Responding to a resilient garden: a conversation with Takis Constantopedos, 21 February 2018

This is a resilient garden: we are sitting at Takis’ kitchen table – and he is making zucchini fritters with ingredients from the garden: zucchini, parsley and eggs from his chickens, which we can see look very happy in the backyard. Lucy, his 16 month old grand-daughter is with us. She is a gardener too.

Introductions first. My name is Greek, and I was born in Australia. This has absolutely no relevance to my gardening other than the fact that father used to be a very proud vegetable gardener. He had a little home, a little bit of land in Leichhardt, and he would grow one crop, either tomatoes, beautiful ox heart tomatoes, which he got from his Italian friends, or cucumbers; telegraph or Lebanese. In his community of friends and relatives, vegetable gardening was a very competitive business, where they would compare the quality of their production. It was a minute garden, but he produced heaps. So that is the only connection. My wife, Dimitra, has a Greek background, and she came from a farming village, where they grew all their food, they kept poultry and had a sizable flock of sheep for meat and milk, which they used to make their own cheese, and for wool, which they wove into rugs and blankets. So she knows all about farming – or so she says – and I know nothing. So I defer to Dimitra.

I learned gardening by trial and error; you just do it. I am aware that it is both very complex and very easy at the same time, and my approach is very flexible and organic. I have a plan of sorts that is constantly being adapted. You plant things and if they grow, they grow, and if they don’t you rip them out. It is resilient. I am not prepared to use lots of pesticides. We do fertilise organically, but not systematically. I don’t really know what I am doing. But I water the garden, I weed it. I have limited time, because I need to babysit too, maybe three days a week, or even more, and I do my art the other two days. This gives me only two to three days off and they are not spent in the garden alone. Dimitra would like me to be more on top of the diseases of the roses, as an example, and I have just had to draw a line and say: that is your job. My philosophy is if plants are hard work, there is no time. I have worked all my life and now that I am retired I want to develop my art. I am not going to be doing the garden to the detriment of that part of my life. So the garden has to fit into our lives.
As for gardening influences, we visit the Garden Festival in Leura, every year for example. We travel extensively, and visit gardens overseas, and we have looked at Monet’s garden. Monet’s garden was inspirational, and as you can see from that photograph of it on our wall; it is all about the profusion of plants, where plants spill out over edges and pathways, blurring the borders between the natural and the man-made world. Our personal preference would be for native plants, but not here – this is a Federation garden. The Haberfield Association’s garden committee congratulated us because we have preserved characteristics of the Federation garden, by keeping many of the heritage trees and plants we have found, even if it is adapted in a less formal and more cottage garden way, so that there are no hedges, for example. We prefer a more relaxed and casual plan, and the result is that the plants are eclectic and resilient, including both natives and Federation plant types.
Regarding the history of our garden, we have only been in this house 4, almost 5 years. Our plan for the garden is to build on what was there and to build on its strengths and add our own preferences. This house was owned by two old ladies, Betty and Jean, the daughters of the original owners, and they loved their garden. When we moved in, the garden was already established with trees. We inherited two coral trees, a jacaranda, and two magnolias, one is a Magnolia Grandiflora and the other is a port wine magnolia. Two further magnolias were added later, one has an almost black flower and the other has a pink flower The lawn was mostly there, but we find lawns austere so we let forget-me-nots grow freely, even into the lawn, so it is more like a meadow. When Betty and Jean passed away for two years there was an interim owner, who planted more Federation style plants, some sasanquas, gardenias and daphne plants. As for us we planted hardier plants, such as bromeliads, along the western side, which are very resilient and don’t require much water, and African violets and daisies in the front. At the back, where there is a lot of sun, we have established a vegetable patch, which is quite labour intensive. Under the Magnolia Grandiflora, we have set aside a 60 square metres chicken run. So the plan of the garden has ended up being a bit rambling, not unlike my description of our garden.
We have been planting lots of proletarian flowering plants. There are a lot of what people consider weeds: such as African daisies, African violets, forget-me-nots, and these do not require a lot of maintenance. This is an organic, resilient garden because Dimitra and I are very busy. It is full of flowers, some die back and others come up, because they are self-seeding and they fill in the spaces between everything, and it makes the garden look lush. People walk by when the garden flowers, and they come and bring their grandchildren in to pluck the profusion of flowers. because the other gardens seem to be mainly hedges. This is not one of those gardens dominated by prize roses.
We did well at the last Haberfield Association’s garden competition. We did not enter it to win, just to participate and see other people’s gardens. We were surprised we came second in all the categories that we entered: in the front garden, the back garden the whole garden and the vegetable garden., It was surprising because last year we had a very harsh and dry season, which did stress our garden, but I suppose being a resilient garden, it still thrived. A lot of people cut down the trees in their backyards to build swimming pools, or driveways criss-crossing around the backyard, and this exposes their gardens to the hard sun. Ours is a cool garden because there are trees and there are also a variety of micro-climates which protect plants. In summer it is so important to be able to go into the garden and find it is cool. Our garden is quite special. We try to be green. We recycle all our foodstuff. We have a compost bin. Also our chooks are ideal for composting and they have a huge chicken run. We water using our rainwater tank. We have a hive of native bees to help with the cross pollination of our vegetables. Our garden is integral to our home design plan, helping to cool it down and that sums up our gardening vision: this is a garden with a house on it rather than the other way around. That is why we bought this house. Plants and gardens are central to our recreation, we like to look at them: the house opens onto the garden, or maybe the garden opens into the house. The garden rewards us by looking after us.
We do plan our garden, but we don’t impose a plan on the garden; rather we let the garden tell us what to do: it is a two-way thing. We respond to the garden, which is always evolving, incorporating new with inherited elements, such as the large flowering trees that attract birds. So the design is not just about resilient plants, it is also about the wildlife that come here. We have an array of birds, hundreds of visiting birds. We have ibis that come and walk around our back yard. They fly in because or during the drought. I come out when I lock up the chooks and I disturb the flying foxes and brush tale possums that are up in the trees. We have an osprey eagle that comes here to catch the rats in the chicken coup. We call the top of that fence that goes all the way down to the canal, the Rat Highway. Pigeons and turtle doves come in to get their feed as well. They are all very happy. And we plan not just with the birds in mind, but for instance the soil type also dictates what plants we choose, because if you go higher up the slope you cannot plant vegetables; for some reason the soil is not as good as in this lower section. So we are constantly responding to the garden, including soil, micro-climates, water, plants and wildlife, and not imposing on the garden.
The garden is an important part of our lives, but we do not live in our garden. I know there are people in Haberfield who have remarkable gardens and they are in the garden all the time, they look after every plant. I just say plants should look after themselves and they do, and if they do not, they are replaced with something else that can. We are very busy. Dimitra has not retired and works very long hours but no doubt will spend more time in the garden when she does. For now, Dimitra wakes up in the morning and goes out and looks to see if there is a ripe fig, for example, and she lets the chooks out if I haven’t already. When she comes back from work she goes out in the garden; it is important to her, it helps her unwind. I am in and out, I am always going to the chooks to throw them scraps. We relax in the garden by putting the washing on the line, by pottering around weeding, watering and chilling out. Our granddaughter loves coming here and she is exploring this natural wonderland. It doesn’t take up a lot of time, and this is how we interact with the garden, which has a positive impact on our health.
This is largely a heritage home in a heritage garden. We have always lived in heritage homes with cottage gardens, and even our furniture is from antique and op shops. We have always restored our furniture, and restored our home. Before Haberfield we restored a Victorian terrace, which became our family home in Annandale, and that is part of the way we operate with everything; it is not about going to buy expensive plants already established: we grow them ourselves, the way gardeners have always operated.
Sometimes there are disappointments, the greatest one of which has been the Christmas bushes we planted along the side. When we did the renovations, the builders were brutal in their disregard for the garden and they damaged parts of it. They poured rubble over the Christmas bushes, and they have never recovered – they are stunted. But other things surprised me, for instance how the garden comes back. The builders killed half the lawn but it grew back. This garden always bounces back, and this is what thrills me the most.
Also I can tell you about all the edible plants we have grown. First the herbs: we have sage, which we use in sage tea as well as in a Jamie Oliver recipe with swordfish, which is pan-fried lightly with the sage. There is rosemary, also used with a variety of meats. Thyme and lemon thyme in the front, goes well with salmon. Oregano, Dimitra dried it and it tastes pretty good on meats. Basil, many varieties of basil in fact, used eaten with tomato, cheese and olive oil. Parsley in tabbouleh. Vietnamese mint in a Vietnamese fish recipe. We have planted and successfully grown garlic and potatoes from old ones bought from the supermarket. We have lots of shallots: try growing shallots from seeds, it is really hard. But someone told me to buy a bunch of shallots and chop them an inch up from the root, put them in the ground and then shallots come up instantly. Naturally, the rest of the shallot goes into our salads. We have spinach risotto once a fortnight, which is a traditional Greek dish. One spinach plant is enough for it. It is just shallots, spinach from the garden, a little bit of tomato and lots of olive oil and arborio rice. We have lettuce for salads. Eggplants, our favourite, are easy to grow.
En choy, which is a considered a weed by many people, is used as a side green for our Chinese fish with ginger and shallots. En choy is easy to grow. It is a Greek tradition: the Mediterranean diet is very good and it includes lots of edible weeds or wild greens, let’s put it that way. You just steam the en choy with olive oil and lemon. They have just taken over, and because of the drought I let them take over. We have had snow peas and broad beans and when they had white flies: we got rid of them with a spray of water and homemade soap my sister-in-law makes from the left-over oil, as her mother used to do. This gets rid of a lot of insects. We eat the entire broad bean pod. We grew cucumbers, zucchini; the zucchinis have been a problem. One year they were very prolific, the next year hardly saw any of them were growing. They were not being cross pollinated, so they would shrivel. They need bees. So we have now bought some native bees to cross fertilise the zucchini flowers.
Our tomatoes are self-seeding from the compost. And we have grown kale, okra, lemon grass, ginger and turmeric. We have marjoram as well, it is good for companion planting and it keeps the insects at bay. Greek basil is growing in a pot, and mint. We had successfully grown green beans: last year I put them up against the chick wire, we had a good crop, then we planted dwarf beans, and they did well but again they suffered for the excessive sun and heat this summer. We grow fruit: passionfruit, two fig trees, two lemon trees, my parents always had lemon trees. I love figs: I just bought a tray, because the birds also love them and eat our crop. I think we provide a lot of food for the birds, and this is not necessarily something intentional, nor something I mind too much.
I think about my garden as a feast for the senses; with lots of flavours and scents. I am teaching my grand-daughter to smell the garden, and we are constantly crushing the foliage and flowers of everything. I don’t think many people realise what a hit you get just smelling these things, the lemon leaves, for instance. In the garden we also have the sound of birds, and of the plants rustling in the wind. And touch: I had to make the garden childproof. It is sheltered from wind and is a north-facing back yard, so we get the sun: that was one of the reasons we bought this house. The summers can be brutal, aren’t they in Sydney? The weather pattern varies. We worry about climate change and we wonder whether the excessive heat is something to do with it, but who knows? We find cool relief on hot days in our garden.
I just have to hand water the garden on those hots days. I get up very early or go out in the evening. I don’t use a sprinkler, we are very conscious about water usage and waste and we use a rainwater tank and this garden does not use up a lot of water, because it is shady. Our water consumption is very low, despite the fact that we have a big garden, we use as much water as a one-person household, so I wonder what other people are doing. The same with our electricity, possibly because we have solar panels too. Our gardening practices are sustainable.

There are people we connect with through the garden. We are very fortunate, all our neighbours are very good. There is one tension, but not a significant one. I know that they don’t like a single leaf in their back yard. They go around with that noisy leaf-blower. I haven’t been raking the leaves every day – that is not going to be a problem. It is not a real tension, but it is a different way of understanding gardens. I do know that some of our neighbours are influenced by our garden.

I exchange cutting and seeds and advice with my friends. A friend of mine has a garden up at the foothills of the Blue Mountains, in Kurrajong. She brings me seeds and roots from her garden, like kale and turmeric. She collects the seeds and stores them in envelopes. We don’t. I just let plants go to seed and then I shake them off, so there will be spinach and parsley together. I give them a little help: that is how I relate to my garden. We have other friends in Lane Cove, who want me to go over to give advice, as if I knew what I am talking about. Another friend of mine belongs to the Greens, so he is very green and he is remarkable in his knowledge of herbs, birds and plants and he has given me advice. He has come here and identified things. Dimitra, gives me good advice. Dimitra is a very clever and astute woman. She has incredible intuition with gardening. Sometimes I worry whether I am doing the right thing and wonder what should I be doing. She says: it’s all right just do this and it will work. So there is collaboration. And my 16 month grand-daughter, Lucy, loves the garden and does not want to leave it and go home. Nothing competes with this freedom of running around: she goes into the plants, she is a rough and tumble girl. And she helps me weed: I collect the weeds, put them in a bucket and she goes to the bucket and tips it over. Other people come too, taking cuttings with them. Whenever we have a family gathering, a barbecue; people go into a zone, they lose themselves, because of the nature of the garden, and it is not even that outstanding.

There are different types of gardeners in Haberfield. There are people who work very long hours to pay those mortgages and don’t have enough time to garden. There are the traditional Italian gardeners who have beautiful vegetables. They have neat and tidy gardens and maybe not aesthetic gardens as such because they’re very practical in production. Our garden is more about the pleasure we get. We do gardening on weekends, watering, weeding, mowing, so we do spend time working in the garden. Then there are others that have over-designed lifestyle gardens: the swimming pool, small buildings for the barbecue. Gardening is a dying art. This suburb is the first garden suburb in the world, and this is extremely important. WestConnex is a big crime: I don’t think our authorities understand what they have done. Lucy Turnbull was surprised they had knocked down heritage homes. The gardening competition is an attempt to promote the gardens, so it is part of the heritage listing of the suburb. The gardening committee is very civic-minded, and their work is important to preserve Haberfield and its history. Haberfield does have a lot of tourism potential and we all need to do our bit.