A bend in time

An award-winning area from NBG Landscapes Australia has shown you don't have to start from scratch to create an innovative and family-friendly garden packed with functional spaces.

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BG Landscape's 'The Collaroy Plateau Dream' garden has won Gold and Best in Category (Residential Construction) for projects between $200,000 and $300,000, and Silver in Residential Design for 200m2-500m2 in the 2025 TLA Landscape Excellence Awards.

The secret to this garden's success lies in its designers' ability to blend old with new, taking cues from existing curves to deliver a landscape that feels both structured and settled in its surroundings.

The brief

The brief was to transform the large, underutilised garden into seamlessly connected multifunctional zones. The idea was to create a space designed to entice the kids away from their electronic devices, invite extended family and friends to relax and unwind, and allow use as a year-round entertainment zone.

Although the setting was an advantage, the existing design didn't utilise the space to its full potential. The family wanted a garden that would welcome guests from the moment they stepped inside the front gate, a private oasis protected from the gaze of passersby, and spaces to relax, entertain, and coax the kids outside, inspiring a love of the outdoors.

The brief required NBG Landscapes (nbglandscapes.com.au) to work with the existing infrastructure as much as possible, retaining hard landscaping as well as a large pool, but to reimagine those assets into a space that allowed them year-round use, with clearly zoned areas for play, entertaining, connection and escape.

Starting with protecting the established palm trees, which provided privacy along the boundary, and a large melaleuca tree, the design needed to overcome the challenges of a disconnected layout and a front entry that hoarded wasted space and offered no sense of identity or privacy.

Scope of work