Australian House & Garden 129‘‘M
y property, Olinda, in the Dandenong Ranges, 40 minutes
from Melbourne, is set on 2.8ha, with filtered views out to
the Yarra Valley. We’re surrounded by this beautiful natural
amphitheatre of mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), which is the
tallest flowering plant in the world. The energy that these trees give
the landscape is of great magnitude. We have such a wonderful
borrowed landscape to work with.
My selection criteria for buying this property were pretty specific: I
wanted to have the best possible soil, high rainfall, a bush block,
views and, if possible, creek frontage. I managed to find all these
things at Olinda. The soil is a red volcanic or mountain soil, and it’s
regarded as some of the best soil in Australia. It’s unbelievably fertile.
I’m lucky to be able to test out all my ideas at Olinda. I use it as a
place where I can try new things and show people what’s possible.
When people see a backyard like mine they perceive it as being
something they can’t have. One of the most important things I try to
communicate is that we can translate and build these ecosystems in
urban environments. People are yearning for this connection back to
nature, and you really can build it anywhere.
On a tour of the United States I’d seen Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Fallingwater, the house he built over a waterfall in Pennsylvania. He
designed that residence to connect beautifully with nature. It
inspired me to try to build my own waterfalls next to my house. And
I’ve been able to achieve this without impacting on a waterway
system; this project has shown you can utilise the run-off from the
driveway to create a spectacular waterfall.
My design team and I built the landscape in two stages: the lower
billabong and the upper billabong. This was a very challenging site to
work on. It’s an extremely steep location and it was an ambitious
build. What I learnt here helped us enormously when we were at the
Chelsea Flower Show in 2013.
There’s a 22m level change from the top of my studio to the base
of the landscape, so we had gravity on our side. This allowed us to
move and channel water beautifully throughout the landscape as
the level changed.
In the same way I used to explore waterways when I was a kid, my
children, William and Angus, are drawn to the water flowing
through the property. They love to play among the rocks and streams.
I’m now in the process of converting our billabong into a natural
pool. My ideal scenario is to have a natural pool that fluctuates
seasonally and the water is cleaned in a biological way. We’re getting
there. The body of water supports thousands of tadpoles and a whole
range of aquatic life. By creating an ecosystem in these billabongs, it
means there’s no stagnant water – and no mosquitoes. >H&G GARDENS