WONDER LAND

Designed as a fun-filled playspace for the owners’ children, this Sydney backyard has become a favourite with their many friends too.

- Chris Pearson

Massed plantings of heliconias, underplanted with Philodendro ‘Xanadu’, as well as giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos), provide the lushness the owners sought in their garden. Fast-growing weeping lilly pilly (Waterhousea floribunda) offers screening from the neighbours. Basketball net from Mega Slam Hoops.

A park-like paradise right at the back door: that’s what the owners of this Sydney garden wanted for their four children, all aged under 10. And Fiona Ericsson and Julia Levitt of Sticks & Stones Landscape Design have delivered on that brief in spades. “The kids are out there all the time, regardless of the weather,” says the owner.

In 2018, before the duo was hired by the owners, the children would have been less enthusiastic. Then, the garden was lacklustre, with patchy grass and sparse plantings, and dominated by a paved parking area higher than the lawn that sliced the backyard in two.