This landscape project is set in a rural subdivision on an old sugarcane farm in the southern foothills of Cairns. A striking contemporary house (designed by Stuart Withrington of CA Architects of Cairns) sits above its neighbours and needed some gentle screening for privacy from new buildings quickly encroaching around it. The large (2 acre) garden is designed to blend the house into the landscape using low-maintenance tropical and native plants which will remind the owners of wide English herbaceous borders (with the north Queensland twist of the blue-coloured mountains soaring behind them).
The creamy colours of Grevillea ‘Moonlight’, local baby Pendas, Fortnight lilies (Dietes) and the wonderful dark sculptural forms of Dracaena ‘Black Knight’ are used in repeated motifs to provide a framework for more exotic species such as Heliconia ‘Sexy Pink’ and a variety of magenta-coloured Cordylines. The challenge for the landscaping has been to provide a garden with strong form which will develop quickly to provide screening but using plants that will not become too large and obscure the magnificent views in the ideal growth climate of tropical North Queensland.