Natives in a coastal garden
A stone’s throw from the beach, this cleverly designed Perth garden uses recycled materials and endemic species that need only occasional watering
Some gardens have such a perfect sense of place that they stop you in your tracks. This garden of endemic plants and recycled materials, just 300m from the beach in the Perth suburb of Swanbourne, is one of those. At three years old, it still has that crisp, fresh look of a young garden, but somehow manages to look remarkably ‘settled in’.
Wave-like bands of coastal foliage plants growing in white sand make for a stunning front entrance, and include silver-leafed Olearia ‘Little Smokie’, lush, green coastal boobialla (Myoporum insulare), knobby club-rush (Ficinia nodosa), tussock-forming spinifex (Spinifex × alterniflorus) and grey cottonheads (Conostylis candicans). These are all planted beneath dwarf ghost gums (Eucalyptus victrix), which have been trimmed so the foliage forms a leafy canopy above their gorgeous white trunks.
Out the back there’s real excitement, with an informal terraced garden planted to resemble a banksia woodland featuring plants that have been chosen for their striking flowers and seed pods.
All this is the thoughtful creation of French landscape designer Veronique Plazy, who has lived in Perth for 18 years and is fascinated with Australia’s native flora – its diverse sculptural forms, intricate flowers, and ability to survive with little water. The making of the garden went hand in hand with an equally considered renovation of the property’s 1950s bungalow, and in both cases, the principles of passive design and sustainability were front of mind.
PLEASING PALETTE
This is a relaxing garden to be in. The palette balances the muted sage-greens and greys of the bush with pops of colour in the yellow flowers and rust-hued metal screens. To help with plant selection, Veronique engaged two great nature lovers, Matt Siomos and Teik Oh. Their knowledge of botany and environmental science was invaluable in helping her to choose plants that could tolerate the salty winds and alkaline sand on her site. She walked with them through the local Cottesloe dunes, noting endemic plants that could work together in the design.
Small trees, mostly multi-trunked mallee eucalyptus, respond well to pruning, and attract birds. The fuchsia mallee (Eucalyptus forrestiana), a sprawling tree reaching 5m high and 5m wide, was chosen for the dual attraction of four-sided red buds and fruit, which hang from the branches for most of the year, and small yellow flowers in summer and autumn. Another featured eucalypt that thrives in the site’s alkaline sand is illyarrie, or red-cap gum (E. erythrocorys). It grows 4–8m tall, and produces golden-yellow flowers in late summer to autumn. The flowers come from bright red buds and are followed by ornamental nuts.
In late winter, Veronique is entranced by the spectacular red and cream flowers, shaped like sea urchins, on the pincushion hakea (Hakea laurina). Its unusual flowers are a talking point, and it makes a sturdy, shrubby tree reaching 3–5m tall and wide. Between the trees are a variety of plants that took her fancy at the nursery and were bought as seedling tubestock, including ‘Yellow Gem’ and
‘Big Red’ kangaroo paws and the silver-foliaged Eremophila nivea.
Veronique’s biggest plant collections are grevilleas and banksias. She chose the grevilleas according to their height and colour, planting them alongside one another on a boundary. They include woolly cluster grevillea (Grevillea eriobotrya), spindly grevillea
(G. endlicheriana), spider-net grevillea (G. thelemanniana) and the hybrid ‘Peaches and Cream’. These are fast-growing plants that attract native bees and birds to the garden.
The banksias are scattered around the garden, and Veronique says she loves them all, including honeypot dryandra (Banksia nivea), shaggy dryandra (B. splendida), woolly orange banksia
(B. victoriae), urchin dryandra (B. undata var. splendens) and cut-leaf banksia (B. praemorsa). Some banksias prefer more neutral soils, so the alkaline sand around them has been amended with iron sulfate to help lower the pH to an optimum level.
As most plants chosen are endemic species, no soil preparation was undertaken before planting, although all the beds are mulched. Drip-line irrigation on five separate zones provided water for the first two years while the garden was establishing, and is now only occasionally turned on during summer.
Paths throughout the garden are built from grey weathered hardwood timbers, as well as open-cell permeable pavers filled with pea gravel fines, which allow rain to soak into the ground, and bricks salvaged during the house renovation.
NEW FROM OLD
Wherever possible, Veronique has re-used, recycled and upcycled materials to keep all the inherent characteristics and ‘energy’ of the materials on site, and to minimise building waste.
“I refuse to be part of the generation that dumped everything in our overflowing landfills, so I took great care to re-use anything from the old cottage,” she says. “Old jarrah joists were used to clad the front facade of the main cottage and studio; old roof tiles wrapped with reinforced mesh became a separation wall along the stairs to the studio; and salvaged steel lintels were used to make the terraced steps to the studio in the back garden.
“My main purpose was, and still is, to live sustainably in our unsustainable world. I’m reintroducing endemic nature to our lives by bringing the bush back to the ’burbs.”
In late winter, Veronique is entranced by the spectacular red and cream flowers, shaped like sea urchins, on the pincushion hakea (Hakea laurina). Its unusual flowers are a talking point, and it makes a sturdy, shrubby tree reaching 3–5m tall and wide. Between the trees are a variety of plants that took her fancy at the nursery and were bought as seedling tubestock, including ‘Yellow Gem’ and
‘Big Red’ kangaroo paws and the silver-foliaged Eremophila nivea.
Veronique’s biggest plant collections are grevilleas and banksias. She chose the grevilleas according to their height and colour, planting them alongside one another on a boundary. They include woolly cluster grevillea (Grevillea eriobotrya), spindly grevillea
(G. endlicheriana), spider-net grevillea (G. thelemanniana) and the hybrid ‘Peaches and Cream’. These are fast-growing plants that attract native bees and birds to the garden.
The banksias are scattered around the garden, and Veronique says she loves them all, including honeypot dryandra (Banksia nivea), shaggy dryandra (B. splendida), woolly orange banksia
(B. victoriae), urchin dryandra (B. undata var. splendens) and cut-leaf banksia (B. praemorsa). Some banksias prefer more neutral soils, so the alkaline sand around them has been amended with iron sulfate to help lower the pH to an optimum level.
As most plants chosen are endemic species, no soil preparation was undertaken before planting, although all the beds are mulched. Drip-line irrigation on five separate zones provided water for the first two years while the garden was establishing, and is now only occasionally turned on during summer.
Paths throughout the garden are built from grey weathered hardwood timbers, as well as open-cell permeable pavers filled with pea gravel fines, which allow rain to soak into the ground, and bricks salvaged during the house renovation.
NEW FROM OLD
Wherever possible, Veronique has re-used, recycled and upcycled materials to keep all the inherent characteristics and ‘energy’ of the materials on site, and to minimise building waste.
“I refuse to be part of the generation that dumped everything in our overflowing landfills, so I took great care to re-use anything from the old cottage,” she says. “Old jarrah joists were used to clad the front facade of the main cottage and studio; old roof tiles wrapped with reinforced mesh became a separation wall along the stairs to the studio; and salvaged steel lintels were used to make the terraced steps to the studio in the back garden.
“My main purpose was, and still is, to live sustainably in our unsustainable world. I’m reintroducing endemic nature to our lives by bringing the bush back to the ’burbs.”