Old Garden, New Tricks at Manawee Garden Centre
Deb Caruso seeks the advice of a verified greenthumb and discovers why a mature garden doesn’t need a bulldozer – just the right kind of attention.
If you want to know what a garden looks like after decades of getting it right, ask Marjorie Van Roy. As Patron of the Buderim Garden Club and owner of Manawee Garden Centre for more than 30 years, Marj has spent a lifetime working out what actually survives on the Sunshine Coast, as opposed to what merely looks good online. Her advice for anyone taking on an older, established garden: resist the urge to start again.
“Taking over or updating an older landscape is about careful observation, soil care and strategic pruning, not total reinvention,” she says.
That doesn’t mean leaving things alone. Established gardens still need regular feeding, watering, grooming and the swapping out of spent seasonal colour to keep them looking their best. Every good garden needs a handful of feature plants too, ones with real shape, or simply ones that can’t be replaced. Marj’s first job with any tired garden is to look up. Which trees are providing shade worth keeping, and which have roots pushing into foundations, drains and paths, or branches hanging a little too close to the roofline for comfort in a storm?
“There are plenty of good, insured tree loppers on the coast who can handle removal and stump grinding,” she says – though her one tip is to have most of the grindings taken away, since they add little value to the soil health.
Large shrubs are next. A good arborist or gardener can reduce them in size, opening the garden up and making room for the storm-proof, permanent shrubs that will carry it through summer. Marj isn’t precious about a hard prune either – done at the right time of year, it encourages better shape, lower branching and stronger overall health.
Once the structural work is done, it’s time to think about soil. Beds should be topped up regularly with a good-quality garden soil that includes compost, though not piled up so high around plant stems that it holds excess moisture and kills the plant. Decent soil isn’t always easy to find, Marj warns, and price isn’t the measure of quality.
“Look for a good topsoil, and don’t worry if it isn’t screened – a few bits of debris in there is no bad thing,” she says, advising that brought-in soil shouldn’t smell strongly, either.
For compost, Marj favours a bagged product such as Searles complete compost combined with sheep manure, rather than straight mushroom compost, which tends to carry a high salt and mineral content, a high pH and sometimes residual chemicals – all of which can burn young roots and push the soil too alkaline for acid-loving plants.
Mixed through with garden conditioner and left to settle for a few weeks before planting, with a weekly water in the meantime, the results speak for themselves. Leaf litter, swept up off the driveway with a mower and catcher rather than grass clippings, is an underrated addition too, and makes excellent compost in its own right.
With good soil in place, plant selection comes next. Grouping several of the same species together, rather than dotting single specimens through a bed, is the look modern gardens are chasing.
The trick is matching not just sun or shade requirements but watering needs – pairing a frangipani, which wants nothing more than rainfall, with a thirstier under-planting such as Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’ is a recipe for rust, rot and a garden that never quite looks right.
It’s exactly this kind of local knowledge the team at Manawee talks through in their regular staff meetings, alongside the varieties that photograph beautifully online but simply won’t hold up in the Sunshine Coast’s subtropical humidity. Palms, giant peace lilies and hibiscus thrive in it, while some lavenders, cool-climate stone fruit and certain succulents struggle with fungal problems in the same conditions.
“The real magic happens at the edges,” Marj says. “Border plants are the secret weapon that turn an ordinary bed into a showstopper.”
Framing plantings, defining walkways and adding layers of colour and texture, edging plants are what pull a whole design together, whether the goal is a romantic cottage feel, clean architectural lines or a looser meadow style. Repeating a chosen plant in groups, rather than mixing too many varieties, gives the strongest effect, as long as it can handle the available light and water.
Replacing old, rotting timber edging or uneven stone with corten steel or black galvanised edging can lift the whole look too, giving beds a clean, professional line and somewhere for topsoil to sit.
Through all of it, Marj recommends keeping an eye out for chewing insects and fungal disease, and sticking to organic treatments on anything edible, repeated weekly for at least three weeks for full control. For Marj, all of this effort comes back to something simple.
“There’s a real happiness and calm that comes from growing things,” she says. “It connects you to nature, relieves stress, and gives you something to be proud of when you watch it grow.”
A mature garden, brought back to life with some patience and the right care, is something the whole family gets to enjoy.
KNOW YOUR GARDEN
Consider these tips for great gardens:
Mature / established garden: These gardens respond best to careful observation, ongoing soil care and strategic pruning. Aim to have some feature plants and consider whether roots and or limbs have become a risk to foundations, drains or the roofline in a storm.
Flowering / show garden: Bursts of colour make the biggest visual impact of any garden style, but it can be hard work with regular feeding, proper watering, swapping out finished seasonal blooms, managing pests and practicing regular grooming.
Feature plants: Every established garden needs a handful of anchor plants – those chosen for their striking shape, rarity, or simply because they’re irreplaceable. These are the plants worth designing around and protecting when the rest of the garden is being reshaped or renovated.
Border & edging plants: Strappy grasses, compact shrubs and soft low growers frame beds, define paths and tie a design together. Plant in groups matched to light and water needs to lift a garden from tidy to terrific.
For more garden inspiration, visit www.manawee.com.au
