Festival Highlights
Saturday 31st October and Sunday 1st November​
Two Special Guests have been confirmed.
Hannah Moloney
Appearing Saturday
Hannah Moloney is a permaculture educator, sustainability advocate, and presenter on Gardening Australia. She works to help people grow food, care for land, and build resilient communities through practical gardening and regenerative living.
Hannah Moloney grew up on a verdant herb nursery in inner city Meanjin/Brisbane which equipped her with a plethora of practical skills and the knowledge that you can garden and farm pretty much anywhere. Over the past 20+ years, she’s worked across Australia on organic farms, permaculture projects and urban agriculture initiatives that grow food and grow community. Hannah is passionate about gardening and land management as a way to help create a healthy future for all. In 2015, she was awarded the Tasmanian ‘Young Landcare Leader Award’ and is an ambassador for Community Gardens Australia. She first appeared on Gardening Australia as a guest presenter in 2019 and never left! Hannah is a regular contributor to the Gardening Australia Magazine and is a bestselling author of The Good Life: How to Grow a Better World.
Jerry Coleby-Williams
Appearing Sunday​
Internationally Renowned Horticulturist, Pioneer of Sustainability and Organic Best Practice One of Australia’s most well-known, most highly qualified and most respected gardening experts. With a career defined by a deep commitment to conservation, sustainability, and education, Jerry continues to inspire and engage audiences worldwide, making him one of Australia’s most sought-after horticultural speakers.
Initially trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK) and the Royal Horticultural Society (UK), Jerry is qualified in horticultural estate management, soft landscape design, arboriculture, conservation, horticultural and botanical sciences. Jerry has managed plant production nurseries, urban forests, heritage parks, one of London’s busiest garden centres, and he helped establish Mt Annan Native Botanic Garden (NSW, 1986). For twelve years, Jerry managed the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. His design of the Rare & Threatened Plants Garden (1998) launched a career in radio, television, magazine writing and public speaking. Jerry is a familiar voice and face to most gardeners having appeared on ABC Radio Talkback Gardening in NSW and QLD since 1995 and is currently ABC Television’s ‘Gardening Australia’ programme’s longest serving presenter (1999 – present).
Festival Program
The Festival Timetable has an exciting lineup featuring live music, entertainers, interactive workshops, and inspiring guest speakers—something for everyone to enjoy!​
Saturday 31st October, 2026
Sunday 1st November, 2026
Download a pdf version of Saturday's Festival Program here:
Download a pdf version of Sunday's Festival Program here:
Workshop Details
Saturday
Designing Your Garden: Where do you start?
Saturday 10 am - Rm2 Upstairs Members Stand
Presenter: Jane Gilpin
Not sure where to begin with your garden? This friendly, interactive workshop will guide you through the important first stage of garden design: understanding the site, deciding what the garden needs to provide and arranging the main spaces.Using graph paper and tracing paper, participants will develop a scaled, simple concept design for a garden plan provided during the workshop. Alternatively, you are welcome to bring along a plan, survey or aerial image of your own garden printed to size A2, and work over it using the tracing paper provided. It should clearly show the house, property boundaries and any major existing features. This workshop focuses on the overall layout and structure of the garden; (plant selection and planting design will not be covered). No drawing experience is needed.
Jane is passionate about her landscape design practice, offering bespoke consultancy and garden design services to create beautiful, functional, and sustainable outdoor environments that reflect your unique vision and enhance your lifestyle.
Cuttings from Natives
Saturday 10.15 am – Upstairs Grandstand
Presenter: Sabnam Tamang​
Sabnam is the ATG nursery team leader and is an amazing horticulturalist, having worked in this field for the last five years. She has an amazing knowledge of native plants. Sabnam has a Masters Degree in Agriculture.
Composting: Turn Your Kitchen Waste Into Garden Gold
Saturday 11.00am – Members Stand
Gardening Australia Presenter – Hannah Moloney
Come and learn how to turn your kitchen waste into garden gold - all to build soil health so you can use the land you have to grow some of the food you need! Hannah will discuss home composting options and also a range of soil remediation techniques to get your gardens growing!
Fermenting Vegetables​
Saturday 1.30 pm, Rm 2
Upstairs Members Stand
Presenter: Associate Professor Gal Winter ​
Wondering what to do when you find yourself with more garden vegetables than you can handle?
Join Associate Professor Gal Winter (UNE Nutrition, Gal’s Kitchen Culture) for an engaging workshop that reveals the simple science of fermentation and learn how to transform your harvest into delicious, probiotic-rich pantry staples, including live demonstrations and samples to taste. ​
Associate Prof. Gal Winter, a registered nutritionist, is the Discipline Convenor of Biomedical Science at the University of New England. A dynamic academic leader, her work translates complex microbial ecology into tangible public health outcomes through education. This passion for accessible, evidence-based science is the driving force behind her community outreach program, “Gal’s Kitchen Culture”, which teaches the art of fermentation and healthy eating.
Growing Peonies
Saturday 3.00 pm – Upstairs Members Stand
Presenter - Barry Philps
Barry Philps grows a range of magnificent peonies on his farm just outside Armidale.
Barry will talk about different types of peonies, and teach you how to bring your peonies to full bloom and to care for them throughout the year.
Four Gardening Australia presenters
Q and A
Saturday 3.45pm - On the Stage, 4 Presenters, including Hannah Moloney and Jerry Coleby -Williams
​
What will they talk about? They are sure to surprise!
Sunday
Grafting Grevilleas, Banksias and other natives
Saturday 12.30pm – Rm2 Upstairs Members Stand
Presenters: Maria Hitchcock & Keith Finlayson
​
Many gardeners are keen to grow those wonderful Grevilleas and brightly coloured WA Banksias in their gardens but find the specific soil requirements of these species often lead to failure. Maria and Keith from the Grafting Study Group will demonstrate how to successfully graft these species onto East Coast varieties to overcome any soil problems.
​
Maria Hitchcock is Leader of the Grafting Study Group in Australia, an ABC Saturday gardening presenter, Life member of the Australian Plants Society and author of ‘Correas’, ‘A Celebration of Wattle’ and ‘Australian Bush Foods for the home cook’. She is newsletter editor for the Australian Garden History Society and is a member of their National Committee.
​
Keith Finlayson is a member of the Grafting Study Group and the Australian Plants Society. Keith is a very experienced grafting expert and has an outstanding native garden with over 80 grafted plants. The garden is open to the public from time to time.
Rose Pruning and Care
Sunday 10am - Upstairs Grandstand
Presenter - Jude Costello
​
Jude will demonstrate the key aspects of pruning your roses to produce a flurry of blooms the next year. Jude will advise on the best way to tackle those pests and diseases, and limit the harm to beneficial insects.
Increasing Productivity - Vegetable seed saving, propagation and generation, and Best Practices for cold climate gardens
​
Sunday 11.00 am – Upstairs Members Stand
Gardening Australia Presenter: Jerry Coleby-Williams
Jerry will provide guidance on how to increase the productivity of your vegetable garden. This can be achieved by saving the seed of your favourite vegetables and generating them for the new season. Some vegetables can also be propagated.
Jerry will address how climate change has impacted on food production in cold climate gardens and point to best practices for sustainably producing healthy plants and delicious vegetables.
Making a Bokashi Bin
Sunday 12.45 pm– Upstairs Grandstand
Presenter: Berdine Warne
​
Reduce waste, nourish your plants, and enjoy a sustainable way to compost—from kitchen to garden!
The Bokashi bin is ideal for families or those who enjoy cooking and create a lot of food waste. Learn how to make the micro-organisms that ferment the compost. This compact system is perfect for small kitchens and allows you to ferment food scraps quickly without odour or mess.
Take the pre-compost ferment mix home to enrich your kitchen compost bin, garden soil or feed your compost pile.
Bees and Pollinators - Attracting and conserving them in your garden​
Sunday 12.45.pm – Rm2 Upstairs, Members Stand
Presenter: Dr Carolyn Sonter​
This workshop will discuss the ecology of European bees and native bees in your garden. You will learn how to attract bees and pollinators and the plants they love. Carolyn will also discuss how to conserve bees during cold and hot periods during the year. Dr Carolyn Sonter is a commercial beekeeper and the Secretary and Biosecurity Officer of New England Amateur Beekeepers Australia. Carolyn also works at the University of New England in pollination research and is currently involved in 'flies as alternate pollinators' project.
Nursery Tours
Armidale Tree Group Nursery Tour
Sunday 1pm at 80 Mann St, Armidale
Presenter: Richard Bell
Tour of the Armidale Tree Group Nursery 80 Mann St Armidale.
The Armidale Tree Group Nursery is a not-for-profit community nursery that has been growing native trees and shrubs for over 43 years and is run by staff and volunteers. The nursery grows and provides a service to plant wholesale trees for farms as well as garden retail plants.
Richard Bell is currently employed as the Office Coordinator of the Armidale Tree Group, having worked in propagation and environmental services over the past four years.
Cedar Nursery + Design Tour – Behind the Scenes
Sunday 2.30 pm - 21 Kentucky St, Armidale
Presenter: Nellie Hayes
​
Cedar Nursery + Design started as a growing nursery progressing to a retail nursery in Armidale NSW in 2011. We have been at our current location, 21 Kentucky St Armidale for 13 years, offering variety and quantities, including trees, roses, perennials, and hedging. We take pride in propagating, stocking and knowing cold hardy plants suitable for New England. Come to our tour ‘Behind the Scenes’ in the growing nursery on Sunday.
Music at the Festival
NEGF has turned up the music at the festival this year with your favourite local musicians appearing at the festival.
Rocky Bottom Girls
(Scheduled Saturday morning)
A five-piece folk-alt-country band, with soaring vocal harmonies for fiddle, mandolin & banjo tunes.
Terra Firma
(Scheduled Saturday afternoon)
​
Terra Firma is based in Armidale, NSW and have gained notoriety regionally and at major music festivals with a unique sound of country, rock, reggae and blues. The band performs a wide variety of cover songs as well as their own songs. Members are Anthony Green and Matt Griffin on guitar and vocals, Richard Lockwood on drums and Tony Green on bass guitar. The band has been performing together for around 20 years entertaining crowds of all ages.
MC & The Squares
(Scheduled Saturday afternoon)
MC & The Squares is a collective of Armidale musicians from various musical backgrounds brought together to bring to life songs by Mark Cooper- stories spun from small-town life, love, post-teenage angst and mobile phones without forgetting the big world out there.
​
Joining Mark (guitar, vocals and the occasional harmonica), are Craig Johnson on bass and vocals, Dave Carr on pipes and wind things, and Jess Stocker on snare and cajon.
Come and listen to their unique sound and all original tunes at the New England Garden Festival.
Chilli Jam
(Scheduled Sunday morning)
Chilli Jam offers energetic and entertaining music.
Chilli Jam are a 3-piece band of experienced performers, who are known for their feel-good music and varied genre of songs including rock, blues, jazz, world and original pieces. They feedback on how appreciative people are for the variety and fun energy transfers in the delivery of the performance.
The core of Chilli Jam are Gary Daly, Massiel Barros-Torning and Mick Houlahan.
They performed for the New England Garden Festival in 2023 and regularly perform in Armidale, Uralla, Wollomombi, Ebor, Woolgoolga, Moonbi, Walcha and Kentucky. Over the past 12 months, Chilli Jam Band have been working with three independent local First Nations musicians to create a unique experience and combine our love for music to bring a unique opportunity to the 2025 Garden Festival.
​​Never the same experience twice!
The energy of Chilli Jam is contagious and fun. It’s always wonderful to see that people start to tap their toes and sing during their performances.
Goldheist
(Scheduled Sunday afternoon)
GOLDHEIST, known off-stage as Hester Fraser, is a flower-crowned Australian artist whose piano-based songwriting is a potent blend of storytelling and poetry, with ethereal melodies deeply rooted in the landscape. Her sound, likened to luminaries such as Kate Bush and Kate Miller-Heidke, features lyrical narratives and themes of social justice, creating vivid accounts of the human experience with charming humour and a sprinkle of sequins.
​
“Listening to GOLDHEIST makes me feel like I just walked through a gallery of amazing impressionist paintings and all the colours attached themselves to me...”
Memphis Movers
Your favourite Roving Troubadours and comedians are back with their miniature cars and outlandish behaviour.
The question is: Who let them in?
