Jac’s Frankston garden shows precisely what’s possible on a suburban block

“Unleashed” is how horticulturalist Jac Semmler says she felt when, three and a half years ago, she acquired a house and began making a garden exactly as she chose. Unlike the rental properties that had gone before, there were no parameters about what she could and couldn’t do. So she did lots. She got rid of the lawn – front and back. She pulled up concrete and let rip with the planting.

She packed every space, and I mean every space, with plants. Her garden extends not just over the front, back and sides of the house but atop a driveway, up and over walls, across the front verge, in the narrow slither of earth between her side fence and the public footpath, inside every room of her, and her partner Matt’s, 1950s home.

When she opens her garden to the public this weekend with Open Gardens Victoria, the overriding message that she would like to impart is just how much it is possible for anyone to grow on a suburban block in a couple of years.

Semmler’s Frankston property measures 500 square metres and the garden takes up well over half. Semmler, who worked at the Diggers Club for more than five years and is currently working for The Plant Society, has opted for a huge array of plants, but she says less experienced growers should just plant what they love.

“That’s my best advice for anyone,” she says. “If you love sunflowers, grow lots of sunflowers. If you love roses, grow roses. Definitely consider the suitability of your position and ‘plant to place’ but, if you follow your heart, everything else just happens.”

Missteps will happen too, but that is part of the process. “Just have a crack and if you see it doesn’t work try something else,” Semmler says. “Experiment and play, visit other gardens and start to see what else you like and don’t like. Gardens are about progress, learning and change. People plant a tree and think they can’t move it but in most cases you can.”

Semmler’s own penchant is for “flowers and seasonal beauty and for there just to be no boundaries between plants and life”. She likes dynamic, highly diverse gardens with points of interest all year round.