When clients come to us looking for help with their gardens they usually ask us to take care of everything from design, construction, sourcing of products through to managing the entire build. This was not the case with our Essendon clients who were very keen to put their own stamp on the re-design, managing everything but the garden design themselves. Not something we normally recommend doing but in this case it worked well.
Our clients, an active family of four, asked us to design both the front and back garden of their contemporary home in Essendon. Adding a pool to their large back area was their initial reasoning for a garden make-over, with the brief growing to include adding a space for 2 cars to be undercover as well as an entertainment area to the rear of the home.
The style of a home very much dictates the style of the garden we choose to design, so a modern architectural style was reflected in the design.
Long clean steps were designed to lead through to the pool and back garden – broken up by exposed concrete blocks to create depth and give the garden dimension. The sheer size of the rear landscape also allowed us the fortune of being able to position the pool in any direction we determined best – choosing to run across the back of the home. For small areas this can divide the land and make it look smaller than it is, however in this case the property was deep enough to have good grass area beside the pool to ensure it worked well.
Maple trees, star jasmine and Chinese Pistachio trees (Pistacia chinensis) were some of the plants chosen in our design to give height, colour, scent and texture to this modern garden.
The architecture of the home also dictated which products we recommended for hard surface finishes. The existing merbau decking was offset by our choice of Bluestone paving and Nurten mix (by Mentone Mini Mix) concrete.
As you can see by the images below, this garden came together beautifully – we believe that its success is largely due to its balance, having the right size and proportions with both hardscaping and planting.
Design by – Ian Barker Gardens
Landscape by – Apex Landscapes
Pool by – Enkipools
Photography by – Erik Holt
