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Landscape designer and owner of Peachy Green Fran Hale needs few words to paint a picture of this North Melbourne garden featuring layered, green on green, loose format planting, and casual spaces for relaxing.
The house had recently been renovated by Matt Gibson Architecture + Design prior to Peachy Green’s involvement, but the existing landscaping was minimal, with little more than a backyard lawn. ‘It just had a patch of grass outside with nothing else,’ Fran said.
Compact inner-city blocks can be challenging sites, yet Fran saw the potential for a green and shady backyard, featuring immersive soft and loose planting with built-in planters, and places to sit, to encourage time outside in the urban environment.
She explains, ‘The garden was narrow and compact, so the layout was designed as one big space to feel generous rather than segmented, especially when the large sliding door from the living room is opened.’
Built-in planters wrap the perimeter to soften the boundaries, allowing plants to spill over at different heights on either side of a wide path that leads to a relaxed curved seating area (with a built-in pet nook). This textured space is deliberately tucked into the planting, as to feel ‘cocooned’ in the wider space.
The addition of bluestone billets speak to the Victorian house, while recycled bricks add texture and match the contemporary rear extension.
The planting palette is majority green, ranging from dark and glossy species to fresh greens, and blue-greens with white flowers. Key species include Ginkgo biloba, Bergenia cordifolia (elephant’s ears), Hydrangea quercifolia (oak leaf hydrangea), Hakonechloa macra (Japanese forest grass), Elettaria cardamomum (green cardamom), Pratia pedunculata (blue/white star creeper), Dichondra argentea ‘Silver Falls’, Parthenocissus tricuspidata (Boston ivy), Fatsia japonica (paperplant), and Asparagus densiflorus (foxtail fern) that together create rich, contrasting layers.
With a mirror on the rear wall, the backyard now feels like an outdoor ‘room’, providing a sense of space and sanctuary rarely seen on compact city blocks. ‘The architects had added the mirror to the rear wall, which creates the illusion of reflecting the greenery, making it feel bigger,’ says Fran. ‘We worked to increase the feeling by layering vertically with canopy, mid-storey, and ground cover planting.’
When the owners want to escape the bustle of inner-city life, they now only need to open their back door, where their private, enchanting landscape awaits.
