Eatons Hill sits about twenty kilometres north of the Brisbane CBD, inside the Moreton Bay council area. Established family homes on undulating blocks, with Bunyaville Conservation Park and the South Pine River not far away.
The clue is in the name. Eatons Hill runs across undulating ground, and most properties carry some fall, whether that is a metre across the frontage or a full storey down the back. It shapes almost every job we do in the suburb. Level, usable ground has to be made rather than found, and how you make it decides both the budget and how the finished garden feels.
The other constant is the housing stock. These are established family homes on regular suburban blocks, and the house is usually not the problem. The garden is the part that has never been resolved: a frontage that was turfed and forgotten, a back yard too steep to use, or a driveway doing the job the front entrance should be doing.
Retaining and level-making comes up on most jobs here, along with entry stairs, front garden rebuilds and the stonework that dresses both. Because the fall is usually moderate rather than extreme, much of it can be handled with a single sub-metre wall. That keeps the job clear of engineering certification and council approval, and puts more of the budget into what you actually see.
The Eatons Hill Entrance project on our portfolio is a fair sample. A house with no front path, a low timber wall on the boundary, and a driveway doing all the work. It became a sub-metre block wall clad in split-face stone, a wide staircase, a custom stone-clad letterbox and a densely planted tropical garden.
Eatons Hill sits far enough inland for hot summers and cooler, drier winters than the coast, and the soils hold moisture. A few palettes work well here, depending on how you want the garden to feel and how much time you want to spend in it.
It depends on height and on what sits behind it. As a general rule a wall under a metre that is not carrying extra load above it does not need building approval or engineering certification, which is why a lot of our designs hold the wall just under that line. Anything taller, or anything supporting a driveway or structure, needs certification. We work this out at design stage rather than after the quote is signed.
Less than people expect when the fall is moderate. A single sub-metre wall and a set of stairs resolves a lot of Eatons Hill frontages. Cost climbs when the fall has to be tiered, when a wall carries a driveway or structure above it, or when machinery access is tight.
Modern tropical does well through the humid summers, and it is what most people picture when they imagine a lush front garden. Modern native is the lower-input option and gets through the drier winters without help. Both work. The deciding factor is usually how much time you want to spend maintaining it.
Yes. Moreton Bay sits inside the regulated area, which affects how soil, mulch and turf move to and from site, and means stock leaving a property cannot go back to the nursery. We plan supply around it from quote stage so it does not become a surprise mid-build.
Yes. Albany Creek, Warner, Bunya, Cashmere, Bridgeman Downs and Everton Hills are all in regular range, and we cover the rest of Moreton Bay along with Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.
Albany Creek · Warner · Bunya · Cashmere · Bridgeman Downs · Everton Hills
Part of our broader Moreton Bay service area.