Costa Georgiadis captivated crowds at the bi-annual Kandos Gardens Fair on Saturday where he encouraged visitors to embrace their local community and its landscapes.
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The landscape architect and presenter of the ABC’s Gardening Australia program was joined by special guests The Land gardening journalist, Fiona Ogilvie and wild food forager, Diego Bonetto for the event that showcased 12 open gardens in and around Rylstone and Kandos over the weekend.
Costa said he was excited to see market stalls that brought together Landcare groups, seed suppliers, crafts groups and nurseries, to share ideas, produce, arts and crafts from the immediate area.
“As an outsider I don’t have to search for pulse there’s pulse here and the pulse is the passion,” he said.
“I don’t come here because I prescriptively have to go to a garden – I’m coming to a community.”
Ahead of the event he was given a tour of the town and its industrial history and was heartened to see the see re-imagination of industrial equipment into art structures and re-purposing of old buildings.
“When you talk about growing food and food for thought and food for change, Kandos is at an incredible lookout where it can say we were born out of that era and that industrial perspective - let’s put a whole new one out now,” he said.
“Let’s value our land, let’s value our agriculture, let’s value our arts, let’s value the history and represent that history and make that history significant but chart a course and says these landscapes are internationally significant and we need to value that and be nurturing a whole new industry around that.”
No stranger to the area, Costa revealed he took his first steps at his Godfather’s property in the Bylong Valley.
“That’s a really special place for me,” he said.
“I spent a lot of weekends and school holidays up there when I was little and that, probably along with my grandfather, those first steps on the land I think that put a blueprint down which is why I am so into farming and land and landscape.
“I was gutted when the property was sold back in to the 70s because I was getting to the age where I could start to ride horses and go out and explore further than the farmhouse paddocks. It’s such a valuable valley, this whole area has such food security value to those living just over the sandstone curtain and I really see the future of food and the food bowl potential of this area is enormous. And the fact there’s five valleys here and these landscapes, it’s special.”