For me, a garden is sanity. I get very tetchy and irritable if I can’t get my hands into earth for any length of time.

A lot of people felt betrayed by nature but personally I don’t think we were betrayed because we knew that could happen – we knew it in our heads, but never in our hearts expected it to. We very much believe that the bush was here first and if we come in and impose on it then we can expect to be impacted when nature takes the upper hand. We are getting so far away from an appreciation of the role of nature in our lives it worries me…

Autumn in my garden is when trees give their tickertape welcome to winter.

The modern Australian must find their sense of place in order to feel truly at home. For me the natural Australian landscape gives that sense of place.

Mate, all gardeners are happy. What else would we be? Put your hands in the earth and let the static run out of your head.

Old gardeners never die; they just very slowly turn into the most magnificent compost. But what a marvellous, active brew it is!

It’s the sheer joy of seeing things grow and helping them to grow, even harvesting the stuff that you’ve grown yourself, no matter how old you are.

One constant in a world of variables – a man alone in the evening in his patch of vegetables. and all the things he takes down with him there, where the easement runs along the back fence.

Today’s gardens have become far more than things of beauty. And today’s generation is fast finding out that backyards can be an extremely resourceful and powerful tool in not just providing food for the family but also a brilliant way of connecting children with the natural world.

Gardens are a form of autobiography.