By Danielle Davey
If you’re one of the estimated 100,000 visitors planning to attend the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show this month, keep your eyes open for an exhibit by a Rye landscaping firm.
Centred Landscapes is one of five exhibitors chosen to display their work in the show’s Boutique Garden Designer category. The design brief called for “a 5x5m high-profile showpiece reflecting real-life residential landscapes while pushing the design boundaries”. The limited space is a far cry from the scale of the business’s day-to-day projects, but it stepped up, downsized, and produced a stunning design.
Its submission, White, was approved for inclusion late last year, and a month ago the landscaping team began the process of prefabricating elements to be transported for installation before the show opened.
In the context of stylistic trends, it’s easy to imagine a design with that name might lean towards a Hamptons aesthetic or coastal theme. The title, however, refers simply to the eye-catching stonework for which Centred Landscapes has become highly regarded: “Large, circular format steppers with alternating finishes of white polished concrete and white limestone crazy paving lead upward to a sleek, curved, white polished concrete seating area. Nestled in the corner is a plunge pool clad with soft white tumbled limestone, emerging as the hero piece.”
Far from being monochromatic, however, the finished piece will overflow with a riot of colourful blooms in a cottage-garden style. For company director and lead designer Paul O’Hara – a father of two pre-school daughters who love picking flowers – it ticks the box as a feature representing a “real-life residential landscape”.
The realisation of Centred Landscapes’ design was aided by Dromana’s Heronswood, which supplied the brightly-coloured perennials; Statewide Concrete in Hastings, which supplied the concrete products; and Tanya Forrest, from Forrest Design in Mount Martha, who applied the 3D textured renders.
The Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show is at the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens from March 25-29. Visit melbflowershow.com.au for event details and tickets; to see Centred Landscapes’ projects, check out @centred_landscapes on Insta.
