Philosophy

Landscape design Melbourne | Sandra McMahon Gardenscape Design | a beautiful restful space in a garden of rooms

The fundamental principle underlying Sandra's design philosophy is an emphasis on using plants for structure in a garden, rather than relying merely on hard landscaping to achieve structure. Planting design is an important component of her work.

All gardens should have an element of mystery and surprise. There is nothing more charming in a garden than to lose one's orientation, to feel that the garden is larger than one might expect.

To this end, it can be useful to create 'rooms' in a garden, to arrange points where unexpected vistas emerge, perhaps to borrow elements of a neighbouring landscape, or to discover a special plant or ornamental feature. These are all ways of manipulating space in a garden, and can be applied to courtyards as well as to larger gardens.

Creating garden rooms is also a way of highlighting different parts of a garden for different seasons, or just different times of day.

Manipulating space (and terrain) is a challenge that Sandra particularly enjoys!

As well as being aesthetically pleasing, a garden should be both therapeutic and sustainable.

Whilst Sandra designs in numerous styles, according to her clients' preferences - Traditional European, Native, Japanese-inspired, French Provincial / Mediterranean - the principles outlined above are always applicable.