We meet a garden guru known for celebrating the diverse and unique flora of arid Alice Springs. Subscribe 🔔 [ Ссылка ]
Geoff Miers is a garden legend who calls the heart of Australia home. He's passionate about coaching others to garden in arid conditions, and his career on ABC talkback radio has run for as long as Gardening Australia has been on the air. Over the decades, Geoff's also been growing and selling plants from his nursery and has learned a thing or two about coping with an arid climate.

"It's a desert environment; the climatic extremes are colossal," says Geoff with winter temperatures dropping below -8°C for weeks at a time and summer temperatures reaching 45°C in the shade. "We can have no rain for two months, three months, six months and then the Todd (River) will flow. You never know what's around the corner," says Geoff. "That's the exciting part; it's challenging. But if you understand and respect the environment, and work with the climate, you will have a fantastic garden." The NT has the highest population turnover in Australia and Geoff says, "constantly people are exposed to the new environment, and they need coaching, and that's where I try to play an important role."

In his nursery, Geoff sells citrus and other plants suitable for arid zones. He shows us plants with fine needle-like leaves that don't lose a lot of water through evaporation. One example, Acacia peuce or Waddywood, is a rare tree. Geoff says, "they'll grow for 500 years and once they are old you can't even put a nail in them, they're that tough. They have adapted to the most extreme environment anywhere in the world," says Geoff. The red mulga, Acacia cyperophylla is another one that's similar. Geoff says, "it's a hardy tree and it has this flaking, minni ritchi bark. It's just stunningly red and it's the most outstanding feature." Eremophilas are increasingly popular with many varieties of colour and fantastic blooms. Geoff says, "they are such a fantastic plant for diverse conditions, they are just stunning in terms of the floral display… and they'll grow in sand, they'll grow in even heavy clay." Geoff says his favourite is Eremophila macdonnellii 'Simpson Desert Form' because it has "flowers through spring, summer and autumn, is tolerant of a diverse range of soil conditions."

Geoff propagates thousands of plants each year at home, including 3,000 native lemongrass, 1,500 kangaroo grass or Themeda triandra, and several groundcovers. "They're bird attracting, bush tucker foods, suitable for this environment and the demand for them is endless," says Geoff. His propagation house has over 5,000 cuttings, "all starting to develop roots… before long all these plants will be in tubes and pots, and by next autumn and they'll be out in people's gardens," says Geoff. His own home garden is filled with central Australian plants with a towering ghost gum as the centrepiece. He says this tree "epitomises to me everything about central Australia, it's glorious." When the dog chewed through the irrigation lines 18 years ago, he turned the water off. "I now only water this garden in the first or second week of January and that's it. I give it five inches of water and that recharges the plants," says Geoff, "I try to demonstrate what I preach in my front yard; it's designed to suit this environment."

Appropriate gardens and water conservation is something Geoff has preached and written about for over 30 years. Geoff says, "that's been my message all along. With climate change, it was predicted that we would have greater droughts, greater floods, greater extremes of temperature. We're already experiencing that in central Australia, so you've got to be prepared for that. The best way to do that, is to create a garden that's best suited for the climatic extremes."
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Gardening Australia is an ABC TV program providing gardening know-how and inspiration. Presented by Australia's leading horticultural experts, Gardening Australia is a valuable resource to all gardeners through the television program, the magazine, books, DVDs and extensive online content.

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