Costa, of ABC gardening fame, is a much loved face of the outdoors with a very strong following and fan base.

“We are very excited to have Costa, the Greek God of Gardening and composting guru a major part of our 25th anniversary festival celebrations,” Festival of Gardens committee chair Pat Cox said.

“Costa is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable ABC Gardening host and is an enormous personality - he is fun, a little bit different and generous with his knowledge,” Councillor Cox said.

“We are really looking forward to meeting him.” 

A Sydneysider, Costa lives in Bondi, studied Landscape Architecture at UNSW and has been a gardening TV guru for many years, firstly with Costa’s Garden Odyssey on SBS and later with ABC Gardening Australia. He is also a singer/sax player in a band with mates called The More Please Orchestra and referees young people’s rugby under 19s and under 20s. 

“For me my rugby refereeing is meditation. I turn up and for that 70 or 80 minutes the world is turned off and all I’m focused on is what’s happening on the field. I find it incredibly relaxing,” Costa said.

Costa is passionate about sustainability and minimising our impact on the planet. 

“Health of environment, health of ecosystem, in fact the whole world is a garden and if we don’t look after that garden, you’re not going to have your little garden to play with because we’re messing with the joint,” he said.

A series of workshops, a school visit and opportunities to talk to Costa about gardening tips and advice are all planned for Costa while he is in Griffith for the Festival of Gardens from October 16-19.

The festival includes the popular citrus sculptures, which challenges residents to create three dimensional citrus sculptures.

The sculptures are unique to Australia, although based on the famous lemon sculptures of Menton, France. They are created using more than 100,000 oranges, rubber bands and an army of more than 700 community volunteers.