A Chat With Alex Stott

About Alex

BIO: Alex is an event producer and passionate gardener from Melbourne's inner suburbs. Alex tends a thriving courtyard oasis, focusing on sustainability, growing from seed, and attracting local wildlife. A creative soul and nature lover, she enjoys making mosaics, repurposing secondhand finds, and relaxing in the garden after a busy day.

Alex's location: Inner Suburbs Melbourne, VIC.

To learn more about Alex's Courtyard Garden:
My Smart Garden Article: https://mysmartgarden.org.au/case_study/alexs-courtyard-garden-in-stonnington/

More about this episode:

In this episode of How I Grow, Nat sits down with Alex, an event producer from Melbourne's inner suburbs who has turned a 10-by-7 meter tiled courtyard into a diverse, pollinator-friendly sanctuary. Alex shares how her gardening journey had a later start, sparked at age 35 during the Melbourne COVID lockdowns after losing her job. With a tiny budget in a rental property, Alex famously began by growing zucchinis in an old pillowcase tucked inside a milk crate. Fast forward to today, and that same trial-and-error approach has completely transformed her current ground-floor apartment courtyard. From a flat-pack greenhouse and raised veggie beds to an impressive passionfruit vine that yielded over 120 fruits last summer, Alex’s story is a beautiful look at getting creative with small spaces. Alex also shares the ups and downs of the garden, including accidentally baking plants in the summer heat of the greenhouse and dealing with the failure of a thorny youngberry bush.

Beyond the garden beds, Alex speaks from the heart about how stepping out into the courtyard has become a necessary respite from a busy, and sometimes stressful, 9-to-5 job. She shares her excitement of pulling out her beloved orange tin of seeds each spring, finding pure joy in the entire process of watching a seed grow rather than just focusing on the finished vegetable. Whether she's bringing a bargain-bin grapevine back to life, creating DIY mosaics to decorate the walls, or successfully growing a coffee tree in a pot, Alex’s approach is all about experimenting and keeping things sustainable through hard-rubbish finds.

It’s a refreshing reminder that you don't need acreage to create a vibrant ecosystem. Sometimes, all you need is a bit of trial and error, a desire to attract local wildlife and the willingness to just start planting.

'How I Grow' is produced by The Seed Collection Pty Ltd.
Find out more about us here: www.theseedcollection.com.au