Nurseries: Parkers of Turramurra

With the increasing trend towards large chain nurseries its great to see that there are some plant retailers that continue to thrive despite the general decline in interest in gardening. One such business is Parkers of Turramurra, a long established retail nursery serving Sydney's leafy north shore.

Parkers of Turramurra

The nursery was established by Kevin Parker on the site of an old bus depot  in 1978. Despite competition from long established rivals the nursery flourished and became one of the best known nurseries in Sydney. For many years the retailer has been owned and operated by Helen Knight and during her reign she has managed to make Parkers the nursery of choice for the north shores taste conscious gardeners.

Plants are well displayed at the nursery

Parker's palette of plants reflect the gardening taste of the area. The nursery is not only popular with garden owners but attracts many horticulturists and landscape designers looking for rare and unusual plants. Whenever I go to the nursery I seek out their range of perennials. The nursery also has a fine selection of roses including 19th century favourites as well as Alister Claark and David Austin varieties. The staff are knowledgeable and, mostly, friendly.

The plants are beautifully displayed and there is also a large shade section. You won't find wind chimes, Buddha heads and gnomes here but you will be able to find some lovely pieces of (pricey) garden sculpture and metal arches.  As well as plants the nursery includes an excellent hardware department that sells good quality tools (and spares), fertilizers and manures. There is also a cafe.

Parkers of Turramurra
45-47 Tennyson Avenue
Turramurra
New South Wales 2074

PS: I first published this review of Parkers in 2013. Sadly, I recently heard that this nursery will soon close and an Aldi supermarket will be built on the site. This is tragic news for the gardeners of Sydney.

The Hardware Garden

Sometime back, I received a call from a Scottish woman asking for my gardening help. The lady - let’s call her Morag - asked whether I trimmed hedges as she needed urgent help cutting one in her back garden. I was asked to do the trim as her husband – let’s call him Don - was suffering from severe back pain and was unwilling to climb their wobbly wooden ladder.

My first impression of Morag and Don’s garden was that it was immaculately maintained, and it came as no surprise when they told me that their garden was a regular entry in the ‘medium-sized’ category of their local council’s annual spring gardening competition. Don noted that they had entered the contest for several years but he was mystified why they had never won.

What struck me was that while the garden was well designed and maintained none of their plant selections were distinctive or unusual and the garden was, quite simply, dull. The only concessions to Art in the back garden were a couple of painted concrete sculptures of kneeling 'naked ladies' near the swimming pool and a composite stone head of Buddha. It was no wonder that in the garden judges’ collective mind this uninspired block was soon forgotten in deference for gardens with a touch of the inspired.

Reflecting on this couples lack of success made me think whether it was possibly to create a distinctive garden from plants and pots totally sourced from supermarkets and hardware shops. Many people are increasingly buying their plants this way rather than from the traditional specialist plant nurseries. To answer this question I decided to view the offerings available in several local stores.

Coles and Woolworth's are long established in Australia and have sold seeds, fertiliser and garden fittings for many decades and along with Kmart branched out into selling garden plants as a way to attract new customers into their stores. While most of their plants are not expensive their stock has gained a reputation as being in poor condition due to light deprivation and sparse watering regimes. Perhaps in reaction to this public perception most supermarkets have begun to abandon selling live plants over the last few years.

Customers traditionally lured by one-off purchases and cheap plants found in supermarkets have increasingly moved to the nursery sections of the large hardware barns such as Bunnings. These large concrete box retailers have only been in Australia for a short time and based on experience in the North American market have set up nursery sections as a way to lure customers away from the supermarket sector and the traditional nursery trade.

Early on the big barn nursery sections in Australia were poorly managed and the plants were in as dire a condition as the stock of their supermarket rivals. But, over the last few years the barns have got their act together and have learnt that plants have different display and maintenance needs to nails and PVC piping. The management improvement of these areas may account for the demise of the supermarkets foray into horticulture.

Most of the plants found in the barn nurseries are well grown and generally in good condition but offer little to the serious gardener looking for something unusual. Despite the quality of the stock the variety is limited and like the hardware items found inside, the prices are not always cheap. Sadly, the trend towards large monopoly retailers has seen the demise of many small individual nurseries who offered expert advice as well as a comprehensive range of stock.

While many plants can be found in hardware barn nursery sections, visits to specialist garden centres and plant fairs will certainly give your garden the magic touch. Making distinctive gardens doesn't necessarily mean having a bottomless budget, but it requires a genuine love of plants and the interest in finding a place for the unexpected, be it plant or sculpture. If only Don and Morag had explored the unusual in the plant and sculpture world they may have won greater accolades for their hard work.

I'm interested in what you think about this major change in the way we buy plants. Is it a good thing?

Old sages

One group of plants which came into its own in the perennial revival boom of the late 20th century was the ornamental flowering sages of the Salvia genus. Today there are over 150 different salvias available in Australian plant nurseries. Most of these have been imported over the last 25 years, but there are some which have been grown in our gardens for nearly two centuries.

Salvia patens as illustrated in
Edwards' Ornamental Flower Garden (1854)

For many the best known salvias are the common culinary sage (Salvia officinalis) and the scarlet red bedding sage (Salvia splendens) both of which were growing in Australia by the middle of the nineteenth century. The culinary herb may have been the first sage imported into the colony while the red bedding sage probably came here in the 1840s, although it was not listed on plant catalogues until the early 1850s. 

Another early import was the red flowered tropical sage (Salvia cocinnea). This plant is much gentler on the eye than the red bedding sage and also comes in a white flowered form. Its self-seeding habit has made it a weed in tropical areas of the world so it is hard to find on local seed lists. Despite this it can be found in old gardens and grows easily from seed sown in spring or early summer.

The most popular blue flowered salvia was the gentian sage (Salvia patens). This beautiful plant appears in almost all nursery catalogues from the 1850s and seems to be one of the most popular perennials used in nineteenth century gardens. Being hardy to light frost it is an ideal plant for most temperate climates although it has a tendency to spread by vegetative growth.


Apart from Salvia splendens (which was used in mass plantings), most nineteenth century salvias were used simply as filler plants in large garden beds. Although they never enjoyed the popularity of fuchsias, carnations, or geraniums, the salvias’ long flowering habit and ease of propagation would have made them a hard plant to ignore in the nineteenth century Australian garden. Perhaps owners, gardeners and designers of heritage gardens will review their planting selections to include some of these much-loved early perennial favourites.

Salvias commonly found in nineteenth century Australia gardens

Salvia africana-lutea* (syn: Salvia aurea) available from 1850s

Salvia azurea - prairie sage – available from 1850s

Salvia coccinea – commonly available by 1850

Salvia farinacea - mealy sage – appears on nursery lists by late 1880s

Salvia microphylla ‘Kew Red’ – (syn: Salvia grahamii) – available from 1880s

Salvia officinalis* - common sage - probably the first imported sage

Salvia patens  - gentian sage – appears on many local nursery lists from 1850s

Salvia splendens – tall growing red cultivars available in Australia by 1850s 

* denotes a frost hardy species

While a limited range of salvias are available from most nurseries the best range is available from Sue Tempteton's Unlimited Perennials nursery at 369 Boomerang Drive, Lavington 2641, NSW. Tel 02 - 6025 4585. Sue has a mail order service and website http://www.salviaspecialist.com/

Salvia illustration courtesy of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Library

politics in the garden

Several years ago while on a visit to Vietnam I discovered a distinctive looking annual bed in a Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) park. While the plants used in this formal bed were far from unusual - red bedding sage and golden marigolds - the design was certainly eye-catching.  At the centre of the planting was the hammer and sickle, the best known symbol of the international communist movement. While I had seen images of the hammer and sickle on my travels in the past I had never seen the emblem replicated in flowers. What made the planting scheme even more bizarre was that above the annual bed was a hoarding advertising Samsung electronic consumer goods; perhaps, a fitting image for contemporary Vietnam.

A bold design for an annual bed 

Reflecting on the hammer and sickle image I thought about other political signs or slogans which had been replicated in nature. One that quickly came to mind was the amazing discovery found in a pine plantation near Berlin in the early 1990s. During a low-level aerial survey a swastika patten was visible in the forest below. It is believed that the trees were planted in the late 1930s by local Nazi Party sympathisers. The golden colour was formed by larch trees - a deciduous conifer - during their brief autumn colouring prior to needle-drop. Shocked by the discovery local authorities removed most of larches in fear of the forest becoming a Nazi pilgrimage site.

While idological symbols in gardens are certainly unusual, politics is never far away from how we live. While nearly all garden writers choose to ignore politics and ideology in their work, British garden writer Martin Hoyles has embraced the theme from a socialist viewpoint. Hoyles has written several books on garden history where political perspectives have been central, most notably in his 1991 Story of Gardening (Journeyman Press, London). While most standard garden histories eulogize the journeys and adventures of plant collectors, Hoyles believes that these developments reflect the plunder of the natural world to serve the interests of colonial expansion and elite western collecting tastes.

An alternative view on garden history

Hoyles' books are highly recommended as they make us challenge our standard views on the history of gardening. Although hard to find they can be sourced at Floreligium (Australia's specialist garden bookshop) in Sydney or (dare I say it) via the internet.