The couple who own this traditional country style home were looking to minimise the time spent on maintenance throughout their quarter acre block. After an initial consultation, we recommended that the best solution was to replace the lawn by extending the garden beds in the front yard. 

To carry out the low maintenance theme, native plants were added, complementing the existing garden. From a long term design perspective, one of the main concerns was the potential of the heavy soil holding too much water due to the sloping nature of the block (see Integral Design Elements). As construction took place during the drought, we created a design that ensured water conservation.

Integral design elements of this garden include:

  • Water collection and retainment. Swales were strategically excavated to collect any run off of rain water and helped to slow the movement of water across the garden during heavy rains. The swales were positioned to guide the water to a dry creek bed which was constructed to hold water after heavy downpours of rain.  Combining both of these elements helped solve two of the greater design issues. 
  • A copse of Eucalyptus caesia 'Silver Princess' underplanted with Festuca glauca was used as the feature piece of the garden. The planting of the Silver Princess was used as a native alternative to a Silver Birch grove. The blue hues in the grass against the trunks of the silver gums provides a beautiful contrast.
  • Permable paving was installed with the use of granitic sand allowing rainfall to be readily absorbed into the soil.
  • Features
  • Dry Creek Bed
  • Feature planting
  • Irrigation installed
  • Native Planting

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