Going Place Magazine, October 2000

Horti-Couture
WENDY MOORE MEETS MADE WIJAYA, THE WORLD-FRAMED GURU OF TROPICAL GARDENING, WHO’S BRINGING HIS MASTERY TO MALAYSIAN GARDENS

Photographs Radin Mohd Noh Saleh

FLAMBOYANT, FERVENT, FEUDAL – THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF ADJECTIVES that first spring to mind when I’m confronted by Made Wijaya, aka Michael S White, the Aussie-born, long-time Bali-resident, who virtually single-handedly create what is now universally known as “Bali-style”.

With imagination, passion and hard work, he reinvented the tropical garden giving it the “artful naturalism” that is his trademark. Made (pronounced “ma-day”), with characteristic aplomb, dubs it the “edge of fecundity”, that delicate balance between nature and man-made. With over 400 tropical gardens under his management, it is obvious that he has found a winning formula.

By all accounts, his is a remarkable tale, but then Made is a most unusual character. It reads like a classic “rags to riches” novel. In 1974, Aussie architecture student jumps boat in Bali, falls in love with the place, adopts a local family, takes a Balinese name, teaches English, coaches tennis, write a column, dreams of becoming a Balinese dancer, starts up a garden company with a local rice farmer, and begins transforming Bali gardens.

The turning point came when he landed the commission to create the gardens for the Oberoi Hotel (then the Kaya Ayu). It was a meteoric rise to stardom from then on with commissions from Bali Hyatt, Amandari, Four Seasons Resort Jimbaran and hundreds of gardens world-wide including David Bowie’s estate on Mustique.

One of his hallmarks is poetic water gardens where he uses decorative water spouts to create different moods, or ‘collections’

After 25 years of inventing tropical gardens he is as enthusiastic as ever as he talks about his foray into Malaysia, where this self-made landscape architect and designer is creating “a more sophisticated Asian garden. Not necessarily Balinese, but more Modern Tropical or Islamic Tropical”.

Hard to tell how old he is when I meet him at his Singapore outlet, Pacific Nature. Blond, baby-faced, wearing a loud, Mambo Hawaiian shirt scattered with one of his favorite tropical blooms – the hibiscus – Made is in form. He’s just retuned from Morocco where he checked out the new Amanjena. What did he think about the garden? “Too safe”. And he made a pit stop in Delhi where he discovered a wonderful orange floral sari that he throws in the air with glee. He’s going to turn it into a lampshade, a new product for his Wijaya Classics range of outdoor lamps. That’s Made. It’s not enough that he’s a world-famous gardener. He’s also a photographer, writer, publisher, lecturer and raconteur par excellence.

But his gardens are his forte. Each is different and each has its own personality – what he calls his “collections”. “It’s horti-couture, a bit like a dress designer but I design gardens”. He confesses that “Through travel, through reading, you get inspirations, you get on a sort of kick. It can be the ‘Blue Period’, the ‘Morocco Period’, the ‘Russian Peasant’ period. Every six months I tend to have a shift – not in my design philosophy – but in the style. So I find it so offensive when clients at their first meeting say ‘We don’t want a Balinese garden’, as if that’s all you can do. So the thing that’s called the Balinese garden is really the ‘Wijaya garden style’, but the collections are the different seasons in a way”.

It prompts me to ask Made what season he is in now? The reply is typically Made: “Definitely the ‘blue’ period. ‘Tired-old-blonde period’. ‘Going-back-to-being-a-tennis-coach period’. And, then he laughs his deep belly laugh. His humor is often disquieting. But then he didn’t get where he is by being shy and humble.

A Hindu-style spout creates a Balinese mood in his Singapore garden showroom, while at the Azizan House in Kuala Lumpur, a pedestal fountain is the focal point of a Moroccan-Tropical courtyard.

The way Made works is unusual to say the least. “Feudal” he calls it – in fun – but it’s actually the “family” style he’s developed in Bali, nicknamed “commando style. “The Balinese can build pavilions, they can carve, they can build beautiful garden walls, they are my commandos, so I bring them into Malaysia. That’s the feudal overlord thing, but learning the logistics of running big groups of people, like doing big gardens, you have to have attitude, but you also have to have largesse, that big-ness of spirit to make it all happen”.

I’m introduced to Chang Huai-Yan, one of his protégés, an architecture student from Malaysia who illustrated his recently published retrospective, Tropical Garden Design.
“He worked with me for three years on this book. His beautiful illustrations add a real Asian touch. We’ve had a good collaboration”, adds Made.

Looking through the book he spies a Javanese courtyard. “This is what I’m introducing to Malaysia – a sort of Islamic tradition with a fountain”. He admits each country’s different, In Malaysia he’s introducing Moroccan and European styles: “Because Malaysians can relate to the formal English thing and the Islamic style”.

Even small areas can be transformed into evocative tropical gardens. At the Azizan House, a custom-made mosaic pedestal pond takes centre stage between potted palms.

Later, in Kuala Lumpur, I see what he means at the superb Azizan House. The owners admit that their garden “makes the house what it is”. Outside it’s just another KL streetscape, inside the Spanish-styled, courtyard house it’s another world. Made’s signature courtyard invite the garden into the house, and the owners were encouraged to be daring. For example, they admit they would never have chosen coral trees to overhang the pool, but they are thrilled the he them into it.

It’s been said that ”Theatrical Nature” is Made’s middle name. And he’s not adverse to admitting that Malaysian gardens are often lacking charm or character. “They are either over-the-top, frilly, “Melayu-a-go-go”, that sort of kitsch thing, or they are bloodless, you know that Californian commercial look”.

Coral trees overhang the courtyard pool

We talk about the way gardening is taking off in Malaysia. “It’s the idea of the alfresco lifestyle. It’s getting out of the air-conditioning. Malaysians are going back to nature”.
Made doesn’t use expensive plants but rather everyday ones. It’s the way he puts them together that is different. Even the ubiquitous oil palm he calls “the king of palms”. But he admits that “people have psychological problems with some trees, especially the Plumeria (frangipani}, which in Southeast Asia is associated with graveyards”.
Made as usual has a theory on this: “One of the problems was that the ancient Thai word for ‘misfortune’ was similar to the word for Plumeria. The other reason is that the Hindu favoured it because its yellow and white flowers are the colors of Shiva. They planted it in temple grounds, many of which later became graveyards. The temples fell into ruins and the Plumeria stayed”.
Many of his pet theories are outlined in his gardening book, where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about tropical gardening. Especially how to DIY. A subject that Made is especially intense about. “I’m all for people doing it themselves. Often we introduce people to the world of plants and the life of a garden lover”.
But he admits that it takes work, and that people these days have “forgotten about the joy of maintenance. It’s almost like you’re part midwife, part sculptor, part architect, part engineer, you’re handing over a living thing to someone and they have to take care of it and love it and nurture it”.
Tropical gardens may be beautiful to look at, but maintenance certainly plays a huge role. Made’s oft-quoted “edge of fecundity” is hard work. “You have to cut back a lot to reach that edge”, he insists. “If it goes beyond the edge it becomes messy. In most tropical cultures, particularly Bangkok, they cut right back and go for dwarf and bonsai, because they’re terrified of all the mould that comes in a disorderly tropical garden. But the English, particularly, go berserk when they see me wading through a tropical garden with a machete and a chain saw. But you need to open great holes for the air and the light. We can’t do that wild, bushy English-Australian thing here because the insects take over. Things rot if they don’t get enough air and light”.

So, after creating hundreds of gardens world-wide is Made running out of inspiration?. No way. He’s still on the boil. He’s looking around for the perfect site for a garden showroom in Kuala Lumpur to add to those in Bali, Jakarta and Singapore. And, meanwhile he brings his inspiration and exuberance to garden projects from Cairo to Miami.
As we part he’s still musing: “I’d like people to be more adventurous. I’d like to do ginger gardens or an all green flower garden”. Other people call them moods, but with Made this sounds like another “style” coming on. Next time we meet no doubt the “Blue Period” will be eclipsed by his latest “collection” or “season”. I’ve just thought up another middle name for him – Made “Man for all seasons” Wijaya.