London College of Garden Design students Emily Rubira of Rubira by Design and Zoe-Beth Rush of Hive Landscape Design won the Award of Excellence and a Gold Medal in the Achievable Garden category for their States of Green installation at the 2025 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. Congratulations Emily and Zoe-Beth!
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Describe the garden in 5 words.
Green foliage, texture, calm embrace.
What was the question you were asked most often?
Question: What’s the purple flower?
Answer: Scaevola aemula ‘Bondi Blue’
What piece of feedback will you always remember?
Jac Semmler, who did the judging, very kindly gave us some feedback on our garden and she mentioned that our ability to combine several foliage textures together was rather advanced and our eye for composition was very well developed. I thought it was a great way to describe an inner sense that we both have for plant selection and placement. It doesn’t follow any rules, we just go with how it feels on the eye.
What was an obstacle you had to overcome and how did you do it?
Having no previous construction experience or ability. To overcome this, we picked the brains of a carpenter friend, went to him with our plans and ideas then did a mix of his suggestions and our own ideas. There was lots of google research, many trips to Bunnings for Polyfilla and a whole lot of ‘Can Do’ attitude. Both Emily and I are very determined by nature and will not let a little challenge beat us.
Would you do it again?
Absolutely! Yes, it was time consuming, and costly but we had so much fun designing and building it and we proved all of those (mostly male!) critics and doubters wrong!
The stage is yours – what do you want to say?
Don’t let your lack of construction knowledge or experience stop you from entering a garden in the show. Design a garden that has elements in it that you can build yourself. Set yourself apart from the status quo by designing and using different materials and plants to what is popular. Have confidence in yourself or ‘fake it till you make it!’