Bring a Touch of The Chelsea Flower Show to Your Garden
Nine-time ChelseaFlower Show veteran and winner of Australia’s only ‘best in show’ medal in the historic event’s 100 year history, Wes Fleming knows a thing or two about creating show-stopping gardens. From dramatic plunge-pools and outdoor bathtubs to relaxed outdoor dining and sculptural outdoor art, new landscaping and design trends are formed at Chelsea. So how can you recreate a touch of Chelsea in your garden at home? Wes Fleming reveals his top tips to inject a Chelsea feel into your outdoor space… “Plonk Gardening” – don’t overthink the location of plants too much and don’t be afraid to mix and match within a garden bed. Rather than strive for perfection and symmetry, for a more natural look simply ‘plonk’ plants down in the garden bed still in their pots and stand back – if it looks good, then plant. Use a mix of evergreen, flowering, autumn colour and feature trees to create a stunning array of texture and colour that will change with the weather and take on a different character with each turn of the season. Reserve a good budget for planting – the plants will pay you back in spades as they mature and in turn increase the value of your home. Use colour to layer – use deep purple foliage as a backdrop, fading to brighter tones and silver foliage plants as the top layer of planting. Use low growing and spreading plants as ground cover, rather than mulch or bark. This will create a more full-bodied garden with lots of different plants, colours and textures. Create interest and structure to your garden with a touch of ‘hard’ landscaping –wooden beams or decorative screening make for a dramatic addition to any garden and help balance the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ landscaping elements. Be creative with exterior lighting. Accentuating mature trees or feature points in the garden with up-lighting can look incredible at night and ensure your garden is a focal point both day and...
Being Mindful With Good Design
When is a chair not a chair? When it has a dual purpose. I first saw these beautifully crafted chairs when I lived in Canada and I had just started getting into meditation. They offer a comfortable spot to meditate, be mindful or just relax in. Meditation was like a blessing. I was working crazy hours in the oil industry and found meditation helped to ground me, even if it was just for short amounts of time. Relaxing, being at peace, slowing down and just being was helping my state of mind immensely. However, as everyone knows, when you have a busy schedule I found it hard to keep it up with the demands of everyday life. I found I needed to create a little oasis and needed a visual reminder to make sure I took time out for myself. While I meditated, I wasn’t a big fan of cushions on the floor or hard wooden surfaces. I like to be comfortable when I’m relaxing, so when I found this beautifully designed chair, which was also meant for meditation or just for generally chilling out, I jumped for joy. Fast forward a couple of years and my husband and I moved back to Australia to be closer to family. I was working on another business idea at the time, which didn’t work out, and then the chair popped back into my mind. I wanted to revive my meditation practice and to create my own little oasis. I got in touch with the designer to see if he could send a chair over to me but with the logistics of it he said no he couldn’t just send one. As a busy working mum I really needed that chair now, more than ever, so I ordered ten! As soon as I received the chairs my friends and family starting asking about them, and wanted to know where I had found them. I sold those ones in no time and that’s when my business idea came to fruition. The designer did not ship to Australia, so I would become the distributor here. I now import these chairs which are ethically made in Java, Indonesia. The bases are made of sustainable mango wood, with a seagrass and banana leaf weave, and the cushions are 100 per cent cotton and kapok filling. Since I started importing these beautiful pieces I’ve had CEOs of multinationals to Buddhist nuns; health practitioners to mums purchasing them and also conveying their yearning for a place of peace and solitude. I believe the benefits are huge, from spending just ten minutes a day listening to your breathing and...
How To Make a Large Room Feel Comfortable
There are many ways to divide a large space into more comfortable smaller areas in which to live, work and play but for this article I’d like to concentrate on room dividers. The clever use of a physical barrier can set the tone for the design scheme; traditional, mid-century modern, urban, scandi style or shabby chic, anything is possible. Space dividers Open plan living spaces are popular, particularly with families, and they work really well when numbers swell at party time. However very large rooms can make people feel uncomfortable and sometimes it’s difficult to arrange furniture due to the lack of walls. It feels a bit weird placing furniture in the middle of an expansive room when, having been used to smaller spaces, we would naturally place large items around the edges of a room and face them inwards. Moving from a house with several small rooms into one with an open plan arrangement can be daunting and space dividers have an important role. The open shelving shown in the image below (from Bolefloor), allows the maximum amount of light to permeate through. This has the added design benefit of creating shadows, which can be very attractive, and it means you have a visual connection through the space. The design is perfect for a contemporary look and you may wish to display items on the shelves although I must admit to liking it just the way it is. To bring pattern into a room you could try a folding screen that can be moved and adjusted to fit the space. A solid screen like the ones below (Butterflies from Timorous Beasties and parrots from WallpaperDirect) can create the effect you specifically need. Give your room a lift with joyful pattern or bold colour. If you have craft skills you could make this type of screen at home; cover with fabric, wallpaper, or paint. If you need a divider that also creates a thermal barrier a glazed wall is one to consider. The decision to have small framed panes of glass or large pieces that are unframed will be dependent on the style you want to achieve in your home. In order to decide what type of room divider you need consider the following questions:- Is it going to be permanent or do you need to move it around? For instance, will you want to take it with you to a new home or use it in another room in the future? Do you require the screen for privacy and if so, must it be completely solid or can it be semi transparent? Should the screen be more than just a visual divider? Could it be a thermal or noise barrier? Is the screen required for...
The Whole Enchilada: Stop Thinking in Terms of Rooms
Interior Design can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you have no training or serious experience with it. In fact, for many people who choose to go DIY (or must do, due to budget constraints), their gut instinct is to reduce the project’s scale down to something more mentally manageable. This usually means focusing on one room of the house at a time – or, sometimes, just one aspect of a room. Once they get the scale down to something less frightening the ideas start to come. The problem? This approach usually results in an over-designed home, or a home with a chaotic, rudderless design scheme that doesn’t feel cohesive. Beautiful, unique objects, textures, and colours won’t do much for your home if they fight with each other or don’t complement each other. Scary or not, the key to good design in the home is to think about the Big Picture. The Problem Here’s the problem: Whether you’re tackling each room as a whole separate project due to intimidation or budget, the end result is that each room feels like an island of design. On the one hand, this might make sense to you, because you’re pouring all of your creativity and resources into each space, so they will all emerge feeling “done,” with nice finishes. And that may well be true. But if you step back and walk from space to space, think about whether the colour transitions from one wholly distinct palette to another are jarring, whether the decorations on the walls and surfaces tie into each other or not, and whether you feel like you’re walking through different people’s apartments instead of one family’s home. In some cases, you want this distinction – giving a child his or her distinct space can be a great idea. But for the public areas of the home everything needs to feel like it’s part of a larger plan. The Solution The solution is simple: Step back and make sure there are visual “through lines” between each space. Take into consideration: Colour Palette: You don’t need to use the same colour palette in each room, but each colour palette should launch from the same starting point and complement each other. One great idea is to have each room shift from one end of the palette spectrum to another as you move from the front to the back of the home. Wall Art: Each piece of wall art should refer back to others in the home. Subtlety is key. Different styles of canvas prints or other wall decor all depicting similar subjects, or canvas prints made from the same photo set you took on...
Australia Uncovered: Lake Daylesford Country House
Daylesford is a pettite rural town, just an hour and a half away from Melbourne CBD. With 65 mineral springs the Dylesford-Hepburn district accounts for more than 80% of Australia’s mineral water reserve. As a result, Daylesford has been turned into Oz’ SPA capital. The picturesque village boasts unrivalled ratio of day spas in the entire country. But what makes Daylesford the perfect place to relax is the laid-back calm atmosphere. Unique and charming are the two words that come to mind when it comes to this town. The alluring combination of boutique retail, inviting restaurants, fascinating art galleries and period architecture dating back to the 1850’s will pull you away from everyday worries. But let’s talk architecture, or I might feel tempted to roam about the lush national parks, the surprises which await you in every tiny shop you visit and most above about the heavenly SPA treatments you can use. Something every newcomer notices about Daylesford is the oppulence. Glorious granite, sandstone and bluestone buildings add a flavour of grandeur to the little village. Most of the constructions can be dated back to the mid-1800’s – the time of the gold fever. Which leads us to the topic at hand – a majestic 1890’s Victorian country house, which has become one of the top luxury retreats in the area. Lake Daylesford Country House: Exterior Overlooking the eponymous Lake Daylesford, the magnificent historic building offers striking views of its timeless country garden as well as of the lake and the forest on the opposing shore. From the entrance to the property – a white picket gate, you enter a new realm. One of blossoming cherry and apple trees, dazzling water features – typical for the 1800’s European bourgeois housing. The artificial pond with its harmoniously ribbiting native frogs complete the idyllic picture. The lacy Victorian façade made of timber vaguely reminds of this of Queenslander houses rather than Daylesford’s typical stone architecture. But maybe this little detail is what distinguishes it from all the rest luxury SPAs. Lake Daylesford Country House: Interior If you thing that the garden with it’s blushing apple trees and bird songs are heavenly, wait till you actually enter the lake house. The traditional timber Victorian exterior is combined with ornate French Provincial style – upscale yet warm and inviting. Each bedroom has it’s own signature look but all four of them are fully equipped with the most pampering high-end bedding, cushions and draperies (Pierre Frey, Sheridan, Ashley – to drop a few names). For your privacy, each room has an en suite bathroom and three of them are quipped with corner SPAs. The...
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