MIDDLESEX
Sector
Residential
Location
Orange, New South Wales
Year
2023
Landscape Architect
Christian Long
‘Middlesex’ a recently renovated 1907 home located close to the town centre of Orange. The client’s brief was to reestablish a garden that respected and enhanced the building’s Edwardian structure. A keen interest in the formality of classic English and French gardens, was the central driver.
This was an end to end service, overseeing the entirety of the project, including plant list, ordering materials, construction, earth works, budget and contractors.
A simple on site sketch, mimicking the simplicity of the Georgian house, simple symmetrical rows formed. By adding lines of medium soft hedging, low soft shrubs, low hard hedging and small soft grasses gives height hierarchy to both sides to the pathway. Once in the garden the beholder gets a sense that the space is bigger than what it is and from the interior a sense of privacy from the street. Adding small touches of colour throughout the garden at different times of the year elevates the property for visitors.
The symmetry and simplicity of the design, and colour scheme, enhanced the beauty of the building’s form. Additionally the client’s keen interest in productive gardens, created an opportunity to use individual species such as: creeping thyme; edible crab apples; bay leaf trees and lavender which also performed as a seasonal stimulant for guests.
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Front Section: Crab Apples provide structural symmetry with hedge under plantings
of Viburnum, Rhododendron, Buxus and Ophiopoan Japonicus
Master plan excluding rear of home, with the intent for completion early 2024.