Project Type: Gardens

Red and pink roses underplanted with purple irises provide a delightful entrance to this older style Victorian look terrace home in Subiaco. This garden is cottage garden in style with a pretty courtyard out the back filled with more roses, cottage plants, succulents and a formal Japanese box hedge. We have been maintaining this garden for about six years and it always looks an absolute treat. We also take care of the home next door which is a modern terrace home offering a fully decked tropical courtyard out the back.

The design brief for this family garden was “low maintenance” all the way. The client has lived at this City Beach address for many years but undertook a massive renovation that was practically a new build and with that a new garden with modern architectural elements like the huge Dracena Draco-Dragon tree that is now a lovely feature in the front garden. One year in and the garden is thriving and provides a lush oasis for this family of four with large Magnolia Kay Parris lining the sides of the home underplanted with Lomandra Tilga and Philodnedron Xanadu providing screening from neighbours and lush green “walls” to enter the alfresco area and the swimming pool zone which is framed with Golden Cane palms and Nandina as well a tropical Cannas in planter boxes. Frangipanis and a large Triangle Palm were repurposed from the old garden and re-used in the new one.

This client wanted to update the garden surrounding their delightful Mid Century Modern home from a space where young children once played on a trampoline and a cubby house to a low maintenance garden where teenage boys would be encouraged to bring friends home and gather around the fire pit. We decided to paint a dead Jacaranda tree pink, rather than remove it. This suits the shades of pink glass across the front of the home and adds artful interest to the garden.

For the past few years I have visited Carolyn in her stunning formal garden in Floreat. I offer plant recommendations, rose pruning, pest and disease information and contact with appropriate tradespeople. This beautiful garden is largely maintained by Carolyn, a very stylish and discerning garden lover. The results are spectacular. 

The gardens that surround this new family home needed to big carefully considered due to the scale of the home. Trees have been the key to the design, creating good bones for the home. Unusual trees have been placed in the back garden and a mature Horizontal Elm which provides privacy from the next door home which sits above the clients new home. An upstairs under roof swimming pool offered an interesting design challenge as the space required screening from neighbours as well. This was achieved using semi mature Syzigium hedge plants that will be restricted in growth by the planter boxes in which they sit.  White flowering Jacarandas are an interesting feature in the front garden as well as mature frangipanis and large Capital pears. I planted three of these as sentinels representing the three children living in this family home.

The client brief for this grand scale home was to create a garden that looked well established from the get go. This was achieved by the use of fully mature trees and mass planting of under plants. A large international courtyard provided a microclimate opportunity to house large trees and some smaller specimens that one can usually only grow in the Perth Hills such as a Gingko and Japanese maples.

Subdividing a large block of land where this client had lived for 15 years previous to the bulldozer moving in, gave way to two new very modern, two storey homes. I planted out spaces in between grey paving with Lagerstroemia Natchez-the white flowering Crepe Myrtle in the front of each of the new homes to offer shade for cars on the driveway. Each of the homes has a Pametto lawn space out the back. The lawn acts as a cool foil for the alfresco spaces.

This stunning new Giorgi Exclusive Homes build has brick accents reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright designs. The home sits high upon a hill in a very windy spot with stunning a sea view which needed to be preserved and not blocked by trees. The brief was lush, low maintenance with flowing lawns. Garden beds in planter boxes created an opportunity to use colour accents like Nandina ‘Obsession’. Magnolias Teddy Bear and Philodendrun Xanadu work well planted in raised beds around the swimming pool. Ficus Pumila is used to cover a large white wall along the driveway to soften the starkness of the white. Lagertromia natchez provide graceful shade and structure along the front of the home as well a vigorous informal hedge of Viburnum Emerald Lustre which offers privacy to bedrooms along the front of the home.