Charlie Albone: Melbourne’s best in International Flower & Garden Show uses nature to challenge conventions

There’s a certain energy you feel the moment you step into the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show. It’s hard to describe, but it sits somewhere between excitement and calm, with thousands of people moving through gardens, all quietly inspired, all seeing something a little different. Set against the grand backdrop of the Royal Exhibition Building and the sweeping Carlton Gardens, the show has a sense of occasion that’s hard to match anywhere else in Australia. It’s the largest horticultural event in the Southern Hemisphere, and, walking through it, you understand why. This year’s show feels particularly fresh. There’s a strong shift towards gardens that aren’t just beautiful, but purposeful spaces that cool, restore and reconnect us with nature. The theme running through many of the show gardens is clear: gardens that work harder, feel wilder and reflect the environments they come from. The show gardens themselves are always the highlight, probably because I’ve designed and built a few in my time, with success at the Melbourne show to boot. This year there’s a real diversity of ideas, from highly structured urban retreats to loose, almost naturalistic landscapes; each garden feels like a different interpretation of how we might live with plants. But the one that stayed with me, the one I was immediately drawn to and kept going back to, was Matt York’s garden, We the Wild. And it’s no surprise it took out Best in Show. From the moment you walk up to it, there’s a shift. It doesn’t feel like a show garden trying to impress. It feels like a place — quiet, grounded and deeply connected to the landscape. Amazing to think it didn’t exist just nine days before the show opened its doors. York’s inspiration comes from the rugged southern coastline of Victoria — that windswept, salt-laced environment where plants survive rather than thrive in the traditional sense. Granite outcrops anchor the space, billy buttons move gently through the planting, and everything feels slightly untamed but incredibly considered. There’s also a strong ecological thread running through it. The garden rooms are made from recycled skip bins, reworked and built upon to create quite intimate spaces. The dark black colour used for these rooms really made the huge Dicksonia ferns stand out and make a statement at the entrance to the garden. A black fireplace and black water feature, both nestled into the planting, combine to create a space that feels restorative, almost meditative. And perhaps that’s what sets it apart. In a show filled with exceptional gardens, this one didn’t shout the loudest; it simply felt the most honest. Walking through the rest of the show, there’s plenty to take home — not just plants or products, but ideas. There’s a clear move towards smarter native planting, using species that suit the climate, designing with water in mind and creating gardens that evolve rather than remain fixed. The plant of the year was a dwarf Corymbia ‘Precious Pearl’, a stunning small flowering gum with white stamens and a pink base — something to look out for in the coming months at garden centres.