Green glory: The spectacular trends taking over Australia's gardens

Lush greenery rising up the walls of homes, over terraces and balconies and then cascading into the interiors – prestige property owners are developing a fresh fervour for foliage.

“People now want some kind of relationship with what’s outside their homes, and increasingly believe there’s little better than looking at luxuriant greenery,” says Matt Cantwell, managing director of landscape architects Secret Gardens.

“They want to open their doors up to the outside and bring it in. Indoor plants, which haven’t been big since the 1970s, are also more popular.”

Greening their environment was a priority for interior designer Anne-Marie Campagnolo and her architect partner Jesse Bennett when designing and building their multi award-winning home Planchonella House in the Cairns rainforest.

They wanted it to become both an harmonious part of the landscape in which it sits, and for that landscape to dictate its form.

“The rainforest is stunning and Cairns is all about the rainforest,” Campagnolo says. “But it not only looks beautiful, it has an amazing ambience, too.

“We had a vision and we were passionate about creating the feeling, with the house, of being in the middle of the rainforest, and making sure it interacts with the forest to have a physical and emotional connection.”

Their three-bedroom house, with its breathtaking sculptural form and open areas, has a 280-square-metre patio on the living area and a 210-square-metre rainforest garden courtyard, as well as plant beds everywhere to allow the greenery to drip down the walls.

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Every room looks out either into the trees of the rainforest or out over the canopy to the ocean.

Built over four years and completed in 2015, it’s on a 4800-square-metre block with a gradient of 1:4.

It had been empty for 10 years and was overgrown with invasive species, before it ended up winning Australia’s top architectural honour, the Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture in the 2015 National Architecture Awards, and the Australian House of the Year in the Houses Awards 2015.

It’s now for sale, for between $4 million and $4.4 million.

“It’s simply extraordinary,” says agent Marcus Lloyd-Jones, director of Modern House. “I can’t think of many good houses in Australia’s history that have actually integrated the landscape into the highest level of design to this degree. It’s very, very special.”

Materials and tones are expertly played against each other throughout. That bare concrete ceiling, mirrored by a polished concrete floor, is offset by warm wooden cabinetry, and those bright murals and textiles splashed across several bedroom walls.

Nationally, that appetite for bringing greenery home is growing, too.

Melbourne agent and auctioneer Greg Costello, of RT Edgar Brighton, says it’s trending, especially at the top end of the market. “The outlook and environment created by gardens can make a huge amount of difference, and it’s becoming more important all the time,” he says.

In Sydney, Ken Jacobs, the managing director of Christie’s International Real Estate, agrees. “Greenery and beautiful grounds are always a plus, and very appealing,” he says. “It’s one of the requirements buyers today really look for.”

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Photo: Michael Nicholson

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72 Hudson Parade, Clareville

Photo: Supplied

Contemporary features connect this award-winning house to its pristine surroundings in the same seamless way as Planchonella House blends into the rainforest.

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