Community & Business
11 August, 2026
Foliage and fauna, a champion combo
AFTER 31 years, you get to know a property, not just its flora, but its feel, its aspects, its special moments.
For Kuranda resident Roger Smith, this year’s overall winner of the 2026 Mareeba & District Lions Garden Awards, these are the rewards of spending time and thought into creating a landscape.
“My favourite aspects of the garden, where I like to view when I walk around, there’s a particular view through a kind of a vista, that includes different textures of foliage, and different layers of foliage,” he said.
“This particular (place) has Grass trees in it, which are the feature, I think, but then you look through and past them ... and then you see different textures, and different colours and different heights.
“And it just keeps going up and up and up and goes outside the garden and up the mountain behind it, and I just have to stop there, and gaze at it and think how lovely that is.”
When he first moved to the property, an acre in size and sloping - which “makes it seem bigger when you are walking uphill!” – Mr Smith had to make a few tough decisions.
“It was planted quite nicely, and it was mainly natives, which was what I’m interested in,” he said.
“But there were large trees planted right close to the house, which I didn’t like; I like airflow and sunshine. So unfortunately, those lovely big trees had to go. It was one of the first things that I did.
“And then just over the years it’s evolved, as gardens do, and probably in the last 15 years I’ve been able to spend time and concentrate more on developing the garden to how I would like it.”
This journey has also brought another delight: the wildlife.
“It’s a bit of a corridor,” he explained.
A large, unfenced property across the road lends itself to attracting the local wildlife and because Mr Smith also has no fences, unlike all the other neighbouring properties, the wildlife often comes through his garden.
The properties flow into a gully, which then goes into Warrell Creek, which then goes into the Barron River, so it is “all connected with the native regrowth forests”.
“The wallabies and the pademelons, and the curlews, and the critters that just live here and pass through and hang out in the garden, just give me so much joy,” he said.
Another favourite space can be viewed from his verandah.
“When I’m on my verandah and look down into the garden into the canopy of my feature tree, it’s just lovely,” he said.
“It’s a Melicope elleryana (Pink Euodia); it’s the host of the Ulysses Butterfly. And the life that is in that tree is just phenomenal.”
Categories and winners
TCB Landscape Joy Paterson Champion Garden Award:
Roger Smith, Kuranda
Australian Native Garden:
1st Roger Smith, Kuranda
2nd Amanda & Andrew McCulloch, Mareeba
Residential Garden:
1st Jaqueline Boneham, Mareeba
2nd Maria Savaglio, Mareeba
Rural Residential Garden:
1st Kathy & John Edwards, Kuranda
2nd Frank & Wendy Vittori, Mareeba
Patio Living:
1st Antonio Gava, Mareeba
2nd Dorothy Robinson, Chillagoe
Edible Garden:
1st George Wallace, Mareeba
2nd Frank & Wendy Vittori, Mareeba
Commercial Garden:
1st Mareeba Chamber of Commerce
School Garden:
1st Mt Molloy State School
2nd Mutchilba State School
Encouragement Awards:
Janice Adil, Mareeba
Rita Compton, Mt Molloy
