House & Garden Design Ideas
Landscape Design

Design guide

See Your Garden Design
Looks Before you build

A garden reads as designed when it repeats. Three or four plant species used in deliberate groups will always look better than twenty single specimens, and it costs less to buy and maintain.

Structure

The five planting layers

Canopy

One or two trees for shade, scale and screening from neighbours.

Understorey

Small trees and tall shrubs, 2–3m, that hold the middle of the picture.

Shrub layer

Massed shrubs 600mm–1.5m — the workhorse layer that hides fences and bare stems.

Perennials & grasses

Movement, seasonal colour and softness at 300–900mm.

Groundcover

Living mulch that suppresses weeds and finishes bed edges.

Worked examples

Concepts led by planting

Cottage Welcome front yard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 02Forward Looking

Cottage

Cottage Welcome

Soft flowering borders spilling over a picket edge, a curved path and a rose arch at the gate.

  • Flowering borders
  • Rose arch
  • Gravel path
  • Picket edging

Typical build range: $6k – $12k

Japanese Entry Garden front yard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 09Forward Looking

Japanese

Japanese Entry Garden

Raked gravel, a maple, moss mounds and a stepping stone approach to the door.

  • Raked gravel
  • Japanese maple
  • Stepping stones
  • Granite lantern

Typical build range: $11k – $20k

Woodland Shade Front front yard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 11Forward Looking

Shade

Woodland Shade Front

Ferns, hellebores and bark mulch under an existing canopy tree.

  • Fern understorey
  • Bark mulch
  • Shade tolerant beds
  • Timber edge

Typical build range: $5k – $11k

Prairie Meadow Verge front yard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 12Forward Looking

Naturalistic

Prairie Meadow Verge

Drifting grasses and perennials mown to a crisp lawn edge for a tidy wild look.

  • Perennial meadow
  • Mown edge
  • Seasonal colour
  • Pollinator planting

Typical build range: $6k – $13k

Kitchen Garden Backyard backyard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 27Forward Looking

Productive

Kitchen Garden Backyard

Raised vegetable beds, espaliered fruit, a compost bay and a potting bench.

  • Raised beds
  • Espalier fruit
  • Compost bay
  • Potting bench

Typical build range: $9k – $19k

Native Habitat Backyard backyard landscaping concept — Forward LookingConcept 37Forward Looking

Sustainable

Native Habitat Backyard

Indigenous planting, a frog pond, log seating and a rainwater tank.

  • Native planting
  • Frog pond
  • Log seating
  • Rain tank

Typical build range: $12k – $25k

Spacing and quantities

  • Groundcovers: 4–6 per square metre for cover within a season.
  • Perennials and grasses: 3–4 per square metre, planted in odd numbered groups.
  • Shrubs: space at two thirds of mature width so they knit together, not touch.
  • Hedges: 3–4 plants per metre for a fast, dense low hedge.

Choosing a palette

Pick a foliage palette first — greens, silvers and one dark accent — then add flower colour in no more than two families. Foliage carries the garden for fifty weeks of the year; flowers are the bonus. In hot climates, silver and grey foliage reads as cooling; in shade, variegated and lime foliage lifts the space.

Low maintenance without looking bare

  • Mass plant instead of spot planting: fewer species, fewer decisions, fewer failures.
  • Use 75mm of mulch on all beds and top it up annually.
  • Install drip irrigation under the mulch on a timer before planting.
  • Group plants by water need so one zone is not overwatered to keep another alive.