Rumours flew around the set of Foxtel’s new show The Party Garden in 2009. The new co-hosts, who had just met, were getting on famously. The sound guy had picked up some flirting between takes through his earpiece and there were whispers of romance as the wrap party approached. Their comfortable rapport was developing into more than just two strangers thrown together in front of the camera. It was clear, these co-hosts had something other than just on-screen chemistry.
Under hot studio lights and among the designer foliage of the set, love quickly blossomed for Wentworth Courier gardening and interior columnists, landscape designer and Selling Houses Australia host Charlie Albone and eastern suburbs stylist and interior designer, Juliet Love.
While the Lifestyle Channel program was centred around transforming suburban Aussie gardens into the perfect outdoor celebration setting, it also transformed their lives, with the interior-exterior design duo celebrating their marriage a little over a year after they first mic’ed up for a screen test in Rushcutters Bay park.
Love, an Ascham student and the daughter of racing identity Angela Belle McSweeney and football supremo and former chairman of the Rugby League International Federation, Colin Love, was initially so petrified about her first television job she was in tears on the floor of her grandmother’s house the day before filming began — but she soon had a new issue to worry about.
“Charlie asked me out when we started filming and I thought ‘oh, I don’t know about this’,” Love, who grew up in Bellevue Hill, Edgecliff and Rose Bay, recalls. “‘It’s my first job in television, it might not be a good look dating the co-host’, so I said no at first and told Charlie, it might not be a great idea. I was hesitant to start dating him because he was my co-host and it was really important to me to do a good job and maintain that professional integrity and I didn’t want any distractions. But he persisted. And thank goodness he did.”
Albone, who was born in Hong Kong before moving to the UK at age 12, and landing in Australia, where he has lived ever since, on a working holiday visa at 18, tells the story of their “meet cute” a little differently.
“That’s not at all what happened,” he protests, with his trademark charm and dry humour. “Yes, I can be shy, but Juliet instantly fell in love with me and couldn’t keep her hands off me. When I asked her out she said ‘of course, but let’s not tell anyone until the series is finished’ and that’s the way it went.”
The pair revealed their romance at the wrap party with the clued-up cast and crew all very happy for them, and the rest is history.
Fast forward 10 years (the pair celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary this month), and the couple who run two design practices, parent two young boys, Leo, 6, and Hartford, 4, and juggle family life in Coogee with Albone’s Selling Houses Australia commitments — he travels up to nine months of the year — are as loved up, and busier, than ever.
Adding to the demands of navigating the inevitable modern-day work life balance, is Love’s secret struggle with the disease she describes as her “cross to bear”.
Pregnant with her second son five years ago, Love was diagnosed with gestational diabetes but later, when Hartford was a baby, doctors found she was actually a Type I diabetic, an auto-immune condition not linked to modifiable lifestyle factors. There is no cure for the condition which occurs when the pancreas does not produce insulin, and it cannot be prevented.
“I have no family history, it just came out of nowhere and it is quite life-changing,” Love says. “There is quite a lot of 24/7 maintenance, including about eight insulin injections per day.
“I’ve always been fairly healthy, never overweight, or things like that, so it was a bit of a shock when I was diagnosed. Everyone has their cross to bear, and this is just mine.”
For the past four years, Love has worn a glucose monitor at all times to control her sugar levels and prevent serious health conditions as well as the possibility of her falling into a diabetic coma.
“It really is a fine balance which is not easy to maintain, but with the injections, certain dietary controls and exercise, you can get there. It just takes a lot of work because you have to plan what you’re eating and you have to be very careful about the amount of insulin you’re injecting. When the children were small, I was constantly worried about being hypoglycaemic.
“At the beginning I didn’t really want anyone to know. When I was first diagnosed, it felt like a bit of a weakness. You want everyone to think you’re invincible. I’m strong and healthy now, but it’s taken a bit of work to get here.”
While she has now found peace with the condition, she recalls one “terrifying experience” while in London for the Chelsea Flower Show in 2015, which left her shaken and taught her a valuable lesson in managing her condition.
On her own for a morning walk while Charlie began work on the exhibition, and with two jet-lagged children, then aged six months and almost two, Juliet realised she had left home without her phone, ID, or any food or drink, popping just £10 ($18) in her pocket before innocently walking out the door.
“I had just started insulin a day before we got on the plane. I didn’t really know what I was doing — you’re supposed to have some form of glucose with you at all times — I’m pushing the kids up the King’s Rd in Chelsea and starting to feel very faint.
“I looked at their two little faces and thought ‘oh no, if I collapse here, no one is going to know who I am or who they are’. Nothing was open, but I found a convenience store. I thought if there’s no Coca-Cola or orange juice, I’m not going to make it. Fortunately, I walked in and downed two litres of Coke. Everyone was looking at me like I was crazy. It was a lesson for me, I never leave the house without sugar.” Albone says his health has also improved as a result of Juliet’s diagnosis.
“The problem with the disease is that it’s all-consuming so you can never take time off. As well as all the issues, there’s a stress that comes with that. It’s been quite difficult for the family to deal with, but we support Juliet as much as we can with it.
“I had a look at my own health and I’m a lot healthier because of it. It’s a horrible thing to happen to anyone, but Juliet is amazing the way she gets gets on with it.”
Love is studying holistic health and nutrition, which she will manage alongside her Love Style interior design firm with which she provides consultancy across magazines, television, private residences and events, with her clients based mainly in the east.
Albone’s Inspired Exteriors, headquartered in Edgecliff Rd, Woollahra, has grown into a multi-award-winning landscape design and construction firm which has completed projects at The Botanica in Vaucluse, Ravenswood School for Girls in Gordon, Clifton Gardens near Mosman, and as far and wide as Kirribilli, Wahroonga, St Ives and the Central Coast.
The Wentworth Courier’s cover shoot took place in one of Albone’s award-winning gardens in Bellevue Hill, which won a gold medal at the Australian Institute of Landscape Designers.
Naturally, their complementing design nouse has seen them collaborate on projects, both working out of the Inspired Exteriors office.
“We bounce ideas off each other a lot. We’re brutally honest — if we don’t like something, we will tell each other so clients end up with the best end result,” says Love.
When he’s not travelling with Selling Houses Australia (now in its 12th season and the most successful locally produced series in Australian subscription television history) Albone is creating gardens across the eastern suburbs, north shore — and the world.
He has just returned from his second visit this year to China, where he is exhibiting at the International Horticulture Expo, the world’s largest gardening show.
Covering 503ha at the foot of the Great Wall in Beijing, and held every six years, with 16 million people attending this year alone, Albone was one of seven landscape gardeners chosen by the organisers and Chinese government from 50 global entries to showcase one of his designs.
“A show garden normally only lasts for five days so this is a new experience where you have to plant a garden to grow over six months,” he says.
The pair travel regularly together, and now as a family, including two trips to the Chelsea Flower Show, meeting the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex. He won a silver gilt medal at both shows, making him the first Australian to compete in back-to-back shows — and win.
Charlie’s next big project is to secure a sponsor to the tune of $600,000-$750,000 to enter the 2021 Chelsea Flower Show.
“It’s the pinnacle of landscape design and construction, the world’s horticultural eyes are on you — it’s the Olympics of landscape design, but also it’s just such a fun project to be part of. There’s no compromise when it comes to the design and installation, it really is pushing yourself.
“It’s a lot of money, but it’s definitely good value for a sponsor so I am fully focused on getting one on board.”
Perhaps in 2021, there will be another Party Garden to celebrate.