SIMPLY LOVELY

The owners of this Sydney garden requested a “low-maintenance, unfussy entertaining space”. The result is clean, sophisticated and warmly inviting.

- Elizabeth Wilson

Stretching to the sky, tall rows of clumping bamboo (Bambusa textilis ‘Fusca’) screen this Sydney garden from surrounding apartment blocks. The new garden, designed by Rebecca Colechin at Garden Life, is understated and elegant, with a focus on user-friendly entertaining spaces and hardy plants. Seti sofa and armchairs and Chunky coffee table, all Robert Plumb. Gosford Bluff sandstone pavers, Gosford Quarries. Cunjevoi lily (Alocasia brisbanensis) is planted in a terracotta pot from Garden Life.

Bookstore owner anna Low is a lover of literature and an oracle for those seeking recommendations on the latest in fiction and fact. she could tell you about every new garden-related title on the market, but gardening per se is not her thing. nor is it her partner Stephen’s. “We’re terrible gardeners,” Anna admits.

The couple and their twin sons Rory and Louis, 17, moved into their home in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern five years ago. The home, a Georgian terrace, was freshly renovated with a light-filled contemporary extension at the rear. Its design had the potential for a strong inside-outside connection... but anna and Stephen felt a disconnect. The outdoor space didn’t feel inviting and they didn’t relate to it – physically or stylistically – at all. “The garden was fussy. It had a lawn and a pond, which was a mosquito trap, and it was high maintenance,” says Anna, who runs the Potts Point Bookshop. “We wanted it to be beautiful to look at and more user-friendly, with plants we couldn’t kill.” The one element they loved was the existing bamboo, which was planted in dense thickets to screen out neighbouring apartment blocks.