Korumburra orchard

Here the owner wanted to transform her expansive lawn terraces into something more practical and reduce the need for mowing.

Starting with a drone derived aerial photo and topographic map, I laid out the design for each terrace. The lower terrace is for screening of the street beyond and the middle terrace for orchard and edibles.

In order to create the large garden beds, I had to clear and utilise the grass filled topsoil, so we decided to give solarising a go. Using a small excavator, the lawn was painstakingly scraped and piled into berms in strategic spots in the garden and then covered in builders’ plastic (which can be reused on the next job).

This tried and true horticultural technique allowed us to kill the running grass and remove it from garden beds but retain the valuable topsoil and organic matter onsite.

The solarising was a huge success and these organic matter filled berms are now being planted out with more screening and orchard trees.