Inside Out

Featured in the March 2017 issue of Inside Out, this compact Surry Hills courtyard is proof that a small footprint is no barrier to a rich, layered garden.

Behind a two-storey inner-city home, we transformed a dingy space of cream pavers, bland walls and oversized trees into a courtyard where old meets new. Polished concrete sits alongside elongated cobblestone strips whose linear grain ties into the warm spotted-gum bench seating and storage built around two sides. We retained and revived the original sandstone factory wall as a heritage feature, cleaning it back with a gentle bleach wash and uplighting it to glow after dark.

The boldest move was the paint. The two forbiddingly high perimeter walls went black, which makes every green pop and links the courtyard to the dark floorboards inside, so indoors and outdoors read as one space. Against that backdrop, Boston ivy, a slender Japanese maple and silvery Euphorbia give the garden its contemporary-meets-organic character.

The result is restful, expressive and perfectly suited to a compact city lot.