floating bench seating area
When Emma and Andrew decided to build a contemporary new extension to their home, our brief was for a private, calm, lush garden that had to be appealing to the whole family with subtlety designated zones for adults to gather and relax and the kids to play, as well as being practical. Plants were to provide fragrance, shade and seasonal colour.

Here’s the garden 4 weeks after planting. We’ll update with more images as the garden matures.

A wide deck that houses a large dining table and BBQ opens to a lawn to keep the kids entertained and out of mischief, framed by 2 Magnolia ‘Little Gems’. Curved steel garden beds soften the rectangular space as it leads down to a seating area with floating spotted gum benches, surrounded by a mixture of white flowering plants and trees (Jasmine, Gardenia, Crepe Myrtles and some borrowed landscaping from the rear neighbours huge Frangipani) that will provide scent and dappled shade over the area in Summer whilst allowing the Winter sun to be enjoyed. The largest seat was designed to be generous in width and depth to double up as a day bed.

Inevitable family practicalities such as a fold out washing line and ‘his and her’ sheds will be screened and obscured from the gardens view points over time by Viburnum and the Magnolia’s, whilst the boundary fences will be blurred with more Viburnum, Gardenia and Quondong shrubs and hedging.

With Emma saying the garden is her favourite part of the whole renovation we couldn’t be happier and know we’ve done our job – especially as the house extension is out of this world.