Smiths Beach

Our client was after an inviting outdoor space for friends and family to visit and, with lots of grandchildren to entertain, the pool was something that she felt was a must!

As there is a 1.5m drop between the front of the house and the street, the pool area had to be elevated and significant retaining walls installed. It can be difficult to maintain good connection with the house with the pool being elevated, but the breezeway connection designed by Neil Architecture down into the pool area gives great access from the living areas from the house. Those retaining walls can also be quite imposing up against the house so our job was to soften those walls with trailing plants. Even though there were no curves on the house, we introduced a curve into the retaining wall corner so that the retaining wall didn't cut off light into the lower rooms of the house. We then reinforced that subtle curve by using it in the decking and bench seat .

Our client really wanted a 'garden'. Something similar to her home in the city. Being so close to the ocean we had to be conscientious of which plants we used. There's a lot of salt in the air along that particular bit of coastline so using native coastal and meditteranean plants was critical. The garden still needs another growing season to fill out but we've designed some beautiful flowering plants into this garden that are already doing their thing and giving splashes of seasonal colour. The Billy Buttons and Scaevola are already in flower but we're looking forward to seeing more impact from the Verbena bonariensis more next season.