A Kelburn beauty: design case study
Rachael from HEDGE Garden Design & Nursery takes us through a recently completed garden renovation project close to home.
For the past year in Rachael’s neighbourhood of Kelburn, Andrew and Samantha Murray’s family home has been undergoing extensive alterations.
As part of the renovation, the builders did much of the external landscaping including creating retaining walls, steps and paving. The Murray’s asked Rachael to come and “finish off” the outside and complete the planting.
“The building company won the overall Wellington Region Master Builders Supreme Award 2010 for their renovation & landscaping work on this property.
“My main challenge was to do justice to the beautiful high quality renovations just completed inside the house, and to convince the owners to spend just a little bit more on the garden than they were perhaps expecting, to achieve this,” says Rach.
Although the garden will take a few years to develop, it is shaping up nicely.
“A levelled area and terrace has been added for a vegetable and flower cutting garden. We also added an area of concrete pavers bordered in mini Mondo Grass and we stained all the different styles of boundary fences and retaining walls black to unify them. We then added XL Versailles planter boxes to break up expanses of paving.
The wow factor co
mes in the form of a large contemporary stainless steel tube & wire framework for espaliering Chinese Star Jasmine” explains Rachael.
Rachael’s designs tend towards semi-formal, which she describes as “contemporary classic” – a backbone of structure and formality with splashes of colour and flowers. She creates beautiful and interesting plant combinations using proven classics and contemporary plants together.
The planting for this project adheres to Rach’s philosophy and features a structured planting plan with plenty of pretty dark greens, apple greens, lime greens and white hedging and flowers.
And Andrew and Samantha are thrilled with their new outdoor space.
“Rachael quickly grasped the exact look and level of maintenance we were after in our garden. She then executed the plan to precision, on time and on budget. We’re delighted with the results” says Sam.
