Olphert Avenue
It’s unusual when a client wants an exclusively Australian native plant garden, and it is also a welcome request. The brief was to showcase Australia’s flora and include flowers all year round within a semi-traditional layout.
With a generous sized north-western facing block, the task of including a broad variety of interesting flowering native plants was not difficult, and indeed a pleasure.
The front garden planting design is based on kangaroo paw with red, yellow, orange and pink blooms. The supporting plants offer foliage colour and texture contrast.
Local sandstone was utilised for pathways and walls, and existing elements were left or reused to reduce waste and spending.
Garden lighting was included, ensuring the spaces come alive when the sun goes down and create an inviting entry from the street.
Attention was also paid to the upper balcony, with an array of irrigated pots providing some privacy from the street below and a green backdrop to the living spaces, with a stunning view across Sydney harbour to the bushland of the Lower North Shower beyond.
In the back garden the sloping lawn was levelled to create a flat terrace, further expanding outdoor recreation and entertaining possibilities. The client built the impressive sandstone retaining wall himself. A labour of love, he has built one of the main features of the back yard, which attractively divides the lawn and garden bed, thus defining separate spaces.
The planting design for the back garden leans more to the sub-tropical climate of Sydney, with strappy and glossy green foliage layered to provide a green backdrop to the outdoor spaces. A few deciduous exotic trees were the exception to the ‘All Aussie’ plant theme, as they allow northern winter light into the garden when they lose their leaves and provide seasonal interest in changing foliage colour.
