Landscape design and construction – Brunswick East project

Original render of rear garden

Garden just completed above of a recently completed garden was built by Josh Norman Landscapes. The garden was created unusually for a very horticultural family. The clients are passionate gardeners and plant enthusiasts.
They had bought a farm in central Victoria a few years ago and were spending much of their time creating gardens themselves out there. This has taken the pressure off the city garden to fulfill everything for them.

With children now growing up they came to me to radically rethink the garden in the city. Although the garden was fairly established it was never irrigated and was built bit by bit over time and lacked an overall cohesive vision. They wanted a pool that didn’t dominate the garden, this was the starting point for the new garden design.

New pool, just filled, timber bench in pool zone, custom raw edge pool coping in Castlemaine Slate.

The house was originally a single brick with a garage. They engaged Breathe Architecture years before to upgrade the site. The building was clad in timber and insulated, the garage became a studio for guests and a pergola was added at the back. The house was to be based on passive solar principles theoretically reducing the need for air conditioning and excessive power consumption.

The pergola was retained, modified, and incorporated into the new garden design. Timber battens were removed and re-used in the front fence as well as a plexiglass roof. Plants were re-thought to avoid possum consumption which radically hindered any previous attempts to cover the pergola in foliage. The clients loved a previous garden in Northcote I had done and wanted the brief loosely based on this project. Having known the clients for over 20 years meant that there was a huge amount of trust throughout the process which contributed to the success of the garden.

A new outdoor kitchen was added with storage for a pizza oven at the deck extension. Archer mesh above to hold Parthenocissus screening to hide the neighbours. Batten benches and screens were added to match the deck over time.Perennial planting is to be viewed from inside and from the deck. You would walk through this to get to the pool area. A Golden Rain tree was added close to the house to provide a canopy over time and reduce intense morning sun to the rear window. Castlemaine slate was added to blend with the brown/grey tones of the house. This made permeable and rigid paving as well as custom pool coping with a natural internal ede. This gave the impression of the pool being clad entirely in stone like an older Edna Walling Pond. Everything that was removed from the garden was recycled with bluestone pitchers and crazy paving to local garden groups, plants, steel and additional building materials to the farm. What went back in was mostly sourced locally except for the gridded permeable concrete driveway.

Plant set-out rear in the rear perennial garden, custom steel pool fence & pool behind

Front entrance before

Front entrance after

The front fence was modified to incorporate a new pedestrian gate and automated vehicular access. This was made extra wide for bike access to the rear bike store. Photographed just after completion, looking forward to seeing it develop over time!