100 Years Of Dirt

In the garden, Costa Georgiadis believes in harmony and balance, and the interconnectedness of all life. As he tells Genevieve Gannon, the same is true of human relationships.

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Costa Georgiadis is sitting in a patch of sunlight, gazing out at the glimmering water of Vaucluse Bay and drawing patterns in the sky with his hand. He’s describing flying over the Opera House and the yellow sand that runs the length of the NSW coast when his father was a surf patrol pilot, and he would tag along. On Saturday mornings, before the sun was up, the Georgiadis house in North Bondi would stir to life.

“Dad woke me up so many mornings at a quarter to six,” Costa says. He drops his voice: “What are you doing?” “What do you think I’m doing?” He says in the voice of a grouchy teen.

“Do you want to come up in the plane?” “No.” “Okay. See you downstairs in 10 minutes.” Father and son would fly from Palm Beach to Wollongong at 500 feet, searching for sharks. Costa, the reluctant co-pilot, was prone to motion sickness. “If it was a rough one, I’d get crook,” he says. But nothing could dampen his father’s enthusiasm. “We’re going to fly up over your sister’s place and do circles over it until she comes out,” Stan Georgiadis would tell his youngest son.

“Back in those days, we used to be able to fly in here and do circles above the [Harbour] bridge and the Opera House at 500 feet,” Costa says. “Now, you can’t even get a drone in there.”

There’s a tinge of nostalgia in his voice. “Now, there’s a lot of palaver,” he says. “In a strange, throw-away way, that was another discipline that was foisted on me: having to get up,” he laughs. Australia’s most famous gardener goes on to tell other stories of involuntary, childhood servitude, like volunteering at the local RSL. He’s in a reflective mood as he prepares to shoot the 30th anniversary special of