Australian landscape architect and garden designer Timothy Mitchell joins Cass Dowding on The Sentimental Gardener podcast to talk about his early memories of plants, transforming tennis courts into a meadow of flowers and designing gardens en plein air.

They also dive into finding beauty in Australian native plants, building a dry climate garden that actually works, letting a garden evolve naturally over seasons, and why the most alive gardens are always being edited, observed and mulled over.

They recorded this episode in Tim and his partner Lucy's backyard, surrounded by the antiquing of plants moving from summer to autumn and a view of Mt. William/ Wil-im-ee Moor-ring as the backdrop.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:35 Early memories of gardens and plants
05:00 Choosing a life in landscape design
09:00 Gardeners and landscape architects
13:45 Designing public places
16:00 Transforming a tennis court into a garden
18:30 Starting a garden from scratch
19:00 Finding beauty in Australian plants
22:40 Building a dry climate garden
27:45 Letting a garden grow naturally
32:00 Trees, time and looking after nature
38:30 What makes a garden feel alive
45:30 Learning by watching plants
49:45 Quick-fire garden questions
56:45 The gardens that stay with us
59:35 Final thoughts and outro

Show notes:
Follow Timothy Mitchell on Instagram or visit website

Follow The Sentimental Gardener on Instagram and Facebook

Visit The Sentimental Gardener website

Get Sentimental Gardener emails in your inbox

Get bonus content + episodes on Sentimental Friends

Original music: Hayden Schueler of Vereya Gardening

Audio mix: Tom Dowding

Producer and editor: Cass Dowding