Your landscaper in Kew

• Hedging and formal planting. Setting out, planting and irrigating box hedging so it establishes evenly.
• Screening. Lily Pilly along a boundary beats staring at the neighbour's extension.
• Building from landscape plans. Designers design, we build: levels, edging, soil prep, planting, turf and irrigation.
• Garden bed renovation. Reworking established beds without flattening the garden around them.
• Instant turf. Sir Walter Buffalo where there is enough light. Where there is not, I will say so.
• Drip irrigation. Netafim drip through garden beds, Hunter gear for lawns, copper pipework where the job calls for it.
• Paving and paths.

The thing that sets Kew apart is the lie of the land. The suburb runs down to the Yarra on the west and north-west side, and the ground that falls toward the river is genuinely steep. Studley Park, on the river, is all escarpment and bushland. So a lot of Kew back gardens sit on a slope, and that is where retaining walls, stepped paving and terracing earn their keep. On a fall like that, the water has to be managed or it undermines the wall and washes out new beds and turf. We build the drainage behind the wall first, then the pretty bits.

The ground itself is its own story too. The ridges through Kew and Studley Park are old Silurian rock, sandstone and mudstone, the same stuff that shows as cliffs along the Yarra. The soil off it tends to be a light grey loam sitting over clay, and it can change from easy digging to rock or stiff clay over a short distance. So I read the ground on site rather than guess it from the street, especially for wall footings and drainage falls. For any retaining on the fall to the river I will recommend site-specific engineering.

Then there are the gardens themselves. Kew started as big estates carved up from pastoral land, and a lot of the blocks are still generous by inner-east standards, with grand Victorian and Edwardian homes behind them. That is why the gardens here lean formal and roomy. Clipped hedging, structured beds, proper proportions, real garden construction with the space and budget to do it properly. Precise work, and the kind we like.

It is also heavily treed, leafy streets and parkland, and the trees are protected. Boroondara keeps a Significant Tree Register and a Tree Protection Local Law, and a canopy tree on private land usually needs a council permit before it comes out, even a dead one. So gardens here get renovated around their trees, not cleared. That suits how we work: hand digging near roots, shade tolerant planting under canopy, drip line threaded through existing beds instead of trenches. If a tree genuinely has to go, check with council first.

One more Kew thing to flag early. A fair few of the older streets sit in a heritage overlay, which can mean a planning permit for visible front works like fences, front paving or a structure near the street. We plan that side of a job with it in mind, and the rule of thumb is the same: check with council before you commit to anything out the front.

A job here can include:

• Hedging, structured garden beds and boundary screening
• Soil prep, levels and edging
• Sir Walter Buffalo instant turf
• Netafim drip irrigation in beds, Hunter irrigation for lawns
• Careful access and protection around period frontages and established trees

1. Call or send photos. Ring 0489 952 492 or use the quote form. A few photos is plenty to start.
2. Site walk. Established gardens get read differently: what stays, what goes, where the shade and roots sit, and how materials get in past a period frontage without damage.
3. Written quote. Labour, materials and waste each on its own line, with planting costed against the plant schedule where there is one.
4. The build. We turn up when we say we will. Plants watered in, drip system tested before we leave.
5. Handover. A watering plan for new planting and turf, then a follow-up to see how it is settling.

• Completed work in Kew itself: the English box and Lily Pilly project, plus a separate front yard rebuild with new lawn and drip line.
• Straight answers. If a plant will sulk where you want it, I will say so before you pay.
• Building gardens since 2013, rated 5.0 stars across 60+ Google reviews.
• Daniel, a registered plumber, for irrigation mains and backflow work.
• Covered by $5,000,000 Bizcover public liability insurance and Allianz WorkCover.

What customers say:

"Continuous discussion with us throughout the process" is how Kathy described the hedging project above, and that is how I run every build.

Picking planting that copes under mature canopy is half the battle in Kew, and it is the kind of detail our 60+ five-star reviews keep coming back to.

A structured planting job, hedging plus screening plus drip, puts most of the budget into plants and the irrigation that protects them. Skimping on the drip line is how a $14 hedge plant becomes a $14 gap.

A build from a designer's plan puts the money into construction: levels, edging, soil and the careful hours that make the drawings real.

An irrigation retrofit is mostly labour and Netafim line threaded under the mulch, cheap insurance for an established garden before summer.

Whether it is a designer's plan that needs pricing or a hedge that needs planting, call 0489 952 492 or drop some photos into the quote form. The quote is free with no call-out fee, and we are in Boroondara most weeks anyway, with Clayton South about 25 minutes away.