The art of looking wild at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

Out are stiff borders, straight lines and lashings of paving. In are soft edges, long lawns and plants that lure birds and bees. Displays at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show are getting more naturalistic by the year.

This five-day horticultural event has always been a barometer of what we’re aspiring to in our backyards, and the 2025 show reflected our growing appetite for the loose and free.

Zoysia inching across a driveway in a garden designed by Paul Pritchard Landscape DesignCredit: Megan Backhouse

The overriding mood was gardens with an air of wildness. Even those spaces small enough to fit on a balcony didn’t seem set in stone. There were fewer evergreen shrubs and more plants that change with the seasons and that appeal to many life forms.

While show gardens are always tightly curated and highly managed, this year’s displays minimised the look of control. Some plants appeared as if they had sprung up of their own accord. ‘Fallen’ branches and dried leaves lay on the ground, ‘ephemeral’ ponds filled low spots and some of the most striking feature trees were dead.

At the display by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria together with Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and partners, there were swamps, claypans and saltmarsh.

But even those gardens without such a natural bush aesthetic seemed less formal and more naturalistic than the displays of previous years. There was a wide use of Australian plants, and many displays mixed native species with non-native herbaceous perennials to create a brimming-with-life atmosphere.

A natural bush aesthetic in the garden designed by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria together with Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and partners.Credit: Megan Backhouse

Hard-edged paving was kept to a minimum with some designers opting for the softness of a relatively long lawn instead. Sometimes these lawns were made to look so healthy they couldn’t be contained. In the gold-medal-winning show garden designed by Paul Pritchard Landscape Design, the driveway had grass inching across it.

Ornamental grasses – both native and exotic – were also everywhere. They were dotted through borders, nestled between shards of recycled concrete and – at the gold-medal-winning show garden by Distinctive Gardens – erupting below a set of open stairs.

Grasses erupting below open stairs in a display by Distinctive Gardens Credit: Megan Backhouse

Zoysia ­– often unmown – was one of the grassy signatures of this year’s event with its uneven, textural mounds and long blades falling every which way. While all the different zoysia cultivars at the show – and there were several – were a wondrously saturated green, be warned that in most climates it won’t look like this all year round but will brown off in the cooler months.

No matter the season, however, this grass does sum up how far we have moved from anything too rigid or clean-cut. Everything felt more spontaneous than what we have seen in previous show gardens.

An exploration of how plants can heal contaminated land in this display by Michael Rochelle, Carla Perry and Alistair Kirkpatrick.Credit: Megan Backhouse

The gardens also sent a stronger message about sustainability and ecological function. While aesthetics is always a big part of the show, many of the displays were created with a view to providing food and habitat for wildlife as well as being visually pleasing for people.

One of the most hard-hitting gardens highlighted the way in which plants can also help heal contaminated land, an increasingly relevant topic as urban density grows and people look to redevelop more brownfields sites.

The conventional approach with polluted property has been to remove the contaminated soil and to start afresh. But this garden, called ‘The New Nature’ designed by Michael Rochelle, Carla Perry and Alistair Kirkpatrick, tapped into more contemporary ideas around phytoremediation. It looked at how plants can absorb contaminants left by fuel depots, steel production plants and other industrial processes.

Unlikely as it sounds, this display was both beautiful and inspiring. A lolly-pink pond, which suggested there had been some sort of chemical spill, was strewn with water lilies. Pitcher plants were growing in rubble. Tillandsias were clinging to an open rusted roof.

Recycled and low-cost materials have become a growing theme at the show, especially in the smaller displays, and this garden incorporated discarded concrete, rescued terracotta pipes and salvaged paving in a way that looked elegant and poetic.

The best gardens – even when they are only temporary – pave the way for a sustainable future.

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