round the garden
turning japanese A collection of trees in miniature, a moon gate and a weeping cherry equal one very zen garden. Creating a garden to showcase dozens of exquisite bonsai trees is not your everyday brief, but the instant Luke Bullock saw a member of Bendigo Bonsai Club's backyard he knew what he should do. “The client had a few really amazing feature plants including this magnificent weeping cherry right in the middle and some cypresses that were the perfect backbone for an oriental-style garden,” he reveals. Luke and his team set about creating an oasis of serenity that would reflect the care and patience the property's owner applies to her hobby of growing dwarf trees. He began by taking a sledgehammer to the “horrendous dodgy brickwork” surrounding the beautiful weeping cherry. “The tree was crying out to be saved from its surroundings,” he laughs. “But I loved it so much as a specimen that we shaped the whole garden around it.”
The result has exceeded Luke's wildest imagination. “It is just so cool, I really am absolutely tickled pink with how it has turned out. We have taken a theme and run with it and created this very oriental-style garden with the use of the bold red and black, screens and bamboo” Like every job the Melbourne-trained landscape artist tackles, this particular garden posed its own challenges. “Oriental or Japanese gardens are brilliant for small spaces, but it's not as simple as tossing about a bit of white gravel and a few lumps of stone. Creating this style of garden requires time and patience. We are lucky in the sense that in this case there was no planting required.
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Photographer: David Field
Now instead of cracked bricks, the cherry rises from sawn Pyrenees stone. Nearby water spills over the top of two shards of granite into a calm pool of koi and in the top corner of the garden a moon gate represents the perfect portal to this other-worldly landscape.