5 Top Landscape Design Trends
The Landscape Design trends we are seeing in Melbourne owe much to practicality as well as the aesthetic. These trends reflect the lifestyle of summer in Melbourne but are also provide a practical landscape design with drought tolerant plants and low maintenance gardens.
We have listed the top design trends being followed by landscape designers.
1. Mid-century Palm Springs landscape design style
This is a landscape design style associated with cacti, granitic sand, concrete paving, and breeze-blocks. Often, this takes the form of hard landscaping in light grey or stark white, contrasting with splashes of colour from the plantings. The result is typical Palm Springs glamour with low maintenance and drought resistant gardens.
The dry desert climate of Palm Spring, with its warm winters and abundance of space, is ideal for outdoor entertaining areas. Often, these will feature a fire pit area or a swimming pool as a focal point.
Despite the low rainfall, the courtyard swimming pool in Palm Springs is a "must have" even in the smaller landscaped gardens.
Palm Springs gardens often provide a splash of colour with hot torch lilies, geraniums, roses, and bougainvillea.
For the drought tolerant garden, succulents, ornamental grasses, and especially barrel cacti, proliferate. The Palm Springs landscapers also make use of the local gravel, abundant boulders and the native palms from the area.
The barrel cactus (echinocactus grusonii), also known as the "Golden Ball Cactus" or "Mother-in-law's Cushion," makes a bold statement in landscape design. This plant, which is native to east central Mexico, is actually endangered in the wild.
Succulents like agave thrive in the warmer subtropical gardens and can survive the occasional dry spell.
2. Tuscan Mediterranean style
The design style of the Mediterranean or Tuscan garden is rooted in the choice of landscaping materials, textures, and colours. Garden features such as cobbled paving, tiles, stones, bricks, and especially terracotta, will enhance the Mediterranean feel. Neatly clipped hedges, gravel mulch, and soft colours contrasting with brightly coloured tiles are often found in the Mediterranean and Tuscan gardens. For landscaping Melbourne gardens, consider mixing this with less formal, drought tolerant plants and plants that give off a pleasant aroma.
The rustic Tuscan gardens are often associated with Italian rural villas and are much less formal than the Italian Renaissance gardens. These gardens often feature deep blues complementing the terracotta pots or roof tiles, as well as olives, agaves, and deep green mosaics.
3. Modern contemporary landscape design
This design style features concrete cantilevered steps and black steel water features with lime green structural planting.
Balance and symmetry are features of this design style, and it is the ideal design style for contemporary homes. In contrast to the design and colours of the Tuscan garden, industrial style raw concrete is common in this style of garden, as well as stone and wooden garden ornaments.
Modern Contemporary landscape design style video
https://youtu.be/gUx0nG8wKPI
4. French Provincial design
The French Provincial Landscape Design Style features hedges, ornamental pears, cobblestone driveways, and anduze pots. The hedges are often box hedges (buxus) and flowering plums (prunus).
The French Provincial style has many similarities with the Tuscan landscaping design style.
5. Coastal Garden Design Style
This design style features loose plantings of native grasses like Lomandra, native shrubs, and whitewashed timber batten screens. Local boulders are also a big part of this landscape design style.
The coastal landscape design style is often used for hardy, low maintenance commercial landscaping of public spaces.
Hardy Australian native grasses make an attractive and drought resistant garden.
Coastal gardens often require clever solutions to protect plants from the fierce ocean winds. One solution is to use a white washed timber batten screen. The gaps in the screen allow some of the air to move through the screen, thereby minimising the turbulence that occurs with a solid fence. The white batten screens can be used as a design feature and provide contrast with grasses or Xanthorrhoea and Anigozanthos in the garden.
Coastal garden plants have to endure salt spray, wind and often not very fertile sandy soils, so Lomandra is ideal for landscaping coastal gardens as it is a very hardy and drought resistant Australian native grass with attractive foliage.
Energy Saving Landscape Design
With the increasing price of energy a trend towards landscape design to reduce energy costs can be expected. This is where the landscape design makes use of deciduous trees to provide shade in summer and allow the sun's warming rays through in winter.
Commercial Landscaping Design Trends
In the commercial landscaping of public spaces, the design trends are towards sustainability through the use of drought tolerant plants and the handling of rainwater through rain-gardens and permeable concrete. Modern public space design also requires a welcoming and accessible area where people can relax with a range of activities. As with residential landscape design, there is a strong trend towards outdoor entertaining areas where people can relax around a public barbecue.
Related Landscape Design News from Red's Landscaping Melbourne.
5 Top Custom Swimming Pool Designs and trends.
13 Most Influential landscapers of all time.
Eco Pools: Nature pools for the eco conscious
Commercial Landscaping of Public Spaces.
© 2020 Reds Landscaping and Civil – Quality Melbourne Landscaper
More information on Landscape Design Styles and Plants
How to study Landscape Architecture
Concrete Swimming Pool Construction and Design.
The Swimming Pool, as the name suggests, is a man-made pool which holds water for the family to swim in. Swimming pools can be made with a variety of different materials depending on the application and location. A roof-top swimming pool, for example, looks better when one of its sides is made with Reinforced Glass or fibre Glass. Container tank swimming pools are also pretty common these days. These are swimming pools in which an old container is made water tight and then converted to a swimming pool. This construction technique makes the construction and relocation of swimming pool easier.
In all other cases where swimming pool is usually made on ground level, Concrete is the most preferred material – thanks to its durability, straight forward construction techniques, lower cost and easy availability. These kind of swimming pools last much longer than the other kinds and give a classic look which we have seen in movies.
The Concrete Swimming Pool is the most popular choice for in-ground pools. They initial costs are soon paid back with the longer life of the swimming pool Also, unlike other kinds of pools, concrete pools are serviceable and therefore can be repaired and even enlarged afterwards.
Concrete Swimming Pool Construction and Design
Concrete used in the construction of swimming pool has to be reinforced, usually with Grade 60 Steel. Reinforcement is required as he concrete experiences bending stresses produced from water – and soil, when constructed in-ground.
The greater the depth of water, the stronger the swimming pool walls need to be. A normal strength Concrete, M20 or higher grade would work fine for the swimming pool. Reinforcement and Concrete should be designed in detail prior to beginning construction of the swimming pool.
As it can be seen from the illustration of the masonry wall, greater strength is required in the bottom of the wall. The floor of swimming pool, on the other hand, experiences the same vertical pressure at every point and therefore requires the same reinforcement in every part of it.
If constructed in-ground, as already mentioned, Reinforced Concrete doesn’t only have to bear the loads of water but also of the surrounding soil. The reinforced wall acts as a retaining wall, retaining the load of soil at two different levels. The load of water and soil counteract each other as the loads of soil are distributed in the same manner as of water.
However, the swimming pool should be designed in a manner that it can resist the soil loads even when the pool is empty. An empty pool would lack the pressure from water that would help counteract the soil pressure.
Swimming Pool Design considerations
When designing a Swimming Pool which is only partially in-ground and extends above ground level, soil pressure is not considered for the part which is above the ground level. Only, water pressure is considered for that part of the design.
The design of such Reinforced Concrete walls is always based on standard regulations which define the minimum strength of Concrete and Steel which should be used for the construction – M20 Concrete and Grade 60 Steel with a minimum wall thickness of 6 inches are American Concrete Institute (ACI) Requirements for example.
The reinforcement can be steel or any other material such as CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) or GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer). These Polymer based Reinforcement types usually have higher tensile strength and make Reinforced Concrete a relatively ductile material. They are usually expensive than Steel but since these reinforcement types are stronger, a lower amount would be used.
Concrete Swimming Pool Construction
- Selection of Land and Design
This includes the architectural as well as structural design. The depth of Pool affects the amount of steel and the thickness of concrete wall. - Excavation of Earth
- Compaction of Soil
- Construction of Swimming Pool Base
A lean concrete base is provided before the actual construction of floor. This should be done at a gradient so that the emptying of swimming pool would be easier at later stages. - Steel Cage placement
- Pump and Filter System Placement
- Concreting – This can be done using Shotcrete technique or formwork. Shotcrete eliminates the chances of gaps.
- Waterproofing of Concrete – This can be done using Tiles, Glass, Ceramic or Epoxy or any other water-proofing method.
- Coping Construction.
There are a number of questions that usually arise when one talks about Reinforced Concrete Swimming Pools. Some of the frequently asked questions are answered below.
Do concrete pools need waterproofing?
If Concrete, is not sealed properly, it would leak water to the surrounding soil. This causes problems as the soil in the surrounding would get wet. The soil would exert a higher pressure since water and soil would act together now.
This also poses the risk of uplift water pressure.
Piping and Soil erosion is also possible which would leave a hollow space in the underlying soil and therefore it wouldn’t be able to bear the loads and would have chances of collapse.
How long do concrete pools last?
It usually depends on the conditions it is exposed to. A structural designer mentions the service life of the structure he designs. On average, the Reinforced Concrete Pools survive 40-60 years. Salt water Pools survive shorter than Fresh Water Pools since Salt intrusion in Concrete causes some complications.
What type of Concrete is used for Swimming Pools?
Conventional Concrete can be used for the construction of the pool. Usually M20 Grade concrete or higher can suffice the structural needs. However, it is preferable to use to water proofing admixtures in the concrete.
The resulting concrete would have lesser or almost zero infiltration of water and consequently, a longer service life.
Are Concrete Pools Better?
It actually depends requirements and location of the pool. But in general, Reinforced Concrete Swimming Pools are cheaper and easier to construct.
If necessary later in life, the repairing of Reinforced Concrete Swimming Pools is much easier as compared to other materials like fibreglass pools.
Design of Swimming Pools using 3D CAD.
By designing the swimming pool using 3D CAD all of the material thickness and strength requirements can be checked prior to the pool construction starting. Additionally, the pool can be viewed from any angle to ensure the privacy and aesthetic design goals are met from any possible viewing angle. This is a great design tool when designing an integrated landscaping and swimming pool package. The 3D swimming pool and landscaping fly-through is a great way for the customer to visualise the finished product before pool design sign-off.
https://youtu.be/JKs04xuwGIc
https://youtu.be/vhIJRcRAp-M
Related landscaping ideas from Red's Landscaping Melbourne.
9 great reasons for Pool and Landscaping Packages
13 Best Pool Landscaping Design ideas
Eco Pools: Nature pools for the eco conscious
Custom Pools by Red's Landscaping Melbourne
© 2020 Reds Landscaping and Civil quality commercial landscaping Melbourne
More information about Pools
Pool Design as a Masonry Retaining Wall
4 Path Designs for Cottage Gardens
Path design for cottage gardens is not only a way to provide access, but the path can provide a design feature in itself.
How do you plan a Garden Path?
Designing a garden path for your cottage garden
Traditional cottage gardens do not have lawns. As a result, this makes them an eco-friendly alternative for the Melbourne suburban home garden and a potential water saving garden design. Often the garden design will appear chaotic, but the parts of the garden will be divided up by symmetrical, geometric garden paths.
Home Garden Footpath Ideas
There are 4 main types of garden path layout. For instance, there are diamond shaped, oval outer path, central circular bed with crossed outer squares and the simpler square outer path with a single main path.
Crossed walkway with central circular garden
The crossed paths provide a central focal point for your cottage garden. This is similar in some ways to the traditional monastery garden, which was centered on the point where the two cloisters would meet. This is widely regarded as the authentic traditional cottage garden style. The outer paths can be made a little narrower than the other paths for smaller cottage gardens.
Although this is a formal garden, a box hedge and a circular center garden are often features of a typical cottage garden with a crossed path system.
Crossed Pathway with Oval shaped outer garden path
A variation of this is to leave the crossed central pathway out.
Diamond Shaped Garden Path
Square Outer Path
Alternative cottage pathway systems
So far, we have covered the 4 typical styles of pathway system. It is possible to have more complicated systems of pathways in your garden.
What is the cheapest walkway material?
The materials used on the paths in traditional cottage gardens will have a naturalistic look and tend to be soft surfaces. However, these can often be a little uncomfortable to walk on in bare feet. Amongst the hard surfaces, there are brick, granite setts, or natural flagstones. If you want to use concrete for the cottage garden pathways, then coloured, stencilled or exposed aggregate concrete will make the concrete appear more naturalistic. This would however, be a break from the tradition of cottage garden design.
Designing a Cottage Garden
In a traditional English village you are likely to find a stream, hedge-rows, a village pond and plenty of large trees and an orchard. In addition, each house will have its own cultivation plot and sometimes an enclosed front yard garden.
Small garden path design
You can design a cottage garden for a space as small as 25 square metres. This might therefore be the case if you have a traditional Melbourne heritage house or townhouse. However, if you have more space in your front yard garden, you will be able to fit in several shrubs and trees and wide box hedge lined paths.
Cottage garden shape
Ideally, your cottage garden will be square, rectangular, or close to it. However, if your garden is not too small, you could have the traditional two garden paths crossing in the center with an oval or circular path around the edge. Traditionally, the cottage garden did not run all the way up to the house wall but had a zone where climbing roses or espalier fruit trees could be grown. This is also an area where plants in garden pots, a flower bed, or garden furniture could be placed.
Plantings facing the sun
In Melbourne your cottage herb and vegetable gardens should be facing north to make the most of often scarce winter sunlight. If that is not possible, try to find a position in your home garden that receives morning sun. For instance, many of the summer cottage vegetables and herbs that originate from warm climates will need as much sun and warmth as possible. Above all, plants such as fennel, cucumbers and tomatoes must have sufficient direct sunlight.
Gardens in the shade
If your home garden is mostly shady, you will need to be very selective with your plant selection. Use plants of varying heights in your cottage garden. The taller plants will, however, cast shade. The use of layering will therefore draw the eye up and down and make smaller gardens appear larger. The cottage garden should therefore exist in 3 dimensions. One cottage garden design feature that could be used for this is to plant some verbascum, hollyhocks, foxgloves, or lupins. The shade cast by these plants will not cover the same spot all day unless they are planted in a huge clump.
Related Landscaping Ideas from Red's Landscaping
Landscape Designers Top 11 Tips
Landscaping Melbourne with Climbing Plants
Cottage garden ideas from the Cotswolds
Cottage Gardens in Melbourne Part 1 – History
Landscape Design for Commercial Landscaping
5 top Landscape Design trends in Melbourne in 2022
© Copyright Red’s Landscaping and Design – Melbourne Commercial Landscaping Specialist
Red’s Landscaping YouTube Channel
Red’s Landscaping Pinterest Boards
More Information on Cottage Gardens
How to Create a Low Maintenance Cottage Garden
Blogs to Follow @RedsLandscaping
https://medium.com/@redslandscaping/
https://redslandscapingau.wordpress.com/
https://redslandscapingau.blogspot.com/
https://redslandscaping.edublogs.org/
6 Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before Re-designing Your Homes Landscaping
Generally, redesigning your landscape involves choosing features of landscaping and incorporating them into the perfect design. You want a landscape that will last for years, so get ready to invest some time. Ask yourself these 6 Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before Re-designing Your Homes Landscaping.
Do you understand your yard?
To begin with, the landscaping design reinvents your yard by introducing new different features. These features that are determined by three components:
- The level of shade.
- Topography.
- The plants, shrubs and trees that populate your yard.
How do these three components influence your design? Specifically, summers are a pretty hot time, and while people might spend their late afternoons or evenings in the backyard, the sun hangs out all day. The extreme heat can damage landscaping, while tree canopies can leave dry, shaded areas that aren’t easy to populate with lovely plants. The shade of your yard becomes an important component in landscape design.
In addition, the topography influences design because it creates opportunities to add beautiful features while it still engages in a functional role, like draining your yard. Such functional roles won’t be altered by landscaping that improves a swale or an existing crest for instance.
Transforming a ridge and low lying area with terracing or a sloping flower bed succeeds at different levels. Your neighbours will be impressed by your landscape design Melbourne.
Finally, the climate you live in has a lot to do with the plants, trees or shrubs you choose to put into the landscape. At the same time, your selection of trees, shrubs and flowers also influence the types of soil in your region.
How do you expect to use your newly landscaped yard?
One of the great things about landscape design Melbourne is how people determine to use it? The backyard bar-b-q expert will attest to a design’s success when it makes possible saucy smoked ribs or pulled pork. So, the obvious question to ask before you begin is how will people use the new landscape? Will children use the yard? How about adults or animals?
With that in mind, the landscape design’s objective is to create a place apart from the hustle and bustle of the world and give the occupants a sense of place and belonging, as strong a sense as they enjoy inside their house. Landscapes can shut out the outside world and inspire the imaginations of people in it.
To illustrate, the families’ focus on the children today might determine the focus of landscape design. When looking at orienting the design toward people, the placement of ordinary furniture becomes important.
The design for a family’s space can include cooking area, dining area, and a place identical to a family room, a place where kids can dig in, have fun and share space with adults. It can involve anything as simple as a swing or as big as a kid’s double chaise lounge.
With the users in mind, designers may create spaces for furniture like hanging Hammocks or sprawling lounge chairs that capture the imaginations of the people in it. Also, the adults might want to create a kids’ corner with a kiddie’s picnic table and umbrella, a place where kids can enjoy some independence from the adult world.
How much money do you want to spend on your new Landscaping?
The budget and the value of the property are both determining factors of how much money you want to invest in landscaping. While landscaping doesn’t increase the living space of your home, it does have an impact on your home’s value. Experts estimate that landscaping improves your home’s value by at least ten per cent, give or take a few percentage points.
On the other hand, if the home isn’t an investment, then landscaping adds to the personality of the home. The return-on-investment may be irrelevant in that case. In landscaping Melbourne, you don’t want to spend $100,000 on landscaping on a house that’s valued at $250,000.
In the second place, you should consider the question of labour when drawing up a budget for landscaping. At this point, you might want to do the work yourself or hire the job out to a professional.
Farming the work out may be expensive, but you get a professional’s skill and experience, and a contractor who takes responsibility for the work. On the other hand, a do-it-yourself job can often be as good and you have money to either pocket or invest in a feature like privacy landscaping trees.
What is the design premise for your back yard?
Speaking of privacy landscaping trees, often there’s a feature you want to emphasize or experiment within landscape design. It can be an overarching idea, or it can be just one part of the landscape that subtly resounds through the design.
One of the most popular landscape premises is the backyard bird or butterfly garden. People who want to attract birds and butterflies can do it with re-designing your homes landscaping.
By the same token, a landscape devoted to growing organic vegetables is another concept. Clearly, limiting the design to one idea is possible, but the likelihood is that the landscape will be used for many reasons, but none of that violates the idea that is expressed in the design.
The family who wants to devote the landscape to raising children have a host of ideas to communicate but aren’t limited to creating only kids’ spaces.
You can combine your many interests in the design too. For example, if you’re an avid golfer, put a putting green into your landscape design. If your pets love the yard, create an emphasis on pet life. The special premise for a landscape doesn’t have to be much more than a token decorative detail, or it could be a dominating feature in every corner of the design.
What’s the composition of your new landscaping design?
One of the unspoken rules of landscape design is that it will incorporate lines, colours and forms to express ideas. If you flew a drone over your yard and found a bird’s eye view of the landscaping below, how many linear elements, colours or geometric forms fit in some way with the composition? These linear features, colours and forms can be seen in flower beds, coloured brick walkways, open greens and steps or stairs.
The pre-production process in landscaping captures this best by looking at the landscapers’ tools. Those tools include sketchbooks, tracing paper, camera, printouts on construction paper, reference books, and markers and pens.
The design reduces your space to scale so that it can be rendered on a computer. These are important tools in getting the composition of your landscape right. Re-designing your homes landscaping process is complicated but it can also be inspired. Every new landscape design poses a unique challenge in composition.
What elements of re-designing your homes landscaping should be emphasized when you bring it together in your final design?
The principles of landscaping design bring all the elements together in a perfect design.
When your landscape design is complete, all the elements from plants to trees to walkways and green areas should adhere to the notion of harmony in proportion.
An oversized potted plant won’t work in a small corner of the yard devoted to the kids. Your features might line up perfectly with one another across a central walkway to create a remarkable symmetrical space. On the other hand, you may opt for something a little more asymmetrical, with a walkway off the centre line or a path winding to a corner.
One way of creating a sense of the familiar is to repeat sequences of flowers in flower beds or repeat breaks between hedges that are equal distant throughout. This repetition can be a desirable element of your landscape. Since unity is highly valued in design, re-designing your homes landscaping can be achieved by simply using an arrangement in a flower bed and repeat it over and over. That suggests unity to space in landscaping Melbourne.
More Gardening Ideas from Red’s Landscaping
New Home Construction Landscaping
Path Design for Cottage Gardens
Landscaping With Xanthorrhoea The Australian Grass Tree
© 2020 Reds Landscaping and Civil – Quality landscaping Melbourne
Soft and Hard Landscaping, Residential Home and Civil projects across Australia by Reds Landscaping and Design
Blogs to Follow @RedsLandscaping
https://medium.com/@redslandscaping/
https://redslandscapingau.wordpress.com/
https://redslandscapingau.blogspot.com/
https://redslandscaping.edublogs.org/
7 of the Best ideas from the Melbourne Garden Show
The Melbourne International Flower Garden Show is a great place to develop your landscape garden design ideas. If you are not in Melbourne, see if you can get to one of the annual garden shows around the country or around the world. One of the biggest shows in the Southern Hemisphere is the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show at the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens, just north of the Melbourne CBD. Here you can see the work of some of the best landscape designers in Melbourne. This five day annual event runs until late March, so if you missed it this year, we have brought you some photos. Depending on which climate zone you are designing a garden for, your plant selection may be different.
Melbourne Edible Gardens
This year’s show featured edible gardens, workshops with local industry experts, floral art displays, garden competitions, and landscape gardens. For landscaper designers, it is also a great opportunity to talk with exhibitors and suppliers of everything from garden tools to sculptures and garden accessories.
The Welcome Landscape Garden
For the first time ever, this year’s show featured a welcome landscape garden. This garden was designed by last year’s Best in Show award winner, Phillip Withers, creative director of Phillip Withers Landscape Design. "Flourishing with a full spectrum of green hues, the biodiverse habitat is a place for visitors to relax and recline."
One of the challenges for landscape designers is developing ideas for garden focal points. Once the focal point of a garden design is established, the rest of the garden design more or less falls into place. Shows like these are ideal for helping to explore ideas for garden design. Landscaping solutions from some of Australia’s best landscape garden designers are on display at one location.
Garden Shows – A great source of Landscape Design Ideas and the latest trends
Garden shows like the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, Brisbane International Garden Show, and the recent Brisbane Garden and Plant Expo are favourites with hobby gardeners, professional landscapers, horticulture students, and members of the plant nursery industry.
Outdoor garden setting with tiled paving, exposed concrete, native grasses and vertical gardens.
Over 75,000 people have visited over 150 gardens to admire and get garden design ideas through Open Gardens Victoria.
Our Design Packages
3D Landscape Rendering Package
Related Landscaping Ideas from Red's Landscaping and Civil Services
9 great reasons for Pool and Landscaping Packages
5 top Landscape Design trends in Melbourne
5 Top Custom Swimming Pool Designs and trends.
The worlds best landscape designers
Gardening Ideas From The Chelsea Flower Show
13 Best Pool Landscaping Design Ideas
11 best landscapers of all time
3 Best Types of Concrete Retaining Wall
Soft and Hard Landscaping, Residential Home and Civil projects across Australia by Reds Landscaping and Design
© Copyright 2023 Red’s Landscape Gardening – Melbourne Landscaper
Garden Design credit for the Melbourne Garden and flower show gardens above.
Candeo Design-landscape design company
2017 Best in Show award winner Phillip Withers
http://phillipwithers.com
Local Melbourne garden shows for landscape design ideas.
https://melbflowershow.com.au/
Blogs to Follow @RedsLandscaping
https://medium.com/@redslandscaping/
https://redslandscapingau.wordpress.com/
https://redslandscapingau.blogspot.com/
https://redslandscaping.edublogs.org/