A black barn-style home on an Eumundi acreage block, with stormwater cutting through the entry every time it rained. The brief asked for screening, a fire pit, and a way to stop the erosion; we proposed making the drainage the feature itself. A dry creek bed of sandstone boulders and natives now runs where the runoff used to, and a round corten fire pit anchors the entertaining zone.
The owners had just finished building a modern barn-style home on a large Eumundi block, and the surrounding land was a blank canvas: bare earth either side of the house, a new fence line, the marks of recent construction. Salt took the landscape end-to-end: design, earthworks, hardscape, planting, turf.
The brief had three open problems and a clear aesthetic. Stormwater was running through the entry path during heavy rain and pulling soil with it, the fence line had no privacy, and the back-of-house entertaining area needed a focal point. The owners liked architectural natives, disliked anything tropical or cottagey, and wanted a garden they could leave for weeks while they travelled. No purple. No deciduous trees. Pinks and reds for the flowering layer.
The pivot came on the entry. The original thinking was to manage the stormwater quietly with a swale and put a separate decorative feature out front. We proposed collapsing the two: make the drainage the feature. A dry creek bed of sandstone boulders runs the natural water line through the entry zone, with native planting through and around it that holds the soil and reads as bushland. The runoff problem became the moment people see when they pull up the driveway.
Crushed sandstone, compacted, runs all the pathways through the property: driveway to house, house to pool, fire pit zone. A compaction material like deco granite but in sandstone, hard underfoot and reading naturally alongside the boulders and the dry creek. The path material softens into the dry creek at the entry rather than meeting it as a hard edge. Corten steel separates lawn from pathway and garden bed throughout, both for the patina against the black cladding and to keep the couch runners out of the planted zones.
A round corten fire pit anchors the entertaining zone, sitting on a gravel pad with sandstone boulders set as seating around it. 1.2m wide, made by a local handmade supplier on the Sunshine Coast, framing the view back across the property.
Planting follows the modern-native posture: architectural and sculptural over soft and cottagey. Brachychiton compactus and Banksia integrifolia carry the canopy and feature roles. Acacia 'Sterling Silver' screens the fence line at scale. Below them, a mid-storey of Banksia 'Honeyeater Delight', Westringia 'Wynyabbie Gem', Westringia 'Zena', and Grevillea 'Moonlight'. Casuarina 'Cousin It' mass-planted for the soft groundcover layer that ties the whole palette together. Pinks and reds in the flowering accents per the brief.
Photographs and details posted to our feed after the install.
"We cannot praise highly enough the beautiful garden we now enjoy thanks to the team at Salt Landscaping. From the initial consult with Billy, who understood exactly the aesthetic and feel we were going for, right through to the implementation and installation of our garden, it was nothing but a delight to deal with Salt Landscaping."