Location: Bondi
Architecture: Miles Thorp
Photography: Clinton Weaver
Landscape Construction: Pretty Palms
Gardening: Client + TARN
Due to the nature of the building renovation, the landscape is divided into four discrete units. Each quarter has their own vegetative character, influenced by its particular conditions and opportunities…
The roof garden is currently a meadow composed of the indigenous plume grass (Dichelachne crinita) and weeping grass (Microlaena stipoides), as well as a non-weedy cultivar of the African species Cenchrus geniculatus. Over time, the grasses will become less dominant as some shrubs emerge and assume the soft, cloud-like forms of the ‘cliffline scrub’ vegetation that occupies the sandstone platforms of coastal Sydney
The front garden (not pictured, still establishing) received little light or air flow. As such, the planting comprises a ‘fern meadow’ punctuated by erect open shrubs and rarely-cultivated flowering bulbs. The ground features a tapestry of fern species, namely kangaroo fern (Microsorum pustulatum), maidenhair fern (Adiantum aethiopicum), rasp fern (Doodia aspera) as well as some rare species we are trialing.
A central courtyard between the Federation-period house and a new extension forms a fulcrum around which the house extends. The planting here has some qualities of a deciduous woodland, with a compact variety of ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) providing scale and three dimensionality to the narrow space. A characterful neighbouring wall came pre-adorned with virginia creeper. Both tree and climber lose their leaves in winter, allowing direct and reflective light through in the necessary season.
The fourth garden, in the rear is dominated by two existing frangipani trees (Plumeria rubra). One on the property and another reaching us from the neighbour’s. While we would never have planted that species, we decided to work in new vegetation that felt visually compatible with it, whilst meeting the clients brief of grasses and soft textures.
Frangipani is a species that is so ubiquitous in Sydney that about half of our projects contains one in the garden that we need to contend with. Their bulky form, deep green hue and conspicuous foliage tend to dominate a space, and preclude a range of planting design approaches. In order to better understand how to integrate new plantning with a frangipani we conducted research into their natural habitat (which is tropical and subtropical dry scrub, dry forest and savannah), life strategy, and especially the plants they grow in assosication with. As with many commonly planted ‘tropical’ plants, they tend to occur in nature in compositions that are the polar opposite of their use in gardens. In gardens, plants large, colourful leaves are gleefully overstuffed into a garden bed in a graphical and contrasting arrangement. Yet, in nature each of these species (e.g. frangipani, ginger, bromeliad, Strelitzia or aroid) are generally the only ‘loud’ element, instead sitting within a composition of more delicate, softer foliage.
Indigenous Sydney gully vegetation makes up the majority of the ground plane: Lomatia myricoides and Austromyrtus tenuifolia are beginning to emerge as sentinels amongst a sea of Dianella cerulea, Viola hederacea, as well as exotic grasses for softer tones.
