Frogmore Gardens: a labour of love for Jack Marshall and Zena Bethell

This couple cast the net wide for inspiration at Frogmore Gardens, their 3.5ha wonder in Victoria’s Central Highlands.

Frogmore garden. Picture: Claire Takacs

The idea of themed and decorated rooms is not for us,” says Jack Marshall, who with his partner Zena Bethell transformed a formerly degraded plant farm near Trentham, in Victoria’s Central Highlands, into the superb 3.5ha Frogmore Gardens and boutique mail order nursery.

A shared skill-set of landscape design, horticulture and floristry influenced the couple – then in their 40s – to leave Melbourne in 2001 for a place where they could grow plants organically and reduce their environmental footprint. The nursery specialises in plants for borders, prairie gardens and cut flowers.

They use the language of music, painting and literature to describe their design methodology, speaking of their garden as a “cohesive composition” that explores “a range of variations within an overarching theme”. In Marshall’s essay in photographer Claire Takacs’ book Australian Dreamscapes he writes of Frogmore: “The box cube is used throughout the garden as the leitmotif, and the long walks the refrain. Repetition creates rhythm, colour increases or decreases tempo, shaded walks create areas of chiaroscuro, groups of plants create vignettes or paragraphs.”

Custodians: Zena Bethell and Jack Marshall. Picture: Claire Takacs

The garden has a strong structure, delineated with hedges that control how people walk through it. It employs long lawns, avenues and cross axes, with “an enfilade of gardens, each with their own purpose and personality” opening off the formal areas at the core.

The couple describe Frogmore as a garden to stroll through, not to be distracted by. There are no sculptures or water features as focal points, only utilitarian seats and gates. There’s an intention to link the viewer with the surrounding landscape. “We’re enclosed by 20-30m tall forest so it’s important you don’t think it’s all about the one plane – that your eye is led through the garden and up into the forest and then the sky,” Marshall explains.

Structure: hedges are used to great effect. Picture: Claire Takacs

The scale is generous. The pair of sunset borders is each 50m long and 5m deep, filled with about 30 plant varieties. “When the design is longitudinal, repetition is incredibly important,” says Marshall. “We are constantly finessing, editing and making aesthetic decisions, getting rid of the extraneous and trying to create a purity of expression. For instance, the crimson border is a sumptuous tapestry of jewel colours, so every plant choice is devoted to increasing the level of colour saturation. The pale garden is all about wildflower fluff, so it’s dainty and diaphanous, while the sunset borders are all about intensity and drama.” Different areas peak at different times, from spring in the woodland garden to late autumn grasses in the prairie garden.

Textures: Frogmore Gardens. Picture: Claire Takacs

The plants’ performance and maintenance levels are equally critical. “They all have to pay their rent,” Marshall laughs. “It can be subtle things like incorporating single dahlias that don’t need dead-heading like the double-flowered ones. At our age we can’t keep adding to the maintenance bill.” They have also reduced their water usage to less than one third of their metered allowance.

Frogmore is open only during March and April. “That way the garden doesn’t have to be about public expectations; we can fill it with our idiosyncrasies,” Marshall says.

Q&A

I’ve seen no bees around our lemon tree, although many are on our hebe. Are bees necessary to pollinate lemons? Would our gall wasp traps deter them? Susan Munday, MelbourneAlthough bees, wind and butterflies boost pollination, lemons are self-pollinating and you’ll get a crop without bees. Gall wasp traps emit ammonia as a lure to protein-eating wasps, fruit flies and some other insects but not bees. However, beneficial insects can also get stuck, so use these traps only from August to November when adult wasps are about, then remove them.

After 10 hot and dry months, we’ve had two weeks of solid rain. In general, which trees and shrubs don’t like having wet feet? Gary Wilson, Highfields, Qld

Most plants don’t like having wet feet. When water does not drain away, the soil’s natural air spaces remain filled with water so the roots drown. Wetland and aquatic plants are well adapted; species that tolerate some inundation include cannas, tree ferns and many bottlebrushes and paperbarks.

Having come through drought, dust, grasshopper plagues, fires and deluge, we’ve learnt a lot; nature bounces back with remarkable vigour. But sadly a third of our 20-year-old, 1m-tall English box hedging died. Should we cut the remainder to 30cm and replace gaps with similar sized bushes – or just start again? Sarah Childs, Lithgow, NSW

Box is resilient and responds well to a hard prune, given water and fertiliser. Replacement plants will establish well if you clear out the old plants’ roots and add compost and manures to reinvigorate the soil. The smaller your new plants are, the faster they’ll establish and grow, so consider buying 20cm diameter pot size rather than ­super-advanced ones.

Prize: Fiskars’ PowerGear X loppers, worth $100.

Send your questions to: helenyoungtwig @gmail.com or Helen Young, PO Box 3098, Willoughby North, NSW 2068. The best question for March wins Fiskars’ PowerGear X loppers, worth $100.