The One Percent with Earth Creations
John Caruso learns that the difference between a beautiful garden and a perfect one is rarely visible. That’s entirely the point.
Standing on the upper balcony of a newly completed Sunshine Beach home, with the Pacific Ocean stretching beyond and the canopy of the National Park folding in from behind, it occurs to me that what lies between these two worlds is not simply a garden. It’s a conversation!
That conversation has been going on for more than two years between Earth Creation Landscapes founder Stuart Bain and homeowners Judy and Michael, a couple who had already trusted Stuart with the landscaping of their previous home. So when this ambitious multi-storey build took shape on a secluded Sunshine Beach site overlooking the ocean, there was never any question about who would shape the ground around it.
Judy said the relationship with Earth Creation Landscapes had its own kind of origin story.
“When Stuart arrived at our previous home we got a spade out and we started carving a design on the ground and within two weeks we’d transformed a sandpit into a magical garden,” she says. “So of course, when it came to this project, there was only one person that was going to do it for us.”
Stuart said that kind of loyalty was something he had built Earth Creation Landscapes on.
“That’s something I’m really proud of,” he says. “We have clients that we’ve worked with for years and years and often it’s our second, third and sometimes fourth garden for them.
“It speaks volumes about the relationships we build with our clients and also our crew as a whole.
“I’ve always said I’ve got the best landscape crew on the Coast.”
But loyalty alone doesn’t explain a project of this ambition. From the moment the footings went in the ground, this was a build where the landscaping was not an afterthought. For homeowner Michael, that point of difference began underground, literally.
“We had some walls going up and
I wanted irrigation in place ahead of the build so that it’s all hidden, otherwise it all becomes surface mounted and ugly,” Michael recalls.
The result is an almost-clinical yet easily-operational ‘plant room’ under the home which has a manifold of solenoid valves that controls everything.
“It’s not an afterthought, it’s a masterpiece,” Michael says.
That integrated approach extends to every corner of the property, including the pots on the upper terrace that are irrigated through pipes concealed beneath the slab, right up through the base. Stuart said that detail was exactly the kind of thing most people never notice – until they see it done badly elsewhere.
“We see gardens on brand new, beautiful homes that have cables running up the side of pots and it looks terrible,” he says. “If you’re going for that perfect build, having black pipe and cable up a pot, that’s not perfect.
“This here, is perfect! That’s that one per cent that people don’t do.”
The ‘one percenters’, as Stuart calls them, run through this project like a thread. Take the umbrella by the leaf-shaped plunge pool. Judy described the problem of wanting shade around a large pot without the usual instability.
“Stuart suggested we get something made, formed up out of metal, before we fill the pot and we’ll drill it into the side of this sunken pot,” she says. “Now we have an umbrella that’s easy to put in and it’s stable in the wind, sitting in symphony within that pot.
“It’s functional. It’s beautiful and it’s simply thinking ahead of how you want to make this liveable and beautiful.”
The vision for the whole project was always Judy’s, shaped around what she describes as a ‘borrowed landscape’. The National Park rises directly behind the property and the planting at the front, all Australian native species, is chosen to draw that world inward. Judy said she had wanted the garden to work as a series of discoveries rather than a single statement.
“My vision was to bring nature into the front of the house and as we move through the house, we would then create rooms and moments of unexpected joy with the landscaping and the sculptural elements,” Judy says. “Then of course the night element is next level again!”
Lighting is the element Stuart is most evangelical about. He said the landscape industry had for years either ignored it or handled it clumsily, and this project, with its bespoke copper fittings sourced from a Byron Bay company called Seaside, was an attempt to show what was possible. The garden is divided into multiple zones, each independently controlled, each with its own character depending on whether the household is entertaining, winding down or simply letting the stars do the work.
“People forget that gardens aren’t there for enjoyment only between sunrise and sunset,” Stuart says. “You see these stunning homes, and they’re either lit up like the MCG or they’re completely black. I don’t think it’s been done well until probably the last five to ten years.”
Judy agrees, noting that the lighting here did something she had not anticipated.
“It has the opportunity to be a sculptural element in a garden as well,” she said.
One of the more radical ideas in the project came from Stuart’s observation that in a three-storey home oriented toward the ocean, the garden ocean-side, would almost always be seen from above rather than at eye-level.
“With this home, when you’re entertaining, nine times out of ten you’re on a raised balcony looking at that beautiful ocean and when you look down, what you’ve created has to have style. It must be different,” he explains.
The planting is deliberately designed for that aerial perspective. Species able to handle the coastal salt conditions, including Hibiscus tiliaceus and Fraser Island apples, are selected to soften the balustrade line from above.
The lush turf undulated in key places to resemble the waves beyond and to deliver a sculptural element. For Judy, the measure of what Earth Creation Landscapes has achieved goes beyond any single detail. She said the quality of the people behind the work was inseparable from the quality of the work itself.
“Their love spills over from their work into what they want to create for you,” she says. “They’re very special people to work with.”
Stuart’s final words are directed at his crew rather than himself. He noted it was no coincidence that the team working on a job like this barely looked up from what they were doing even when our camera and microphone were present. They were focused on the pot, on the irrigation line running up through the slab, on getting it right. That, right there, IS the whole story!
Visit www.earthcreationlandscapes.com.au for more information.
