Dream Gardens

Dream Gardens

Premieres on Thursday February 9 at 8pm on ABC and iview

Can changing your back yard change your life? That's the question asked by Dream Gardens, an eight-part series coming to ABC TV in February. Hosted by Michael McCoy, one of Australia's leading landscape designers, each episode follows the transformation of a garden and the family behind it.

Watch as ordinary Australians battle inclement weather, absent tradies, shifting visions, budget blowouts, unforeseen obstacles and sometimes, even the designers trying to help them. All in pursuit of the perfect place to relax and feel part of nature.

Commentating on each makeover as it happens, Michael also takes time out to visit some of Australia's most spectacular gardens, looking for design inspiration, practical tips and clues about how our projects will end up.

'As a garden designer, the greatest privilege and responsibility is being invited into another's dreaming," Michael says. 'Sometimes the yearning for a beautiful, nurturing outdoor space has gone on for years and is well developed in the imagination. Sometimes it is only the seed of a vague longing. In Dream Gardens you'll see dreams articulated, modified and challenged. Then you'll see dreams fully and delightfully realised."

From the first spade hitting the ground to the incredible end result, Dream Gardens captures imaginative and challenging garden designs as they come to life. This series celebrates the great gardens of today, the best of Australian design and the spaces from which viewers can take inspiration, highlighting the lengths that people are prepared to go to, both financially and emotionally, to get their ultimate garden.

Head of ABC Entertainment Jon Casimir said:
'Dream Gardens is a simple idea with surprising depth. It follows the stories of eight families, showing us how a backyard makeover can soothe, heal, excite, and enrich us. The series, hosted by the amazing Michael McCoy, explores the design of our outdoor spaces and its effects on our hearts and minds. An internal ABC production, we're thrilled to share it".

The first episode, on Thursday February 9, follows a rural Queensland couple's journey to transform a rock hard paddock into an ambitious and extensive kitchen garden so that they can live out their '-grow it, eat it, live it" dream. The second episode, on Thursday February 16, sees Michael heading to Melbourne where a couple tries to salvage a botched nightmare, turning a hideous, unfinished concrete bunker into a designer garden oasis.