Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #1 Perhaps my 2nd job. This garden was previously two tiered with the stone terraced tier running parallel to the road in the middle. At the left of the rock work is a small pond with a flat cascade rock sitting above it. The lawn is turf laid on 75 mm of top soil.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #2 Perhaps my 2nd job. At bottom left is a Strelizia reginae used in conjunction of two or three small boulders as a feature. On the left, middle, is the small pond with the cascade rocks more visible. Lawn is instant turf.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #3 Perhaps my 2nd job. In my discussions with the clients it emerged that the man of the house was a very busy person who was very frequently overseas on business and felt like relaxing, away from the young family, on his return home each time. To facilitate this I created the small area in the foreground. What appears to be two boulders is a seat and arm-rest with the latter accommodating a perched whiskey glass at its end. I sat on the seat rock numerous times to ensure that it was comfortable. In a horse-shoe shape around this seat is a hedge of native shrubs.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #4 Perhaps my 2nd job. Another view of #3 The owners went overseas the day after the work was completed and a few days later I got an emergency call saying that the children had forgotten to water the turf and it was dying. I went over and had a look and it certainly had dried out but was redeemable so I gave it a good soaking and told them to ensure proper watering thereafter.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #5 Perhaps my 2nd job. Another view. The pump for the small pond at left still to be installed.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #6 Perhaps my 2nd job. Yet another view. Plant selection was such that privacy from the street would be achieved when the plants grew.
Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia. #7 Perhaps my 2nd job. A closer view of the "seat".
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #1 Our first home. The pergola was designed by me and built of 25 mm oregon. Outdoor lamps are new.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #2 Our first home. A small feature garden in the front. On getting wet the ridges of the rock turned red. This caused the rock to be transported in the boot of our car on what became a journey in excess of three hours due to its weight. The tufted Festuca glauca in the foreground is not showing its true blue colour.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #3 Our first home. A really magnificent Callistemon citrinus by the fence in the front garden. To give a simple sloping lawn character I created two levels with the dip emphasized by the small boulder in the foreground on which an elegant, prostrate, light purple 'snake plant' drapes itself.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #3 Our first home. Another view of the boulder and its 'snake plant' as well as another plant.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #4 Our first home. The re-landscaped back garden in the making. All plants are Australian natives and the effect being that of a lot of space - the result of creating a meander with a new scene unfolding continuously as one progressed on an apparently long stroll.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #5 Our first home. The back garden - left. Note the table set into the pollarded Liquidamber - just above centre.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #6 Our first home. The back garden in the making.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #7 Our first home. Another view of the developing back garden with a Casuarina purpurea in the left corner in front of a pre-existing Cotoneaster. I discovered later that the red barked eucalypt in the right side half of the photo, a E. elata, had a potential height of 180 feet or 55 m. It was later pollarded to reduce its height potential. At this time I was a few years away from designing gardens professionally and was studying plants, particularly native plants, for use in gardens. However, by this time I strongly favoured predominantly native plants.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #8 Our first home. The developing back garden - another view.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #9 Our first home. The developing back garden - another view.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #10 Our first home. The developing back garden - another view.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #11 Our first home. The developing back garden - another view and another change in levels created.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #12 Our first home. The back garden across the centre with a young Eucalyptus nicholli in the foreground.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #13 Our first home. The developing back garden - looking toward the house.
32 Kirstina Road, Glen Waverley, Australia. #14 Our first home. The developing back garden. Note the placement of the small rock on the right which, together with the two opposite it, induce the stroller to move in a particular direction - that of a circuit - with the aid of the plants when more developed. A design artifice!
Knoxfield, Victoria, Australia. #1 A 5 factory complex. #1 Work in progress. Note the boulders, some of them 2 tonnes ∓, as well as the natural way in which they are placed. Over 3000 sq.m of instant lawn rolls were placed.
Knoxfield, Victoria, Australia. #2 A 5 factory complex. Work in progress. That black plastic is not an indication that I used it. It is the worst thing for soil and I never used it, preferring to lose a job than do so.
Knoxfield, Victoria, Australia. #1 A 5 factory complex. #1 Work in progress.
Glen Waverly or Wheelers Hill - Rademaker #1 Re-designed side garden. To create future shade for the bench seat a Eucalyptus ficifolia (red) was planted.
Glen Waverly or Wheelers Hill - Rademaker #2 Re-designed side garden. When the pump was installed the water would cascade over the capping rock and into the pond creating a background sound for the BBQ area adjacent at left. Instant turf used.
Glen Waverly or Wheelers Hill - Rademaker #3 Re-designed side garden. A few years later this person had re-married and built another house in Templestowe Lower. He went back to this one to see whether the garden had done what it had been meant to do and, being very pleased with it, phoned me to have me design and build the garden at his new home.
Doncaster East, Victoria, Australia - Ratnarajah #1 Work in progress. The front corner of the garden abutting open space. Stage 1 - the boulders & fence in place.
Doncaster East, Victoria, Australia - Ratnarajah #2 Work in progress. The front corner of the garden abutting open space. Stage 1 - the boulders & fence in place
Doncaster East, Victoria, Australia - Ratnarajah #3 Work in progress. The front corner of the garden abutting open space. Stage 1 - the boulders & fence in place
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #1 Adjusted for back lighting.
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #2 Without back lighting adjustment
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #3 Cement and railway sleeper steps abutting the boundary leading to house steps up to the front entrance
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #4 Cement and railway sleeper steps abutting the boundary leading to house steps up to the front entrance. Back light adjusted to make boulder detail visible. Railway sleeper retaining wall beside the down-sloping drive starts at left. A point of interest: When placing the retaining wall sleepers behind the uprights I used a spirit level but was surprised, on standing back to view the work, to note that the sleepers were higher on the left than on the right. I checked and re-checked until it dawned on me that, due to the down-slope of the land, what I had was an optical illusion. However, because people would only see the illusion I compensated by placing the sleepers lower at the left thus creating the illusion of horizontal!
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #5 The side and back garden. A railway sleeper bench runs almost the full length of the top end. The pool was in existence before the landscaping so the boulders ( 5 or 6 large ones are visible) had to be moved and placed (by machine) without them falling into and damaging the pool.
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #6 Cement and railway sleeper steps leading up to the pool level from the concreted BBQ area adjacent to the wine cellar and under-house entertainment area. The concreting and building of the BBQ were done after my work and before these photographs were taken.
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia. #7 The pool and garden some time later.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #1 Our second home. Set up as a landscape showpiece. A drive to the later built shed at the left rear was excavated and filled with "Lilydale toppings" while the spoil was used to reshape the contours of the front garden behind the sleeper/boulder retaining wall shown here (back light adjusted to show the inter-meshing of sleeper work and boulders). In the foreground is a blue stone retaining wall containing a selection of conifers. NOTE: The unkempt land in the background is the adjacent block.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #2 Our second home. Work in progress. The garden shed/workshop with a railway sleeper path leading to the back terrace of the house.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #3 Our second home. The fish pond in the angle of the rear terrace outside the "rumpus room". The large boulder weighed about 6 tonnes and its opposite number 3 - 4 tonnes. The water flowing out at the top of the boulder travels to the last 40 cms or so before falling into the pond. As a backdrop to the cascade boulder there is a dense shrub planted on the further side of it.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #4 Our second home. The wood burning BBQ in the back garden designed by, but not built by, me.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #5 Our second home. Another view of the fish pond with the light visible. Small, cascading plants are planted behind the small rocks to fill the space behind them. On the right is a Queensland elk-horn fern that grows in the open. Again back light adjustment has been made so as to show the texture of the two boulders.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #6 Our second home. Another view of the monster and the fish pond. Pity about the bin in the background and the exposed water hose but all was to be covered by plants in a few months! For more information see # 5.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #7 Our second home. A view of the front showing the raised contours at the left and the blue stone conifer bed on the right.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #8 Our second home. A view of the front showing the raised contours at the left and the attempt to hide the water meter in the cleft in the boulder. Unfortunately, the pipe behind the meter prevented me from moving the boulder nearer. Note how the boulder on the left, in particular, sits in the ground as if it has been there for eons.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #9 Our second home. The front showing the raised contours at the left and other features soon after completion.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #10 Our second home. The fernery* outside the dining room. Back light adjusted as it was a very dark spot. * Created above the existing ground level.
24 Xavier Drive, Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. #11 Our second home. The fernery* outside the dining room. * Created above the existing ground level.
So far I have been unable to improve the quality of this reproduction but will keep trying. View full screen. The scale of all the drawings is 1:100 and the gardens were laid out almost exactly as drawn even to the extent of the boulders being almost exactly the sizes as drawn. My boulders/rock supplier somehow knew what I wanted when I ordered the boulders/rocks giving number and approximate three dimensional measurements. He used to get them straight out of the paddocks N.W. of Melbourne and most were unscratched and covered in thick green moss - beautiful! All the plants were selected for their habit, texture, size, flowering time, flower colour etc. Thick, straight lines between rocks/boulders denote timber railway sleepers and thin lines bed/path/structural features. The drawings were based on actual measurements I took on site of all features. These included house position on site [some site plans were faulty*], existing features, window sill heights, land slope et al.
So far I have been unable to improve the quality of this reproduction but will keep trying. This is a pretty basic design as the garden was relatively flat. TEMPORARY NOTE for inclusion elsewhere: NB. With regard to the previous caption, I once could not reconcile my drawing with the site no matter how I tried and on asking the client a few questions discovered that the builder had changed the floor plan to reduce the length of the house by about a metre to make it conform to site regulations!
