The Outdoor Room
The Australian backyard was one of those iconic cultural things that seemed to be as Aussie as Vegemite, Lamingtons, Footy, Meat pies and Fosters Beer. Up until the 80s, Aussie backyards was a given for any house/block purchased and consisted of a fair bit of grass area (either for the kids to run around in or for your mates to sit out and have a late night), the barbeque (hence the shrimp on Barbie comment) and the Hill Hoists rotary clothes line. It seemed like kids in the street ran from one backyard to another and played outside most of the time.
Since the 80s, there has been a consistent trend of sub-dividing the standard quarter acre block and building multiple, medium density, town houses on blocks that used to have the one house and the big backyard. The Aussie backyard in Australia is in serious decline and is going the way of the dinosaur.
Whether I like it or not, home developers continue to buy up the larger blocks of land and continue to build the McMansions that people seem to want today.
So for me
this part of the IF&G show is something that I always am intrigued to see.
Good garden designers are a bit like good architects. You know they are out there
but they are notoriously hard to find and are incredibly expensive! Some time back, when I was regularly going to the show, the Garden Design section was the first area I used to hit. In my opinion, a good garden designer should be able to take your lifestyle into account and turn the backyard into an outdoor room extension to the house. Thankfully, since about the mid 90s, most of the garden designer Ive spoke with seem to finally understand this!
Why am I talking about the garden designers? Well
.because they are helping reverse the trend of larger blocks being snapped up by property developers. Any home that has a decent backyard, beautifully landscaped will attract a lot more buyers and push the prices up beyond what a property developer will be prepared to pay for it.
But youre here to see the pictures
so on we go.
I headed into this section and was immediately amused to see this layout. Completely straight out of the textbook backyard garden of the 80s!
Yet
fantastically laid out for families with young kids.
This design won the gold medal category for the small courtyard garden.
There is probably a bit too much concrete for my tastes.
Youve already seen the teaser to this garden. If I recall correctly, it was called The Pool, or something along those lines. Yes, that is a dunking pool in the front
.
. and a waterfall running down into the pool on the side.
It obviously won an award
but Im not sure for which category.
The outdoor studio was a consistent theme in this years garden designs. The other consistent theme in garden designs was the inclusion of the vegetable patch in one form or another.
I took a careful look around this particular design
seems like the only way up to harvest the crop is on a ladder. Not very practical on that front.
Another beautiful concept; highly structured, low maintenance and ideal for outdoor entertaining.
Not one I could see in my backyard.
This took the outdoor room concept just a little bit too far for me. Where is the garden?
And if the previous design is not one that I can see in my backyard, I dont think I need to repeat myself for this one.
I think this next garden design may have been inspired from the Lord of The Rings and Middle Earth
have a look at the other side of the garden.
I quite liked this garden concept. It was simple but beautiful to me. I liked the thought of the trees and if I did put something like this in my backyard, I would be substituting the birch with fruit trees. I liked the look of the tulips
..but really, for the same effect, daffodils are much more low maintenance than tulips.
This next garden design was a gold medal winner. It came with a spa
outdoor entertaining area, patch of green grass and flowerbeds.
A bit too perfectly manicured for my eclectic tastes.
This garden design was also a gold medal winner.
It must have been the seats in the lap pool that tipped the scales!
If I had oodles of money, I think I would want a backyard that kinda had this sort of look and feel.
This is from the other corner
I would fill the flowerbeds with a combination of flowering plants and vegetables. Fruit trees would be what I would plant as well.
This particular garden was sponsored by one of the biggest vegetable seedling suppliers in Australia. It was highly popular with the public
.and no prizes for guessing that only vegetables could be found in the garden.
Designers also catered for small garden spaces and these three designs caught my eye.
I could easily see them working in my backyard.
(I think I know how Goldilocks felt....)
(Continued in Next Post - Final Words)