© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdBlurring the borders between sea, sky and earth, this tropical Byron Bay garden delivers intimate, meditative spaces along with a sense of affinity with the limitless.
With rainbow lorikeets flitting through a lush canopy of palms and eucalypts casting dappled light on ferns below, this sprawling Byron Bay garden is a tropical paradise for its owner and creator, Lisa Hochhauser of LANDstudio.
Cooling and all-enveloping, her bushland garden, which covers a massive 49 hectares, appears to have been here forever - but that seeming natural randomness has resulted from inspired planning with a generous seeding of spontaneity.
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdAt the entrance, a mature screwpine (Pandanus utilis) was craned in and dwarf date palms (Phoenix roebelenii) and blue nolina (Nolina nelsonii) planted to provide verticality and soften the home's modern facade. Mass plantings of leopard plant (Ligularia dentata) and ornamental Korean velvet grass (Zoysia tenuifolia) provide dense ground cover.
A landscape architect, Lisa has had the luxury of time in this passion project. It has evolved over the last 20 years when, yearning for a tree change, literally, she shifted here from Sydney.
When she first saw the site in the mid-1990s, it had been stripped of native rainforest, with dairy cattle grazing among lantana and camphor laurel, both invasive pests, and a peppering of tea trees. Strewn across the paddocks were basalt boulders and a series of craters, tailings of intensive sand-mining from the 1930s. Above it all, a tired Queenslander on a ridge overlooked the ravaged slopes.
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdIn the rear entry, a dinner plate fig (Ficus dammaropsis) makes a bold statement. Rhapis palms (Rhapis excelsa) create an under-storey to Bangalow palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana).
However, Lisa was smitten with the site's virtues. The two most obvious were the jaw-dropping 180-degree views to Cape Byron enjoyed from the house and an Australian garden's biggest asset, a free-flowing spring - several, in fact. "Even in drought, you get pristine, flowing water, as much as you could ever need," she says. "There are a lot of springs just seeping water. This area is not called the Northern Rivers for nothing."
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdExotics mingle with endemic species near the house.
That ready and steady supply of water would prove the catalyst for the new garden she had in mind. Taking her inspiration from the Tyagarah Nature Reserve, which occupied about 60 per cent of her property, Lisa set about regenerating the bush that had been cleared. "My plan was to replenish the land, which had been brutalised, by re-establishing endemic species," she explains. "As a plant lover and landscape architect, I couldn't help myself." On the ridge, taking full advantage of the views, she built a house designed by architects Jan Hochhauser, her US-based brother, and Sydney-based Drew Heath, with glass areas and raw materials such as rammed-earth walls and weathered hardwoods, from which she could experience her tropical wonderland.
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdLord Howe wedding lily (Dietes robinsoniana) shares the garden bed with several species of Xanthorrhoea grass trees (X glauca, X fulva, X gracilis, X johnsonii). In the background are an exotic coconut tree (Cocos nucifera) and redneck palm (Dypsis lastelliana). The house is clad in assorted eucalyptus hardwoods left to weather. Along the driveway, the blue blooms of Pride of Madeira (Echium candicans), the pink flowers of bougainvillea variegated and poinciana (Delonix regia) hint at the botanical potpourri.
Apart from tracts of lush, regenerated bush, the vast garden features three key areas - two spring-fed lakes surrounded by native plant species and the area immediately around the house, with its expanse of lawn and sheltered enclaves populated by a mixture of the endemic and the exotic.
First up, the scattered rocks were moved to create natural hardscaping in the form of stacked formations. "They provide structure in an organic way," says Lisa. Most strikingly, they encircle a spring on the eastern side of the property, which she dammed to create a swimming hole that also ensures constant ground water for the bush. Then, harnessing a second spring, she constructed a bigger dam in 2005 to the north, to form another lake. "About 50 metres in diameter and with native water lilies, it's simply spectacular," says Lisa.
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdOn a deck abutting the main living area, old seagrass chairs and a timber Senufo tribal bed, sourced years ago, lend a raw quality. Paperbark trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia) command the canopy of the Tyagarah Nature Reserve beyond.
Meanwhile, the house, with its swimming pool and kitchen courtyard sheltered from the prevailing nor'easters off the ocean, provides nooks and crannies for some less resilient exotics that rub shoulders with hardier endemic species.
In the regenerated area, the plant palette is native. It includes clumps of Bangalow palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) up to 20 metres high, blue figs (Elaeocarpus angustifolius), forest red gums (Eucalyptus tereticorni) and swamp messmate (Eucalyptus robusta), with smaller tuckeroos (Cupaniopsis anacardioides), banksias and lomandra grasses beneath. Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) and the orange blooms of firewheels (Stenocarpus sinuatus) add more colour and texture.
Surrounding the house, Bangalow palms, kentias (Howea forsteriana) and Norfolk pines (Araucaria heterophylla) create an under-storey for tree ferns and lomandras, with surprises such as magnolias and hydrangeas that evoke Lisa's childhood in New York.
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdAt the dam along the northern boundary, blue lotus water lilies (Nymphaea caerulea) break the mirror-like surface, overlooked by Bangalow palms (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana), kentia palms (Howea forsteriana) and hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii).
There's also an overlay of tropical cycads, orchids and strelitzias. Near the house you will find Lisa's prized working garden, comprising a vegetable patch and an orchard where she grows everything from limes and mangoes to starfruit and dragonfruit.
The result is a multi-faceted, layered garden that combines the native and the exotic in often surprising combos. "My gardens are organic and romantic, with an emphasis on sight lines, views and discovery," explains Lisa. "A garden should include continual visual interest created by subtle rhythms and patterns as one moves through it." There's plenty of light and shade here, too, literally and figuratively. "Hidden, intimate spaces" mingle with "the grand choreographing of open, expansive spaces".
© Provided by Are Media Pty LtdIndian hawthorn (Raphiolepis indica 'Oriental Pearl') bushes, Bull Bay magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora 'Exmouth') and giant white bird of paradise (Strelitzia nicolai). Dichondra 'Silver Falls' cascading like water down the wall provides softness and depth.
Despite her passion for plants, the basalt boulders so casually discarded by sand-miners last century are Lisa's favourite element of all. "I love the lichens and mosses that grow in them and I am very lucky to have had my land strewn with them," she says.
"In any great garden, you are surrounded by the wonders of nature. There's no word for that. It's a spiritual connection," she adds, as she surveys her handiwork. "It's both calming and re-energising when you step into a space of natural beauty."
landstudio.com.au