ALL TIME HIGH

This Sydney garden takes easy entertaining to a whole new level - and has won a slew of awards to prove it.

- Chris Pearson

For owners Kylie and Nathan, this award-winning garden on Sydney’s Lower North Shore takes outdoor entertaining to new heights. Responding to the steep site, Fifth Season Landscapes designed a series of terraces, a stairway to heaven that culminates in an idyllic swimming pool.

When the couple bought the property for themselves and their two daughters, now teenagers, in 2015, they could see the garden had potential. “There was a generous outdoor dining area, a well-established perimeter hedge and some retaining walls,” says Kylie. But there the positives ran dry: “It lacked a cooking zone and there was no flow between the levels, which limited useability.” Narrow steps hampered access to the upper lawn and pool areas, agapanthus had overrun the garden beds, the courtyard had dated tiles and the pebblecrete pool showed its age.

In 2020, Kylie and Nathan hired Fifth Season Landscapes’ director design Phil Antcliff and design manager Levi Carter to make their garden more appealing and functional. “They asked us for a better connection, both physically and visually, between all the levels, a light-filled contemporary entertaining area, and the pool and its surrounds to be modernised and extended to accommodate sunloungers,” says Phil.

“We wanted to open up the space and make it more inviting,” adds Kylie. “We like to entertain, with long tables of friends for late lunches. As the garden is fully visible from the house, it needed to look beautiful and sophisticated, a space to draw you outside and urge you to explore.” Favouring strong lines, the couple also wanted something crisp and contemporary, with a simple planting palette.