Forward thinking,
beautiful buildings.

This garden won its category in the 2016 Landscape Queensland Awards. The owner had a large fairly bland back garden, but it did have a wonderful established persimmon tree. They had many much loved but not thriving azaleas and camellias that were to be incorporated in the new design. Using sandstone from Helidon, I added paths and walls to create interesting shapes and levels and gardens within gardens to use all those camellias and azaleas amongst other ‘olde world’ plantings that work with the 1920’s home.

I was so lucky to be invited to design the landscape for this wonderful property. The owners knew the site well and how they wanted to use it. Working with Derek Trebilcock and Associates Architects, I needed to incorporate level open space for a marquee, but also deal with significant overland water flow. To that end we built a swale leading to a ‘creek’ that collects and filters the water, before it overflows over a set of old brick stairs (built by the former owner of the property some 50 years ago) and down to the river. This creek and pond are a triumph. Another pressing matter was to provide screening for the neighbour. I like to use a variety of narrow habit trees for boundary screening. It is much less maintenance than a hedge but also much better for plant health and so much more interesting to look at!

The entry for this house afforded no privacy or security. It needed added height and screening without adding more visual weight to an already imposing block wall. To do that I used a recycled steel mesh screen and specified carefully trained stephanotis, which provides a scented green screen and an interesting artistic addition to the now black coloured wall. A new entry and gate were designed to match.

Another steep site, this time with narrow access each side of the new house. The lower level back garden needed to deal with occasional overland water so I designed recycled railway sleeper paths laid on drainage gravel and chose planting that is happy with occasional wet feet. The sub-tropical planting for the southern side of the house is lush and cool.