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It’s hard to imagine this lush Adelaide garden was once a lawn tennis court.
The family who had lived on this large College Park block for 70 years decided to split their property in 2024, building a second adjoining house and using the garden perimeter as a privacy barrier.
‘The new dwelling has many large full-length picture windows, and the brief was for the garden to be part of the house… to feel like one was living in the garden,’ explains Landskap director Alex Game.
Three large, sunny lawns are surrounded by a wild garden where structured plants and unconventional florals blend with looser grasses and perennials.
A spacious outdoor seating area lets the family comfortably host large groups, and the back of the property offers a dedicated space for chickens, seasonal vegetables, and fruit trees.
Alex preserved mature Strelitzia juncea (narrow-leaved bird of paradise), Aloe plicatilis (fan aloe), and Clivia miniata (bush lily) from the existing area, before levelling the site and designing the rest of the garden to protect root zones and new flora.
‘We used a combination of quick and slow-growing plants — for example, birch for quick screening — to help establish a garden which now appears older than its two years,’ he says.
‘The use of many taller shrubs along the perimeter helps provide volume and height, making each garden appear as a green-walled room.’
Alex’s design adds an ‘Australian twist’ to the traditional walled English garden style, using texture instead of colour to create a palette of seasonal scenes.
The homeowner, a passionate gardener, helped create the final plant list — adding Philadelphus ‘Manteau d’Hermine’ (mock orange), Cenolophium denudatum (Baltic parsley), and Luculia gratissima (fragrant cloud) — to give the planting palette unique depth.
‘On the streetscape side we wanted to have a continuous hedge that could withstand full sun, deep shade and competing existing trees — we opted for Elaeagnus angustifolia (Russian olive), which after a slow start, has proven to be a winner,’ Alex says.
‘We were really delighted with the Bougainvillea ‘Fire Opal’ at the entrance — the pop of colour against the cream brick is quite fun and frames the front entrance beautifully.’
Landskap intentionally used minimal materials to let the thriving garden shine. The only non-plant features are pavers, salvaged stone steppers from the original house, and locally sourced gravel that forms the paths and house apron.
This wild, floral garden attracts many birds, bees, and bugs, while sitting softly on a tree-lined street known for its greenery and well-preserved period homes.
Alex says, ‘Although we were conscious of the heritage character, we leant into the idea of a “controlled mess” and the idea of a “wild’ garden that sparked joy through seasonality, colour and something unpredictable.’
