My Garden Path | Neil and Wendy Marriott

SERIES 36 | Episode 23
 

We visit horticulturists and conservationists Neil and Wendy Marriott, whose property near the Grampians has become a living collection of stunning native plants, and a sanctuary for its local wildlife.

Describing his hilltop home in the Black Range, Neil says, “It’s just like stepping back into a wild, sort of a bushland area, but with gardens dotted through it.” 

“It’s a wild garden; it was designed for habitat,” adds Wendy. 

Neil has written or co-written several books on grassland plants and Grevillea and is regarded as a leading expert on Grevilleas. They both work as environmental consultants, surveying the flora found growing on properties, both weeds and native. 

Their property, called Panrock Ridge, covers 200 acres of heathy and grassy woodland. As well as many indigenous plants to the area, they have planted huge collections of hakeas, grevilleas, dryandras, and banksias on the property. 

Neil’s main passion is grevilleas – he loves their diversity, with every form from groundcovers to trees and in between. The Marriotts have about 350 species and subspecies growing, including unusual forms such as Grevillea vestita ‘Mulberry Midnight’, which is a WA plant that no longer exists in the wild. A nursery-owning friend found it and took cuttings, which resulted in the plants Neil has, but when she revisited the site, it had been bulldozed for a housing estate. 

Zig Zag grevillea is also very rare in the wild, only found in one reserve near Perth, but it loves the granite outcrop at the Marriotts and is happily self-seeding there, so there are possibly more plants there than in the wild. 

Growing up, Neil wasn’t very interested in plants but like birdwatching, and soon realised that the birds were attracted to the many Grevilleas and Banksias in his father’s garden, so his interest grew from there. 

More than two thirds of all Grevilleas are found in WA and the Marriotts have made many trips hunting for them. The Christmas Grevillea is another stunning WA species, with very spiky, holly-like leaves. It is now almost fully confined to roadsides in the southern wheatbelt. 

A while ago, there were discussions about including Hakeas in the Grevillea genus, so Neil started collecting them too. Of the 175 known Hakea species, he now has about 165 growing at Panrock.

The best way to tell the difference between the two is the seed pods; hakea seedpods are hard and woody, while grevilleas have a thin, leathery cover. Both include just two seeds.

The land was formerly a farm and fully cleared when they moved in – many friends thought they were mad moving there. The soil is free-draining granite but there is sticky clay underneath so some beds have still needed to be raised up. 

The whole garden was burnt out in the 2006 bushfires but most plants recovered well and there are still seedlings popping up. 

Wendy says that Neil was devastated by the damage of the fires so they built a new garden, focusing on Verticordias, and mulched the area with white gravel to contrast with the black land around them.

Wendy and Neil have enclosed 20 acres with a predator-proof fence, so that any animals inside that are protected from everything except birds of prey. 

There is a conservation covenant on the land that will protect the land after they move on. 

Featured Plants  Grevillea vestita ‘Mulberry Midnight’ZIGZAG GREVILLEAGrevillea flexuosa Grevillea fastigiataCHRISTMAS GREVILLEAGrevillea insignis subsp. insignis Hakea marginata Hakea pritzelii Hakea variaCRICKET BALL HAKEAHakea platyspermaBROOM HAKEAHakea scoparia

Filmed at Black Range, Vic