A eclectic garden designed to create garden rooms, interesting spaces and to attract wildlife

The Bower sits on the side of a hill in a spectacular spot overlooking Brownhill Conservation Park. The garden is a haven for nature - wildlife abounds thanks to the use of natives and a clever garden design incorporating climate compatible plants and multiple garden rooms.

Birds and animals benefit from suitable accommodation – bird boxes, shrubs and trees, bee hotels, ponds and hiding places. Some permanent residents include brown tree frogs, the banjo frog and the spotted marsh frog. There are blue tongue lizards, skinks and geckos, not to mention brush tail and ringtail possums and microbats. Rainbow lorikeets, Adelaide rosellas and eastern spinebills share the garden with a raven affectionately known as Russell the Crow, red wattlebirds and superb fairy wrens.

Koalas, echidnas and fruit bats pass through the garden, as well as more than a dozen other bird species. Added to all this wildlife, the more domesticated residents are a coop of chickens and two dogs.

The garden surrounds a mid-century modern house on a very steep 1,500 square metre block. Despairing at the lack of visual interest in the back garden, the owners employed a garden designer and say that this was crucial to transforming the space which now includes an exuberantly planted stone retaining wall adjacent to the lawn, a gazebo surrounded with a moat for the frogs, wicking beds and a large range of fruit trees.

In the front a large sunken water tank has been successfully planted over with a range of native trees and shrubs.