Meet Joanne Neylon, a pioneer of landscaping

When Joanne Neylon started her landscaping firm in 1981 she wasa curiosity. “People would stare in surprise when I arrived on site.”

Family business: Joanne Neylon

Landscaping businesses owned and run by women are in the minority even today, but when Joanne Neylon started her Sydney business in 1981 she was a curiosity. “People would stare in surprise when I arrived on site. And there were no site toilets for women,” she recalls. “I had to be very focused, very professional. Being female meant you had to work a lot harder.”

She celebrated 40 years in business last year, having built Joanne Green Landscape and Interior into a highly respected landscape design, construction and maintenance company, adding interior design services when daughter Angela joined in 2013. Among more than 20 awards, the Northern Beaches-based business has won NSW Landscape Contractor of the Year three times.

A finished work on Sydney’s Lower North Shore

Neylon was 25, with a degree in Agricultural Science and a Diploma of Education, when she kickstarted her new career by selling her red sports car to buy a ute and put an ad in the local paper. Her confidence and her team grew quickly; she joined The Landscape Association, and soon had plenty of commercial work as well as residential. Juggling projects and physically working on sites all day, she spent nights and weekends on administration and designs. Along the way, she managed to marry and have three children in four years, tag-teaming with husband Mark. “We couldn’t have done it without our amazing nanny Merrilyn,” she says.

A finished work in Sydney

“Even so, I never felt I was being a good enough mother. Professionally you’d hide the fact you had children, because it was perceived as too much of a distraction.”

Today the industry has plenty of women in landscape design, landscape architecture and horticulture but they’re still the exception in landscape construction. “I don’t know why,” muses Neylon. “It’s a brilliant industry and I’ve always had a lot of wonderful support from fellow landscape construction companies – they’re generous people. I am seeing more women now in building construction, such as engineers and project managers, but they don’t seem to be interested in the landscaping side. You need to be interested in horticulture as well.”

Over 40 years, the landscaping industry has evolved from strictly garden work to a much more comprehensive service, Neylon says. “Now we do everything including outdoor kitchens, swimming pool construction, pavilions, fencing and tennis courts. The whole lot is interlinked so we manage the entire process.” Landscape designers need much better horticultural knowledge today in order to select the right plants as sites get smaller and more tightly designed, she adds.

“I love it all but I’d say the design process is my favourite, especially when you know you’ve got it right and it’s going to be so beautiful. And I really love seeing the jobs come up and out of the ground.” The company maintains many of the gardens they’ve created. “Good maintenance is so important,” says Neylon. “Without it they fall apart.”

Q&A

Green, black and brown caterpillars constantly strip my spinach and silverbeet. When is the best time to find and squash them? What organic defences are there? Dawn Mitchell, Gold Coast

Hunt them in daylight, although small and green ones are hard to spot. Floating row covers of insect-proof mesh such as Vege Net (or old mosquito netting or window screens) above the plants are very effective at stopping butterflies landing to lay eggs. Plant insectary flowers (such as Good Bug seed mix) to attract natural predators. Dipel is an organic spray that kills only caterpillars and is safe for anything that feeds on them. It takes three to five days to work.

Why has only one of my hollyhocks, grown from seed last autumn, sent up a flower spike? The others are 40cm tall but have no flowers. They have good soil and sun. Michael Reid, by email

Hollyhocks are usually biennials, meaning they grow leaves and roots in the first year and send up their flower spikes in the second, before setting seeds. Some varieties are short-lived perennials that flower in their first year if planted early enough. Sow hollyhocks in late summer or autumn.

I need a book on weeds that has photographs for identifying them. Any suggestions? The Weed Book by Nokomis is no longer available. Moore Broderick, Mt Martha, Vic

The 2016 third edition of Weeds of the South-East – An identification guide for Australia also seems to be unavailable. If any readers have spare copies of either book, please email the column. However, there is a good online identification tool at weeds.org.au.

February’s prize

Send your questions to: [e-mail] or Helen Young, PO Box 3098, Willoughby North, NSW 2068. The best question for February wins a hamper of products from Richgro worth $120, including the Ezi-Wet soil wetting range.