Rick Molino, Brighton East

Jenny’s Garden

Gardens can be a lot like your fashion wardrobe or cherished record collection, each piece highlighting periods of time and the styles you loved but also reveal just how much our preferences and trends can change. Some we will continue to cherish being timeless treasures, where others bring a frown of ‘what was I thinking’.

First visit to Jenny’s garden revealed a space that had evolved over many years reading much like a botanist’s journal. The planting scheme featured a diverse series of plant types inspired both by local and overseas travels visiting inspirational gardens, plus the ever-changing trends in the Australian gardening landscape. Rose and perennial beds reminiscent of the romantic gardens visited in England, sub-tropicals of Palms seen whilst visiting her son in Queensland, native plants in response to the changing climate and purchases at plant markets that purely represented what was popular at the time.

Jenny’s brief was quite clear, she wished for a garden that would ignite the same level of joy she has when marvelling at the beautiful gardens frequented in England but still to be mindful of the warming climate and the maintenance required. Our journey started 7 years ago where we commenced in replanting just one garden bed in the rear garden, and as time passed and client confidence slowly grew, today we now see a complete garden spanning the entire property that is consistent in style, complementary to the home and importantly features a plethora of elements that brings the owner so much pleasure.

Design Decisions

Determining the home’s architectural style was a challenge to decipher, built in the early 1980’s it did feature materials of the period including toffee coloured bricks and 1970s ‘mission brown’ square ceramic paving tiles, however its general design philosophy seemed more predominantly inspired by a New England colonial style also revived during the 1930s/40s. These features included timber sash windows and French doors bearing a grid of small square panes with joinery painted white, matching white timber picket fence, an elevated large rectangular rear verandah slightly recessed into a building alcove and framed by timber pergola proudly overseeing the large expanse of lawn, as well as the general boxed shape and proportions of the double storey building. The decision was to run with the home’s English colonial style and create a garden that would complement it

A key part of the initial brief involved retaining and re-interpreting as many of the existing plants as possible that would fit the new design and then add further species accordingly to strengthen cohesion plus create greater interest and texture. Species including Clivia, Azaleas, Camellias, Hydrangeas and Box Hedges were dug up and temporarily planted in pots awaiting their new position in the garden once the layout and soil conditioning was complete. Some plants made the journey from front garden to rear and vice versa, while the Box Hedges separated and morphed into a series of spheres that were strategically placed to help define key parts of the garden and subconsciously continually lure the visitor to progress and explore further. Mature trees and larger shrubs in the rear garden including a grand Waterhousia and shaped Pittosporums were retained to maintain some age and scale to the space even though differing species would have been preferred.

Renovation Journey

The garden’s changes have been staged over the past seven years with the final alteration a re-imagined meandering garden bed in the foreground to the rear verandah of which has only just been completed.

With the proposed styling determined for the renewed garden, the initial stages involved reshaping and enlarging some of the rear garden beds making them more proportionate to the building and overall property, whilst better aligning their existing planting scheme to the new design’s intentions. Resurfacing the mission-brown tiled verandah was the next major change to be made and given its size and commanding presence in the garden it was important to get this right – the earthy tones of Porphyry stone in a crazy paving format was perfect.

Having seen the benefits made and what really is possible, client confidence had grown strongly and the decision to embark on the more major project of totally re-landscaping the front and side gardens was made.

The original regimented concrete driveway and paths plus glittery Pittosporum screen in the front have now been replaced with a garden layout that is sculptural and organic in style including informal edges, emerging mounds layered with Zoysia grass and also within the lawn, plantings that focus on form and texture, as well as a peacefulness transmitted by a soft colour scheme. The annual Autumn leaf drop from the street Plane Trees has always been a big job so maintenance needed to be kept easy, extending the lawn area to the front fence and keeping planting to a minimum here with only a few specimen dwarf Japanese pines emerging from it has enabled better access and been a real success.

Porphyry stone is once again a hero with its soft earthy tones – crazy paving format for the driveway and the filetti profile used in the side garden to now formally visually address the key focal point area directly opposite the two most frequented rooms of the house in Kitchen/Meals Area and Study. Here is where the opportunity was seized for the planting scheme to explore a more diverse range of species and be set against a lovely tall timber batten screen painted Spanish Olive in colour. An advanced cloud-pruned Juniper is the key highlight and immediately grabs your attention, Buxus spheres and pillars anchor and frame the space while the interesting range of perennials add colour, texture, softness and seasonal change which include Agastache, Podophyllum, Corydalis, Aster, Heuchera and even a native orchid from the client’s potted collection. This blind side of the house which was once overgrown, dim and seldom used has now become a shaded secondary sitting area and an amazing feature of the property often prompting memories to the designer of show gardens seen at the Chelsea Garden Show with its interplay of natural stone paths, plant forms and interesting plantings.

Today

The garden today is something that the homeowner never thought was possible, a beautiful space that echoes the many elements loved from a range of famous gardens visited on their travels but doesn’t require the usually necessary team of weekly gardeners to maintain it. The initial engagement was to work on a small part of the garden, but as Paul Kelly’s great song alludes ‘from little things big things grow’.

Design, Softscapes and Maintenance – Rick Molino Garden Design