A Sprawling Northern Rivers Garden Designed With Family In Mind
Gardens
The self-contained studio overlooks rolling hills.
Flowering gum Corymbia ficifolia (red flowering gum) provides a pop of colour against native shrubs; Casuarina ‘green wave’ and Westringia fruticosa ‘smokey’ (coastal rosemary); grasses, Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass); and ground cover, Eremophila glabra ‘kalbarri carpet’ and Myoporum parvifolium (creeping boobialla).
Corymbia ficifolia (red flowering gum).
Sandstone boulders sit amongst Casuarina ‘green wave’, Westringia fruticosa ‘smokey’ (coastal rosemary, Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass), Eremophila glabra ‘kalbarri carpet’ (tar bush), Myoporum parvifolium (creeping boobialla) and Eucalyptus ‘baby blue’.
The fire pit is the perfect spot to take in the views.
A gravel path connects the main house with the garden zones below.
Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass).
Banksia robur (swamp banksia).
Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass) softens and obscures the pool fence.
Low-lying Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass) surrounds the pool.
Sandstone pavers lead up to the house.
Banksia ericifolia ‘little Eric’, Poa poiformis ‘Kingsdale’ (tussock grass), Westringia fruticosa ‘smokey’ (coastal rosemary), and Eucalyptus ‘baby blue’ line the pathway.
Fig Landscapes founder Grant Boyle got his start in Sydney in 2015 designing small courtyard gardens and terrace backyards.
But when he moved to Byron four years later, he suddenly found himself taking on regional projects that were almost the size of ‘20 suburban gardens put together’.
This 10-acre property in Bangalow was one of the first large-scale projects he cut his teeth on.
‘I’ve done it a lot now, but at the time, it was definitely a challenge,’ Grant says.
Originally subdivided from a sizeable former dairy farm, the sprawling block didn’t have much of a garden when the owners — a couple with three young boys — first engaged Fig Landscapes for the project.
‘It was basically just bare soil around the new build [designed by Harley Graham Architects],’ Grant adds. ‘We had a total blank canvas to work with.’
Being such a big site, the gardens were divided into a series of distinctive zones: around the entry, pool, and self-contained studio.
The brief was all about balancing function and form to create something that was equal parts beautiful, practical, and low maintenance enough for the owners to take care of without help from a professional landscaper.
‘We settled on lots of natives, grasses and small shrubs. There’s lots of mowing to do, so the clients didn’t want to be too tied down to the garden,’ Grant says.
‘They also wanted plenty of foliage and flowers they could cut for inside the house. Plus, with three young boys, there’s lots of balls getting kicked around and bikes being ridden, so we tried to pick species that could withstand that.’
Most of the planting was kept relatively low-lying, to take advantage of the sweeping pastoral views around the house and the surrounding landscape.
While Grant describes the resulting palette as ‘fairly simple and unfussy’, there’s nothing boring about the now-thriving perennial gardens.
At the entry, a big driveway and lush lawns are broken up by locally sourced sandstone steppers and boulders that line a decomposed granite walkway leading to the home’s front door.
‘There’s also a reading nook there [at the front of the house] and we wanted people to look out to more of a garden, not just lawn,’ Grant adds.
‘It created a sense of arrival. We wanted to have that journey through the gardens.’
Pennisetum ‘Nafray’ (Chinese fountain grass) and Poa poiformis ‘Kingsdale’ (tussock grass) are layered with sculptural shrubs like Casuarina ‘green wave’ and Westringia fruticosa ‘smokey’ (coastal rosemary) along these paths, connecting the deck to the picturesque pool.
Even the fencing is almost completely concealed by feathery perennial grasses.
Myoporum parvifolium (creeping boobialla) and Dichondra repens (kidney weed) provide a textural ground cover throughout the calming landscaping, dotted with pops of colour from flowering plants like Corymbia ficifolia (red flowering gum), which stands outside the studio.
Meanwhile, the stretches of lawn stitch the gardens together, providing ample usable space for the owners’ kids to run around and play.
Nestled among all the open spaces, the firepit has arguably the best aspect of the whole property.
‘It’s a wonderful spot to sit and watch the sunset over the hills,’ says Grant.
A few years after being established, the garden is now a family-friendly sanctuary. Grant looks back on the mammoth project as a great learning curve for his practice.
‘I still love the small gardens because you’re just in and out,’ he says.
‘But with the bigger projects, the best part isn’t until the very end, when you can step back and go “wow”.’