Landscape architect Matt York of Ratio Consultants took out the 2026 Garden of the Year award at the Melbourne Flower & Garden Show with his sustainability-led garden, We The Wild.
Taking inspiration from Victoria’s Southern Coast, We the Wild delivers a small, inviting garden with a wild but calming vibe.
Matt also received the Horticultural Media Association Award for Best Use of Plant Life.
The prettiest and most robust native plants
Better Homes and Gardens’ garden editor Jenny Dillon says she loves this garden, and it was her choice to win.
“I love this garden because it creates a sense of comfort as the garden wraps itself around you. It becomes an immersive experience that deeply connects you to nature,” says Jenny.
She adds, “Shielded from the elements by a row of rugged boulders, the garden is a dense package of the prettiest and most robust of our native plants. From the low-growing yellow buttons to variegated, lilac-flowering plectranthus, guarded over by native ferns and grass trees.”
Describing the experience of moving through the space, she says, “You venture into the garden through a gap in the boulders, and it slowly rises to a level to match their height.
“While standing on the lower level, flowering plants that once brushed against your ankles or calves are now at eye level, giving you a different perspective on their appeal. And intimacy is enhanced by a plunge pool, where the plants are planted close together, again making eye contact.”
Inspired by Victoria’s Southern Coast
Matt says the Melbourne Flower & Garden Show provides an opportunity to rethink how landscape architecture responds to rapidly changing urban living.
“This space draws from the spectacular backdrops of the Victorian coastline. It applies that thinking to small garden design, bringing the richness of Gadubanud Country into the heart of the city. Though compact, it’s designed to feel expansive yet intimate, like the coastlines many Victorians know deeply, proving that ecological richness and a sense of wildness can be achieved at any scale.
“In a growing city like Melbourne, where open space is under pressure, every piece of green space needs to perform. But good design can also restore our emotional connection to the natural world, showing how even a modest garden can support biodiversity, cooling and community wellbeing.”
Watch the garden come to life in the video below.
Last year’s winner
Rob Cooper of Distinctive Gardens has won the 2025 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show’s ‘City of Melbourne Award of Excellence/Best in Show’ for his garden, əskāp, which also took out the Horticultural Media Association Award for Best Use of Plant Life.
Ecstatic and exhausted at the same time, Rob hopes his win will help the movement to more organic gardens, featuring the incredibly unique qualities of Australian plants.
Rob’s garden əskāp is both welcoming and intriguing. It’s lush and colourful with a seamless combination of sleek, contemporary structures and the wild, uninhibited behaviour of native plants. Mass plantings of vibrantly yellow-orange banksia ‘Little Candles’ sweep along the front, interrupted by the startling installations of mallee root art, a rugged sculptural component that is organic as well.
