Allens Rivulet

This project at Allens Rivulet was for a large property to design a diverse food forest and kitchen garden for a family of four. The design areas covers one part of this property, which borders areas of native vegetation. Aspects of the food forest were designed to be enclosed, to protect against wildlife, so the family can enjoy a secure supply of seasonal produce (apples, persimmon, peach, almond, hazelnut, medlar etc), surrounded by the open food forest area. This entire spaces includes 30 trees (majority fruit), 6 climbers, and 15 shrubs, carefully selected and layered to compliment each other and to make the most of the space. The design includes the introduction of swales for water control, multiple layer planting, large vegetable garden, outdoor stand-style seating, and informal pathways to easily navigate the space.

Implementing a design such as this one, is a long-term commitment, with herbaceous, ground cover and root layers to be added as the fruit trees grow and the garden matures.

We enjoyed working with this family to understand their vision and commitment to start to bring this project to life.

Mountain River

Six months ago, we were asked to create a design for a family of six who had just moved into their ‘forever’ home in Mountain River.  The most important aspects to be included in this design, was regeneration of the land, to produce abundant food, allow engagement with the community, to live in Nature among wildlife and have fun. This design covered a large property, with slopes, plenty of tall trees, and borders a river. The particular difficulty was to manage the design with the sloping ground and the shade created by trees. We found the right location to put the kitchen garden and the green house, which is close to the house and is less impacted by trees and gets the most sun.  We used the sloping land across the property to collect water with swales to irrigate fruit hedges and a food forest, and added fire retardant trees along the river edge to protect against bushfire and to stabilise the eroded river bank. This design was challenging but also fun because it was the complete opposite of my previous designs.

Cradoc Farm

For this project, Anne-Marie and Pete started with a blank page; with almost no trees or shrubs on their all property. I met with them to find out what their vision for the property was, and incorporated this into my design including but not limited to; space for a sheltered fire pit with pizza oven, various fruit trees, a kitchen garden, poultry system, and a blueberry field. All of this was designed taking into consideration the property slope, the energies going through the property, while also protecting their home from prevailing wind and other natural hazards.