In the artist's garden
In the artist’s garden
I had worked with this client previously on a couple of projects and she enlisted me again to help renovate the garden of her city house. The confined, enclosed garden sits at the rear of a sizeable old terrace house, facing north.
A prolific creative artist, my client is deeply inspired by the natural world and loves seeing various textures and strong forms of foliage and flowers all coming together. Her work is whimsical, psychedelic and sensuous; her paintings are full of wonderful detail, with copious layers of paint on the canvas. I wanted to reflect this feeling of fullness in the garden.
There wasn’t a formal brief from the client, as such, and much of this project was done on trust.
The rear of the garden receives sun all day, while the areas closer to the house are protected under a canopy of trees and in deeper shade. This variety of aspects inspired me to play with a generous pallet of plants within the same space; indeed there is a lot of plant variety in the garden, again bringing a feeling of abundance and fullness.
When thinking of a new flooring material for the garden, it was hard to look beyond Sydney sandstone. While the house is more than a century old, the interiors looking on to the space are contemporary with a mid-century vibe. We opted for a complementary style, using large pieces of stone that were cracked on site and laid in a tight crazy-paving style.
The stone sits effortlessly in the space. Older, reclaimed stone, which is full of character and beautiful markings from another life, was used to retain the garden bed along the boundary. The client requested an outdoor shower, so we installed a handsome copper unit back towards the house, enabling a soak in the middle of the garden.
The existing plants consisted of striking cacti and succulents, as well as more traditional citrus, orchids and other ornamentals. There was no intrinsic design in the existing planting — it was more a collection of specimens that grew in a community together.
Some we left where they were and some we transplanted to other areas to bring a little more cohesion. We wanted to introduce native grasses to soften these strong forms, and to introduce some whimsy and movement in among the more rigid cacti and succulents. We also introduced old man banksia — I love its somewhat unpredictable form with textured trunks.
Banksia would have originally been growing here in the bush before the suburb was developed more than 200 years ago. The native canopy of trees running down the side boundary back towards the house includes bottlebrush, lilly pilly and a mature cabbage tree palm, which gives protection from the hot sun.
Under this canopy, we introduced combinations of shade-loving plants with larger, more primitive leaves, which enjoy more reliable moisture. Grouping plants that have the same soil moisture requirements is one way to ensure plant health.
We placed staghorn ferns on branches up high and massed fishbone water fern and prickly rasp fern down below and around the shower. The large philodendron leaves complete the rainforest vibe and pots of fiddle leaf figs provide a secondary canopy.
Two striking pieces of the client’s work sit in the garden. Finished in polished brass, the sculptures bring their own dreamy form and sense of magic into the space. I love how effortlessly they sit among the dramatic elements of foliage, and the striking contrast of the polished brass with the earthiness of the sandstone.
The garden celebrates the unique, enchanting textures of nature and I appreciate how much is packed into this relatively small space. With its myriad layers of strong forms all mixed in together, the garden has the potential to prove overpowering to the eye, but instead it is superbly chaotic.
The consistent negative space of the flooring helps to tie all the elements together and allows the planting to do its thing. This garden imbues the wild, uncontained ethos of natural gardening. The ethereal space is stimulating as well as a great place to unwind from the stresses of city life.
Richard Unsworth is a Paddington-based garden designer.
This is an edited extract from The Natural Gardener by Richard Unsworth (Thames & Hudson, $60).