Part of Kath’s backyard. Photo: Supplied.
Over nearly two decades, East Corrimal landscape designer Kath Gadd has transformed her backyard into a bush-like oasis, where native plants, towering eucalyptus trees and bush foods thrive together.
This Sunday (23 November), for the first time, she’ll open the gates as part of the Illawarra Edible Garden Trail, allowing people to wander through the backyard she’s spent 19 years shaping.
Backyard, school and community gardens between Helensburgh and Shell Cove will also open for the trail across Saturday and Sunday, which Kath had the chance to experience last year.
“I went to the gardens last year and that was really fun, because all gardeners love having a nosy in other people’s gardens,” she said, laughing.
“That’s literally how I’m approaching this.
“It’s just a nice opportunity to talk about plants, and talk about why you’ve done what you’ve done.”
Kath is eager to share a space that defies convention, challenges gardening norms, and celebrates nature in all its wild forms.
“It’s a bit of a working space where I’m trialling plants and seeing how they go in difficult coastal wind, shade and dry clay conditions,” she said, as part of supporting her work in being a landscape designer.
She said she didn’t have lush lawns, but rather open areas of decorative granite and small patches of native lawn.
At the heart of Kath’s philosophy is coexistence with nature.
Towering indigenous Eucalyptus paniculata trees dominate the space, left standing as living proof that large trees can — and should — be treasured in residential gardens.
“It’s one of the things I’m really hoping to show — that you can live with large trees,” she said.
“You don’t need to cut them down.”
Kath said under their broad canopies, she demonstrated how vibrant gardens and grand old trees could thrive together.
She said Australian native plants formed a key part of her design, with bush foods like midyim berry, lilly pilly, the native leek bulbine, and wombat berry populating the beds.
While a lone pot of strawberries — her partner’s domain — makes a modest nod to traditional edibles, the majority of the flora serves multiple purposes: privacy screening, pollinator food, and visual beauty.
“My bush foods have to also look good. It’s kind of an ornamental use of bush foods,” she said.
“There’s not just one purpose for the bush food, they’re also doing other jobs too.
“Most plants in my garden are doing a few different jobs.”
Wildlife is plentiful here, too.
She said a large frog pond teemed with tadpoles, while bird baths and a tree house attracted possums, bats, and even an egret that had nested.
The garden’s diverse, flower-filled habitat also invites bees and dragonflies, reflecting Kath’s deep-rooted family tradition of respecting and nurturing the natural world.
Her own gardening journey was heavily influenced by a childhood in Tasmania surrounded by parents and grandparents who were keen gardeners, amateur botanists, scientists and bushwalkers.
“They all have a love of the natural world. I didn’t really have much choice. I was sort of dragged along,” she said, laughing.
While Kath’s personal space has evolved organically — sometimes unconventionally as it works between two dwellings sharing the property — her professional projects echo the same ethos.
Increasingly, she finds clients looking to replicate the wild, naturalistic feel on their own property.
“I’m trying to create wilderness, really, and a lot of my client work at the moment is people who just want to feel like they live in the bush,” she said.
“It’s that wild, naturalistic feel. That’s what my garden is — it’s not particularly manicured.”
Kath’s garden will be open for viewing on Sunday as part of the Illawarra Edible Garden Tour.
The trail will include a variety of backyard, native habitat, market, community and school veggie gardens.
Illawarra Edible Garden Trail will involve gardens open from Helensburgh to Shell Cove on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 3 pm.
