Designing a Landscape for your Rural Property and Country Home

Country properties have a special character about them that give them a real sense of place. Whether it be the connection they have to the setting and landscape around them; historical ties to past families and how the land was worked; or an expression of the current custodians and their gardening vision.  Creating a landscape that builds upon existing character or creating an entirely new one need not be difficult, we’ve put together some thoughts to consider when planning out your rural garden to help you get started.

Canopy Design Studio is based in Bright, North East Regional Victoria and we’ve provided plenty of support to clients putting together masterplans through to detailed designs for bring that special character to their own rural property.

The Landscape Beyond

A connection to place is one of the key design principles we follow, looking upon the surrounding landscape as borrowed landscape means taking advantage of the natural assets that surround us. The ancient Japanese concept of Shakkei is about creating this connection from your home to the surrounding landscape.

Topography, natural features and view lines should all be drawn upon and utilised. Frame views, connect boundary plantings to the borrowed landscape beyond to extend the scale of your garden, be sympathetic to the surroundings and connect your garden to its place. To read more about Shakkei head over to Good Architect to read about its benefits.

Create Zones

A rural garden can sometimes feel overwhelming to design, where space is limitless and there is no distinct end point for the site of your garden. Giving distinct functions to the spaces in your garden will give it a feeling of organisation and purpose and allow you to break the garden into manageable sized spaces. Zoning your garden works for small and large landscapes alike, Gary Winter has written a great article here about zoning.  Allowing the formalised layout of the garden ‘fade out’ at the edges is a subtle way to blur the edges to the surrounding landscape. Homes and Gardens has a great article about zoning here.

Use Scale

Scale is an asset to any garden and under scaling your landscape spaces is a classic design mistake even trained designers can make, crowding and cluttering what could be a generous and open space. Paul Bangay is the master of scaled rural gardens in Australia, with gorgeous garden rooms balanced around the homesteads of his designs, dressed in drifts of plantings and perfectly placed trees. It can be tempting to allow large areas of planting to include far too many species giving it a very busy and cluttered feelings. In his book Big Garden Design, Bangay has demonstrated again and again that simplicity and big sweeping gestures emphasising scale are a garden’s best asset.

Consider Longevity and Maintenance in your Plantings

Rural properties these days are often either the country retreat or the working farm and both call for careful consideration of how the garden will be looked after well into the future. We don’t all have access or budget for a regular visit from the local horticulturalist team, and so planning your plantings for maximum return on minimal effort is important. Structural plantings that create the backbone of our plantings should be suited to the climate and preferably be slower growing to reduce pruning. This is where native plants come into their own, with plenty of substitutes for more traditional choices. Grasses and perennials where the annual cut back and occasional tidy are all that’s needed are proven winners. Reducing lawns that need weekly mowing (at least in our home region) mean there’s more time for enjoying the view, pottering and not sitting on the ride-on for hours.

Use Sustainable Design Principles  

We pride ourselves on pushing clients to consider environmentally positive actions and materials in their landscape design. Rural properties are an excellent place to practice this not just for sustainability but for economic purposes. Low water use plantings, composting and green waste reuse, rainwater harvesting, and use of locally available materials are all ways to increase the sustainability of your design. The intended longevity of a design is probably a key sustainability practice not considered, the energy input in creating a new landscape can be huge, building flexibility for future uses into the landscape means future inputs are dramatically reduced. Phillip Withers’ writes beautifully about this in his article on ‘The Design Files’.

Consider Bushfire

Unfortunately most rural properties will be subject to the threat of bushfire in country Australia and its really important to understand the risks and how to design around them. Know where the fire will most likely approach from, choose fire resistant plantings like deciduous trees instead of gums near homes, reduce or eliminate canopy overhanging buildings, reduce flammable plantings like mass grasses on slopes and near buildings.  Install irrigation systems that can be switched to ember protection systems. The CFA have multiple resources for considering fire safety and your landscape. Preparing your property for fire season is an important annual undertaking that needs to be done diligently.

Plan for Wildlife

Incorporate elements that attract wildlife, such as birdbaths, feeders, and native flowering plants that provide food and shelter for local fauna. This not only builds upon your sustainable landscape ideas but creates those special connections to nature we can all benefit from, young and old, nature is good for our well being.

Part of the charm and character of a rural property is this connection to nature, bringing wildlife into your garden by creating opportunities for them to thrive is a really worthwhile and fulfilling thing to see in action.

Seasonal Interest

Country properties give us the opportunity to see the seasons in action in a range of ways and choosing a palette of plantings that provide different seasonal interest throughout the year. Spring bulbs and new emerging foliage, summer in full bloom and seed heads of swaying grasses and spent perennials of the cooler months (Piet Oudolf being the master here) give a rhythm and connection to the world around us in the garden. We design gardens with all seasons in mind and your should do the same. With a carefully considered planting palette gone are drab, bare winter gardens or short-lived displays of blooms.