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Slim Tulloch
Scenic & Landscape Design
At the turn of spring in the alpine regions of Victoria, snow is melting slowly revealing life below its clean white cover. Grasses are springing to life; small plants begin to sprout and the true shape of the formally hidden landscape is revealed. Vast areas of rocks, low shrubs and windswept Snow Gums populate the horizon. Gullies team with creeks and groundcovers begin to blossom. This design serves to complement that moment but transposing its forms and composition into an urban courtyard. For a client that enjoys the simplicity and calming nature of the high country.
Mounded earth with two sculptural Snow Gums form the structure of the space, framed with low growing shrubs allowing their trunks to make a twisted gnarled statement as they age. Clipped westringia serves as the mid height formality punctuating ribbons of white flowering shrubs such as Convolvulus cneorum. The entire floor is planted with groundcovers that are happy to live under the shade of a steel grate walkway taking visitors to a private seating area. Here they are surrounded by the sweeping lines of Poa sieberiana, softening the horizontal forms of the fence line and blurring the connection between garden and sky. A nod to the ghostly texture of leafless Snow Gums after the harsh burns of summer bushfires. Swathes of unmelted snow litter the corners of the shady areas in the garden, represented with white quartz gravel. Interrupting the silver foliage and softening the edges of the stern metal walkway. And through that grated walkway we see sparks of life pushing through. Long stems of grass, and the cheerful bursts of billy buttons serve to draw the visitor further into the garden to discover what else could be underfoot.
DESIGNED FOR : THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FLOWER & GARDEN SHOW (2020)