an airplane in a garden there. And I said, but I want to three. And then I said well, but I want like smoke and lights coming out the top from them. And so they ring me the next day and said you found your plane. I went, you kidding me. So the first part is you're allowed to do what you want to do.

Speaker 2: 20:03

And then the story starts to evolve. And obviously I'm Irish and this garden, by judging rules, has to have a location. If you understand me for your listeners who aren't aware, if I say we're based in this garden and we're building in England and it's a patch of grass related to a tennis court, then it's just a patch of grass. The judges have to give a gold. It is what it is. And we turn around and say, well, we're choosing the plants based upon a specific location. We have to say it's Southeast Australia, so now it's got a location because of the planting range that we have, and then because of that, we now turn around and go well, okay, we'll get more pedantic.

Speaker 2: 20:51

So we narrow it down to 1984. We narrow it down to then, well, hold on a second, the age of the plane. And then we narrow it down to, well, okay, he's 40 years of age. That gives him a 84, 44. He would have been born somewhere around post-Second World War or thereabouts. And now we have an era and nobody has sort of said no. What happened then after subsequently, was we end up in conversations with the Defence Force Welfare Association. They're an independent voice and they looked after veterans who are serving for post-service, if I might word it that, and one of the things they try and do is highlight the difficulties of those trying to return to what their life was prior to, I guess, or adjusting back into society. And, by all accounts, from speaking with them and again, the Semton family, that isn't as easy as it sounds. Yeah, that's probably another statement.

Speaker 1: 21:58

I can see where you're tying together, going back to the writing on the stone in France for somebody that's fallen, but for the person that has essentially left, the person that they were in that moat and come out the other side, there isn't anything there for them. And this is sort of a replication of that, I suppose, and it's probably something that happens all over the world. So, yeah, this garden is, I suppose, in a way, honoring that and honoring those people.

Speaker 2: 22:34

It's a funny one, john, because if this garden had ended up in Japan or Singapore or London, the planting range would have changed. The things we have to professionally take it seriously on a judging level. I understand judging rules extremely well. At the same token, the plant choice, which we have to get specific over because it has to be a garden Albaida tells the story now makes it about Australia or Australian veterans in this case.

Speaker 2: 23:13

I think, ultimately what I was initially aiming at and it's funny, when we were in France, one of the conversations that was had with me with the media there was that like what's an Irish guy doing this peace garden for when the Irish didn't fight in this region? And I said well, incorrect, because if you go seven miles from Peron to a town called Finn FIN, there's two guys from the Royal Irish Fusiliers. If you go to Tipeval, it's. And they correct me and said well, it's French and English only. And I in Tipeval, one side and the other, and I said incorrect. If you go three rows in and five headstones across, there's Royal Dublin Fusiliers. There's one Irish guy in the middle. And I was talking about this with the one of the tour guides, external, lovely guy from Wales. And he said it's a funny thing with the Irish. He said we can't figure it out. He said but every cemetery we go to somewhere in the middle. He said there's one to two Irish guy like headstones just dotted in an area where they never converted commas for, and he said we can't figure it out. He said it's like as if they went in for a couple of points. He wasn't stereotyping, I promised you. And he said came out, missed the bus or could on the wrong one and then the rope cone in a different location. It just didn't make sense.

Speaker 2: 24:38

One of the things that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission do the largest horticultural employer in the world, as a, by the way, one of the things they do by headstone is it's irrespective of the nomination religion, rank, order, country, origin, anything. It doesn't matter who you are. You're a soldier of the great war, you lie side by side. But these were ultimately young men. If we go to World War One and two anyway, in particular there were young men who you know when this story started come out, this one now.

Speaker 2: 25:15

It's phenomenal the amount of people who came to me and said you know, my dad flew on the RAF or my dad went to Australia, my dad went to France, or my dad fought with them, or my granddad did, because they ultimately needed to earn a living yeah, and by nobody's choice. Sometimes it's just necessary. But when you take away the country or religion or creed or whatever it might be, what you actually get is just a young boy, 17 years of age, like my daughter's, 14. In three years time, for her to go to war is mind blowing. If I'm to consider that level and to put all of this in context, the stats that they've given us I'm reading these so I word it correctly.

Speaker 2: 26:01

My apologies, but the Defence Force Welfare Association noted to me close to 6,000, or 5.3%, of Australia's half a million current and former service personnel have experienced homelessness in the past year, a rate three times higher than that of the broader population. And the second one is previously serving veterans are more likely to die by suicide than the general population. The suicide rate among female veterans is 107% higher than the general population and it's nearly 30% higher for both. Wow.

Speaker 1: 26:36

Yeah, crazy.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Crazy. Now when I go back and say that's like a 17 year olds or 27 year olds or 37 year olds, and we've known each other a long time. I understand from my research in France that this is struck a chord in Australia is humbling, and that I'm allowed to retell that story there is humbling again that nobody has said no to. People have held hands with me on it. Again, I'll pay huge owes to the family that are symptom landscaping and everyone involved with them. But ultimately I'm not a politician, as my dad would say. I'm a daydreamer who can turn that into an equation and make it real by way of a garden.

Speaker 2: 27:36

But I can't sit here and tell somebody not to go to war or don't press the red button, or I can only just sort of build it, take a stand back and hope that you like it or appreciate it, or maybe it opens up a bit of conversation.

Speaker 2: 27:53

It has to be judged. On the other hand I'm segueing slightly away, but it has to be judged also as a real garden and we want, for all of the right reasons, to win an appropriate medal and but also tell a bit of a story so that the plane I reckon it's probably going to get a couple of laughs. That's understood, that's accepted. I'm old enough and bold enough to appreciate that. But I think it's a sort of an anti-calf man. It's a bittersweet in that you see it and then you find the story, and now we've brought you from a high to a low and that bit is intended. We did it in the last one where we saw the reflection and again going by one of the judges who's seen a million show gardens, for her to come with a beam and smile and walk off with tears in her eyes. But for this one we've already had the phone calls with tears to sort of thank us for what's being done and how it's resonated already. And that's just in text.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Incredible story, incredible story and the way they tie together to sort of we're not moving off the story but to talk about the garden horticulturally, because I know there's that side of it as well. So describe the garden a little bit. Obviously you've mentioned this plane that's three and a half meters up in the air, so describe all of this and then the planting and what else is in it features.

Speaker 2: 29:24

Well, the plane is a small Cherokee plane and we sort of loosely just to stick on this one for a second John, but we loosely base there, or I loosely base it upon Madara, after a man passed and how I'd walk into the kitchen and the wash and would have been stacked up. You still had pride and he was still well dressed, but he should have cut the grass, say two, three weeks beforehand. And the projects that were fixed, and say a part of the roof, that was okay. The cup was cracked but it still held liquid, so that's okay. And but ultimately, if I might speak this up, I've addressed him. You know he was a bit of a sort of a loss soul one day, sort of roll into the next, and some things just didn't make as much sense or reason anymore. But the amount of men I know in particular my apologies, but the amount of males in particular will have things that they should have got to is in elongated tail. And everybody who I say to you, well, he bought the car 20 years ago, meant to restore it still in the shed, you know, man past it, you know, but they'll never take it away, it'll always be there. And so that plain sort of represents sort of that in its face in a way.

Speaker 2: 30:53

If you look at the illustration of the garden, the grass roof is one of the first parts, and so when I was back in Cairns and Melbourne in November, we met with Lily Dale Lawns and they started growing the weeds in the roof so that it would look a little bit again not neglected. He's got pride but at the same token even getting them to close their eyes to grow the grass to the right level, with the weeds growing in it sort of periodically. They were sown in November ready for March, and so we've three different types of lawn in there. That's one, and then we get into the planting. But the biggest thing probably is the cabin, and the cabin finding the right, incorrect wood sort of looked like it was from 1984, believe me, is a tricky thing. Again, I'll mention the Sampson family repeatedly through this, because I'm obviously in Dublin and they're sending me photographs saying what do you think of this one, what do you think of this one, what do you think of this one? But they also said to me once they told the story doors just opened and it's become magic. So they built the shed sorry, I say shed.

Speaker 2: 32:11

They built the cabin, the getaway, and now they've deconstructed it yesterday, a timer for boarding and it's ready now to be put onto the back of a truck. By the time I get there it will be ready to go in. We'll have to crane in the largest tree I think is about 11 meters tall, and then the plane will go three and a half meters above head height and again, we're not allowed to dig down in this garden. So that makes supporting a plane above ground level a little bit tricky. You'll appreciate. But look, if we can hold 45,000 liters of water in a garden, the timber structure, without it floating out the gates, I think we'll be doing pretty okay, brilliant.

Speaker 1: 32:59

So planting wise. You've said a huge tree. What else is in there planting wise, so yeah till your Cordata, most people would understand what you're.

Speaker 2: 33:09

lime tree Lime tree yeah, olmos and Ficus are easy to understand. The Anga, feras and the Compressa, semperbier and Glauca, and then after that, funnily enough, we've been our beautists. You need to win there. I was mantis burkwood.

Speaker 2: 33:26

I'm trying to pick names that most people would say translated to Ireland Some euphorobias, ginkgos, pitosporums, cotyness, hydrangeas, and again I'll say you're trying to reflect the garden. That is 1984, planting style that is 1984. The importance of this is quite simple. From a judging rules perspective. I'll reference to Wimbledon reference again. I'll reference to Wimbledon reference again. That's incorrect English. I should punch myself in the face repeatedly now for saying that.

Speaker 2: 34:04

But when, if I design a garden which is just a patch of grass based upon and I write in my brief which the public wouldn't see, I write in the brief that's based upon Wimbledon, the judges will look at it and go well, it's green, it's square, looks like it, smells like it must be, it's gold, the public will say it's boring and hate it for logic reasons. But if I design a garden that says that I wanted to show that I loved her via this garden, the judges can turn around and say we don't feel that you showed that you loved her enough. That's where it starts to get tricky. And in the last garden that's why I said well, you're playing a dangerous game. Number one In this one it's based on a obviously a man who's a little bit say lost, just to shorten it down. And in that context, you're now trying to convince the group of judges, not trying to convince them, but it either is or it is. It either a folks that feeling or it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 35:05

But equally, when they get into the planting, the more times we say, well, it's not just a piece of grass, it's piece of grass from 1984.

Speaker 2: 35:13

It's a piece of grass that has to show X or Y or Z, the more they have the opportunity to sort of take a couple of points off. And that's where I think this one's become a little bit of a dangerous game. Or as I worded to Michael from Warners Nurseries if you're gonna go out of the industry completely, this is a pretty good way to do it and you can take from that what you like, what it could well be pardon my turn of language or my use of language it could well be ultimate career or suicide. And I'm not stupid. I understand I'll be judging at Melbourne Flower Show as well, not in my own category. But again I'll say that I understand judging rules, but I can't change the design and I can't change what I'm trying to do. But at the top of the page the job is to highlight somebody else, and sometimes that comes with a yeah, an element of a reaction.

Speaker 2: 36:15

Yeah, a grave element of risk, and it comes at the cost of, I guess, my giant size to equal, if I might say it that way.

Speaker 1: 36:23

Yeah, I suspect it'll go down a tree anyway. If that's, I don't understand the way you do the judging and how the judging works, but from the way you've described it so far, I think it's definitely going to evoke the emotion and they will get the story, and I guess that takes you halfway there.

Speaker 2: 36:45

So yeah, well, it's a funny one Like Martin and Nicole. So Martin Sampton and Nicole's daughter who works with them, they're about 80 employees. They're probably the largest contractor in Melbourne. He would have done three show gardens there last year the Welting Garden, my Garden, and another one. I didn't meet with Martin, god, before Christmas a month later. A month later we have a Royal Australian Air Force calendar from 1984, number one. We have the old black and white television. These are all the conversations that I was literally rhyming out of my head of how it should be, of how it should feel, and one of them was a portable black and white television, maybe about sort of 10 inches by 12 inches, but it's sort of long at the back. Yeah, they're two feet deep, yeah, yeah. And I remember I was saying to Martin I remember watching Arsenal beat Liverpool self-confessed Arsenal fan, my apologies to all your listeners for that and my brother holding the coat hanger in the top of it and my other brother punching him because he moved and the reception went completely wonky.

Speaker 1: 38:01

And it was when Michael Thomas scored that goal for Arsenal, when he did it and I was devastated that night, by the way, because I never put a fat.

Speaker 2: 38:08

Well, I knew that, john Hensley, I brought this up to the next level. But I think when we started to set the scene and Martin phones me and said I've got it, I want you got the meaning of life, the new DVD collection, what have you got? And he went to the television. The newspapers are from that time, the calendar, the workbench with the record voice built into it, the places where you would have slotted your tools in with a bit of letter, the dust on the floor, picture frames, the absolutely everything It'll be like when we set by the time it's done. And that, I think again, is sort of a testament maybe to the story in text format before illustration was ever done and we had started building this maybe last September for a March reveal. So, like I say, I hope I've done always the right thing by those who I'm trying to stand beside, if that's an eloquent way to word, as I hope. So, yeah, I suspect you have.

Speaker 1: 39:21

So hopefully, hopefully, we're looking at you in a couple of weeks time with another gold. I know you have some other other things planned for Australia, doing some guest guest lectures. What else is on the agenda over the next few months, even after Australia?

Speaker 2: 39:41

Well, we've two, two guest lectures. So I'm back at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria. That's the first one. We spoke there last March by a team and Twistle who was the former curator there, and I think I did one more. I can't remember where that one was for the minute. My sincerest apologies, but I think this year we're we're gone to the Dandenong and that's Ferney Creek Horticultural Society and I think they've teamed up with another Horticultural Society and so myself and Martin Sankin, funnily enough on this occasion, are doing the lectures together. Last year sorry, my other one would have been at Melbourne University and John Rainer was the head of Horticultural there, another absolute gentleman. What's on the rise now for that?

Speaker 2: 40:33

We've returned to TV with a little known architect who's Irish, called Darna Bannon. He says he says Joville, my apologies and a guide called Julian Benson said Julian would have been a judge on dancing with the stars, amongst other things, will have danced with Andrew Lloyd Webber and a whole host of other famous things that involve choreography, and Julian has cystic fibrosis. So he's looking at doing a house. He's not looking at doing his house, he's doing, it's being done, it's in the process, the designs are already done. It'll start filming, probably about a week ago, and the whole four story 150 year old Victorian house will be transformed into four apartments.

Speaker 2: 41:34

So people whose children have CF, if you're living in Galway or Donegal or Limerick I've noticed from my own daughter being in Temple Street the chances are we were sleeping on the floor of a hospital room while she was there. It's how you do it. Some people were sleeping in cars, some people were sleeping in hotels. It's an expensive way to, I guess, be there for your own child and this home will give parents a place to come to stay so that when they need to, completely free, and the whole bill will be done completely free. And what a humbling again privilege to be asked to do something like this with some of Ireland's absolute funds. So if anybody wants to get involved, google Julian Benson Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and drop your name in there and mention my name and it would be a pleasure to work with you.

Speaker 1: 42:36

So that's and he's on the horizon. That's a pretty busy year and you have a pretty packed year. I know you're heading down to us in the next couple of weeks or the next week maybe.

Speaker 2: 42:48

Yeah, next week I'll be there again for St Patrick's Day an unusual sensation having a barbecue on St Patrick's Day new to me anyway and then, I think, one kind of beginnace and then go into bed because you're up the next day at five o'clock in the morning to build a or to see a show garden come to completion. So I'll buy the Irish and I appreciate that and it would be nice to have a day off Show garden waits for an old man. Ultimately, I think that's going to take about a month. I'll be there again and then we come home and take a little bit of a breather. There's, I think, some show garden consultation days on with Roadstone. We'd have a mutual friend in Pah Brennan. Yeah, yeah, what a gentleman who would have helped us genuinely.

Speaker 2: 43:48

Funnily enough and we're back to the new Ross episode Johnnie and Lynn's house where I would have met him first, and I'll be doing a series of garden design days with them. So if you're, if anybody's, looking for a sort of a garden design consultation, they usually book out in the day hour. Usually there's only, I think it's one slot every 30 minutes, so not too many and just head to Roadstone and you'll get them there. So I'll be up in down the country for a little bit when it comes back.

Speaker 1: 44:20

Yeah, for sure You're not. You're not hired to find online, but if somebody is, if somebody is interested in, I suppose what your talent is is the stitching of a story into a garden. So if someone is, you know, listening and has their own story that they want to stitch in their garden, just tell people where they can find you or where's the best place to contact you.

Speaker 2: 44:41

Well before before I tell them the best place to contact me. John like and I'm asked this question, or I was asked this question do you do normal gardens? And the answer is yes, I do. I do very normal gardens and they are the thing that makes my heart beat a little bit faster. This is a show garden. It's not what I do every single day of the week, whereas my dad would say Elvis didn't wear that white suit frying an egg, making a cup of tea on a Sunday morning. It's one of them. We do inverted commas normal private gardens, and I'm available for that, and if you want to just Google Peter Donoghan garden design, it'll come up for you on Instagram Is a decent place to get me. Yeah, that's it. There you go.

Speaker 1: 45:28

Brilliant. So best look again down in the Melbourne show again this year. Hopefully I'm seeing in a couple of weeks time the gold again. It'll be well. It was a phenomenal achievement last year. To do back to backs will be a phenomenal achievement and very, very best to look with that and thank you very much for coming on. Master, my garden podcast.

Speaker 2: 45:49

John, genuinely always a pleasure. I've never not smiled in your company. You and Chloe Thompson just sit up there as to the finest. I'm very grateful for what you do for the industry with your podcast and and genuinely thank you for for having me on. It's nice to hold a leaderboard with three interviews, the first fire person ever to achieve such a feat and that puts that puts metal color very much down the neck and over the one this occasion and put genuinely always thank you and I look forward to seeing you in person.

Speaker 1: 46:20

So, yeah, very welcome. So that's been this week's episode. The huge thanks to Peter for coming on to fantastic stories, to to hear the stories like it is. Show garden, as he. As he said, show garden is is different. You're trying to set a scene, tell a story, evoke an emotion and then put that into a garden that people can walk off smiling, as he said, and in some cases walk off in tears, but in a good way. So he seems to have told these stories very well. There are important messages behind the gardens, which is which is really good. But, as he also said, he's a fantastic garden designer. I've seen some of his work up close during that DIY SOS series, and there's always, there's always an element of surprise, but they're very, very suited to the person. So if you have anything in your head that you that you want to get into a garden, just just have a chat with them. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening.