Cart 
For many years, this garden in Barwon Heads has been well loved in its street for an abundantly productive lemon tree, as well as pretty flowering plants, and rockery style planting attracting local wildlife.
When building a new home on site, the owners didn’t want to erase this landscape, but enhance and modernise its somewhat old fashioned scheme.
‘They sought more privacy for a front garden that is exposed on two street frontages and includes a pool and deck projecting out from the house,’ explains Kate Seddon, director of Kate Seddon Landscape Design (KSLD).
‘They wanted a garden to spend time in with family, children and grandchildren, as well as one their elderly parents could enjoy.’
The new planting designed by KSLD blends the seasonality of a traditional Victorian seaside garden with a native palette — ‘combining local materials appropriate to a coastal setting such as weathered timbers, paving in tan and golden tones and gravel, alongside plants that move between solid form and whimsical movement and light catching qualities,’ in Kate’s words.
The accompanying new house on site by Neil Architecture appears private, but strategically carves out views to the outdoors throughout the interiors.
The living space aligns directly with the height of the new elevated pool, before a sinuous band of lawn, weaving between garden beds that draw the eye outwards.
‘A series of secondary pathways meander through the back of garden beds and are interspersed with boulders to sit upon, remnant gnarled native branches for kids to climb on, and bird baths set into local stone,’ says Kate.
The planting features a combination of hardy and coastal tolerant species, including Elaeagnus × ebbingei (silverberry), Correa alba (white correa), Teucrium fruticans (shrubby germander), Philotheca myoporoides (wax flower), and Westringia fruticosa (coastal rosemary).
Perennials and grasses create upright form, movement and rhythm such as Agastache ‘Sweet Lili’ (hummingbird mint), Miscanthus transmorrisonensis (evergreen miscanthus), Beschorneria septentrionalis (false red agave), Doryanthes excelsa (gymea lily), and Poa labillardierei (common tussock-grass).
Hakea laurina (pin-cushion hakea), Acacia cognata (river wattle), Jacaranda mimosifolia (jacaranda), and Banksia marginata (silver banksia) add to the tree cover and complement the existing lemon tree.
‘We haven’t been biased to either native or exotic, but chose a palette in combination that expressed the coastal feel and is suited to the contemporary nature of the architecture,’ says Kate.
When the owners are away travelling, the thing they miss about home is their garden. Now retired, their days are increasingly spent tending to this abundant landscape, relishing the flowers it produces, memories it inspires, and wildlife it attracts.
