Walkabout Landscape

You plant around your design, not design around your plants. Confusing? Upon meeting with a new client, most people will typically tell me of their favourite plant(s). Putting plants in the lead position of the design process will guarantee you a landscape that resembles your neighbours and every other house on the street and across the community.

It's like determining the colours you will use in your new house and you haven't yet designed the house! Like colours, plants are a medium. You must provide context in order to give meaning. This is the hardscape or 'bones' referred to in garden literature. Be it a simple graveled path, a grouping of boulders, or obedient deference to existing topography, this is what will provide year-round interest.

It is also the framework that will suggest and therefore help you choose which plants and their placement. The end result is an aesthetic and harmonious integration of hardscape and softscape elements. The Walkabout Way acknowledges the on-site environmental realities (ecozone, drainage, sun, shade etc.) and integrating these along with the clients desired outside intentions (active/passive use) as the basis for formulating a design theme.