Enchanted forest in the Sunshine Coast’s Eumundi

It’s a bush wonderland.

Cheryl Boyd’s Eumundi garden has a strong sense of place. Picture: Claire Takacs

It was like coming to paradise,” garden designer Cheryl Boyd says of her move to Eumundi in the Sunshine Coast hinterland 28 years ago. Having grown up in the cool climate of Christchurch, New Zealand, and gardened on sand in Perth’s dry heat in her 20s, she quickly took to Queensland’s warmth and relaxed lifestyle.

And as a horticulturist, Boyd was excited by the plants of her adopted home. “The palms and dramatic foliage plants were so different for me,” she recalls. “We can grow such a wide range here, from temperate climate magnolias and camellias, to dombeyas, to near-tropical orchids and gingers.” That’s almost too much choice for a professional plant lover, she admits.

Vignettes: stick sculpture. Picture: Claire Takacs

Cheryl and her husband Bob had energy and ambition in spades when they bought 4.5ha of virgin forest, mainly tallowwood, stringybark and blackbutt. After creating a clearing, they milled three truckloads of logs into giant slabs, which they used to build the cottage they lived in until their house was built.

Today their 1.2ha garden seems a place of enchantment, nestled among towering gums at the end of a long driveway through sun-dappled forest. It unfolds in a series of vignettes that seem so right, they can only be the work of a skilled artist. Lush tree ferns, including New Zealand’s silver fern, spread their fronds overhead. Meandering pathways thread through carpets of begonias, bromeliads and purple-leafed sweet potato. Punchy accents of lime-coloured foliage brighten the shadier areas and contrasting textures are woven together with confidence. Abundant foliage is tempered by pools of open lawn and muscular features such as the low stone wall of local basalt that uncoils over 20m from a spiral into a sinuous curve. It’s a nod to the Maori koru motif, based on the unfurling crozier of a silver fern.

Spiral stone wall. Picture: Claire Takacs

This is a garden with a strong sense of place. Boyd uses rough-hewn tallowwood logs from the property for arbours to support flowering climbers, and created two wonderful sculptures from gathered sticks. One is a full-size tepee; the other a huge starburst suspended in mid-air. Lit at night, it is spectacular. She and Bob used two 4WD vehicles to winch it into place, as they did for her windmill sculpture, which snakes up a tree trunk. Her eye for placement is unerring.

Boyd has collections of rare and unusual clivias, anthuriums and crinum lilies, and grows many Queensland rainforest trees with showy flowers. Other splashes of colour come from heliconias and beehive gingers. She loves trialling new plants to use in her designs for clients, experimenting in colour-themed beds with combinations such as lime green and black.

Ask her about her favourite plants and you’ll get a conversation rather than a shortlist. Her favourite place, though, is the firepit area, a simple circle of stones flanked by two enormous mossy logs. “I love having a little fire there with a glass of wine in the evening,” she says. “I’m forever picking up sticks so there’s plenty to burn.”

Colour amid the gums. Picture: Claire Takacs

My potted Dracaena marginata plants are over 2m tall but have bare and spindly stems. Can I cut them to 1m without killing them, and if so when is the best time? And can I replant the tops?

Neil Schneider, Perth

You can cut these tough plants as hard as you like, anywhere on the stems. The best time is in the warm months when growing actively. Usually two or three new shoots will grow from the cut point. You can replant the tops of any length. Remove some of the lower leaves. Either shove them straight into a pot, even the same pot, or watch the roots grow in a glass of water.

I have a lot of gardenias that grow well but the flower buds go black and drop off before opening. I can see some spider webs. What can I do?

Catherine Cameron, by email

Spiders don’t harm plants, just make their home in them. The problem will be mealybugs hidden inside the bud sheaths. You might see white, fluffy material or even the bugs emerging on a warm day. They are notoriously difficult to treat; I find they’re immune to common systemic sprays. If you use Eco-Neem mixed with Eco-Oil, sprayed fortnightly to treat scale, it will kill the mealybugs too.

We have two flame trees. One flowered magnificently one year but not the next; the other hasn’t flowered in two years. Why?

Jen Talamini, Brisbane

Brachychiton acerifolius can take up to 20 years to flower. It is usually deciduous in the tropical dry season and flowers just before the new leaves appear in summer, but can be erratic and sometimes flowers just on one side. Too much shade will prevent flowering and it’s possible possums are eating the flower buds.

Send your questions to: [e-mail] or Helen Young, PO Box 3098, Willoughby North, NSW 2068. Website: helenyoung.com.au. The best question for March wins a set of three hand-forged kitchen garden tools worth $190 from thessentialingredient.com.au