Under the spreading gum tree

Designed by Mint Landscape Design

From the landscape designer:

With plenty of space to work with, the brief for this landscape was to incorporate spaces to extend the beautiful, modern architecture outside, and importantly, to retain the beautiful gum tree as a focal point.

Those spaces came in the form of a stunning pool with a raised circular spa, separate seating areas and a dedicated outdoor dining space with heating for all year round dining. 

The contemporary nature of the home was the perfect inspiration for a landscape that seamlessly incorporated curves and lines, creating the perfect backdrop for the stunning outdoor spiral staircase.

The brief for this project was relatively straight forward. 

Our homeowner wanted a design that complemented the modern period home at the front of the property and the contemporary design at the rear.

The wish list was long

The owners were hoping to get a pool and spa area, a space for both casual and formal dining, a basketball court, built-in BBQ and a turning area for their cars. 

It was decided, in consultation with the owners and arborist, that the Peppercorn would be retained for both its ability to shade the outdoor areas and provide privacy from the neighbouring block of flats.

The tree, under our supervision, underwent canopy reduction to lift the lower limbs and create space at ground level while maintaining valuable limbs for screening and balance.

The decking was constructed to cantilever over the structural root zone (SRZ) and allow water penetration to the root area and crown area (TPZ). 

The natural canopy of the tree was critical to creating a more intimate and private space for our owners' garden and second storey windows.

Many of the challenges of this site were around fitting the long list of owner needs into a relatively small area. 

In many cases, the answer was to convince the homeowner that we could use some spaces for two or multiple purposes. 

There didn’t have to be a separate area for every item – i was about being efficient with space.

So our response was to combine the formal and casual dining areas in the deck area by having a dining table with pergola next to a bench seat. 

The basketball court could simply be the driveway and rather than having a turning area for cars, the owner took on board our recommendation to install a turntable.

This all had to be designed around the proposed architecture (house and garage) and the significant Peppercorn Tree (Schinus molle). 

The block is also quite an irregular (battle axe) shape and the challenge here was the long driveway that had to dissect the property to allow cars to access the garage at the back – hence the turntable solution. 

Story by: Trendsideas