GardensAt Michelle Sadler Landscape Services we offer well thought out gardens. With our expertise, we can tailor an outcome that will incorporate your needs and wants with what will be aesthetically pleasing, functional, and within your budget. We have been building gardens for a long time. We keep up to date with the latest trends, ensure sourcing is possible for everything we quote, and construct a garden that will exceed your expectations. Our services cover all elements of the domestic landscape: decking, paving, seating, screens, irrigation, synthetic and instant real turf, letter boxes, clotheslines, and potted plants for indoor and outdoor spaces. CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE SLIDESHOW / |   |
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The Sideway?
If you have no idea what's possible for a particular area, we have many suggestions that will help.
For Nature Strips, toppings laid on a compacted crushed rock base can provide a neat and low-maintenance option. Alternatively, most councils allow low-growing planting, and of course, there is always lawn!
Garden Edging is a simple element that can help define your garden. Michelle Sadler Landscape Services can guide you on all the options. Treated pine edging is economical; steel link edging is minimalist, lasts much longer, and is great for curves, and brick or stone edging is always a great look. A paved edge doesn't have to be old school. Think crazy paving, cobbles, stone, clay; the possibilities are endless. A pine sleeper laid flat can give little ones a fun, safe 'balancing beam,' and if natural turf is NOT adjacent to it, raised edging in contemporary corten steel looks fantastic and is available in numerous heights. We can help you choose an edging that suits your requirements. Andrew's favourite? The shovel edge, but who has time to maintain that?!
Maintenance
The four photos in the row above are of the same front garden we landscaped a few years ago. The client does a wonderful job looking after the garden and also has us back once per season to prune, fertilise, replace plants, paint the driveway, brush up the synthetic turf, and do whatever is necessary to make this garden continue to look the way it does. It's by far the best in the street.
Sloping front gardens are great as they add character and an extra dimension to any garden. (For back gardens, if the slope is minimal, we'll most likely suggest a sleeper retaining wall along the perimeter fenceline (which will be hidden by infilling the space to bring it up level). If your front garden slopes - don't pretend it doesn't, and landscape it as if it is flat. Work with the slope - have a rolling lawn or retain it using well-placed garden rock or mudstone. Install steps - try to avoid sloping a front path unless, of course, chair access is a requirement. Old Railway sleepers with 800 x 400mm pavers for insteps can be an economical option. Rendered blockwork looks great, too, as does Merbou timber 'decking' steps, either constructed traditionally or in a Japanese-influenced shadow-box style (a series of small decks offset from one another). And if you would prefer to shape your front garden flat, consider setting back a retaining wall and having a narrow garden bed in front. It will soften the whole look, especially if you have a footpath in front.
Synthetic turf came a long way due to the demand the ten-year drought created. Even with the skies opening up, synthetic turf still has some great advantages worth considering - like no mowing! It is hotter underfoot in summer than natural lawn, and beware; there is still a little maintenance as weeds will still fly in and lodge occasionally. If your synthetic lawn does see lots of foot traffic, it may flatten over time, but this can be brushed back up with a stiff broom. Michelle Sadler Landscape Designs believes if you're going to do a job, do it right. It begins with quality products. Try to avoid the cheaper synthetic turfs on the market. It may cost a little more, but you won't be disappointed, and your friends and family won't believe their eyes or their feet.
