Sydney-based landscape designer Peter Fudge enjoys working to a brief. But, as one of Australia’s most highly regarded designers, he doesn’t often get one. Most of his clients, like the owners of this property in the southern highlands of NSW, are more than happy for him to do whatever he wants, and Peter doesn’t take this responsibility lightly.
Tall walls of Leighton green cypress (Cupressus x leylandii) are used extensively to frame various rooms within the garden.
An exercise in restraint, this four-hectare garden in Fitzroy Falls was designed by Peter and his team around six years ago. He took cues for the design from the existing residence, a balanced square house sited around an internal courtyard. The garden is divided into a series of rooms, with axes drawn from the strong lines of the building. “The aim was to create a garden that was visually in sync with the house. A series of axes aligned with the windows and verandahs help to achieve this,” says Peter. “Lawn alleys, ponds, pleached pear trees, groves of birch and oak, avenues of olive trees, a flower garden, ornamental grasses and organic stone walls comprise the elements of this formal but non-fussy garden.”
A stand of Acer platanoides ‘Crimson Sentry’ is underplanted with mini mondo grass.
The house sits at the centre of the design, surrounded by paved entertaining areas, lawns and a small kitchen garden. Moving outward, the garden opens up to larger lawn areas, groves of deciduous trees, vegetable gardens, a citrus grove and various water features. An oak grove, golf tee and hole and a large pond complete the extensive property.
A series of axes, symmetrical planting and garden rooms create a sense of journey and discovery.
Tall hedges of Leighton green cypress trees (Cupressus × leylandii) form the backbone of the design, dividing the spaces into garden rooms. “The hedges create rooms that entice and direct you around the property,” Peter says. While a flat site often seems easy to work with and build on, level changes can provide excitement and drama. Peter sculpted the flat land to create a sense of dynamism with the garden, hiding swales and banks behind tall hedges, and defining areas through level changes, creating a sense of journey and discovery within the property.
Contrast of colour, shape and texture is a feature of the garden.
Like the structure, the planting is simple and elegant. Using mass plantings of trees rather than singular specimens, Peter has created a real sense of drama within the space. The trees, whether in alleys, groves or blocks, direct and frame views, as well as provide much needed scale against the tall green walls of each garden room.
The garden is all about balance and restraint. Charcoal cube containers of topiary olive trees (Olea europaea cvs.) frame a water feature backed by star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides).
Focusing on the bigger picture, rather than individual detail, the shrub and perennial planting within the design works to emphasise form and define spaces. Peter has used a mix of grasses, shrubs and groundcovers, both native and exotic. Each plant is used en masse, drawing attention to the form, colour, and texture of the plants as a group.
A large pond provides a place for reflection and contemplation.
The materials are honest, simple, elegant and robust. Local bluestone was used to create the stone walls, Yorkstone (reconstituted stone flagging) from Bowral covers the verandah and paved areas throughout the garden, and hardwood timber was used for the extensive fencing. Peter describes the garden as contemporary, though still classic. “There’s a bit of an edge to it,” he says. This edge is subtle and clever. At first glance the garden seems entirely restrained, neat and elegant, yet there are patches of wildness framed within the structure, which create a sense of excitement and dynamism. For example, the area adjacent to the owner’s art studio is anasymmetric contemporary native garden, with clumps of tussock grass (Poa ‘Eskdale’), dwarf eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus mannifera ‘Little Spotty’), and gravel, all framed by Leighton green cypress hedges.
Tall iron gates with a rust finish were custom made for the garden.
A common theme in all of Peter Fudge’s gardens, whether classically formal or contemporary and clean, is restraint. Each element, whether it’s a
shrub, tree, wall or surface, is considered and resolved on a number of levels in detail, within a defined area of the garden, as well as in the wider context of the property and its surrounds. However, what really makes Peter’s gardens work is his sensitivity to both the existing site conditions and the client’s needs and desires, whether he has been provided with a brief or not. “Parameters are really important,” he says. “They mean that the garden becomes the clients. My role as a designer is to inspire them and to give them their ultimate garden, not my ultimate garden.”
Alleys of pleached Manchurian pear trees (Pyrus ussuriensis) frame a feature pot, perfectly balanced in scale and size.
Extract from Belle Australian Landscape Designers, $69.99, available where all good books are sold and at magshop.com.au
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