North Adelaide
A North Adelaide garden delivered by Sortino & Collier across the front yard and rear courtyard — the front approach rebuilt around Mano brick-clad concrete steppers, a limestone entrance pad and a slate step to the verandah, and the rear courtyard fitted out with tanked planter boxes, kit-kat-tiled feature planter, dripper irrigation and layered planting.
Heritage villa reworked from front garden to rear courtyard
The front yard was excavated 200–250mm to subbase, with roughly 10–11 tonnes of spoil hauled offsite and services traced before digging. Four concrete under-screeds were poured on compacted quarry rubble for the Mano brick steppers, the limestone entrance pad and the pad for the slate step, boxed up in flexible ply to hold the curved shapes and internal cut-outs. The house foundation and every slab edge were waterproofed with Mapelastic Smart before six square metres of Mano bricks were direct-stuck to the steppers, a limestone pad was laid at the entry, and large-format slate pieces were bedded in 30mm of mortar around the bay window to form the step up to the verandah.
Front-yard beds were built up with roughly six tonnes of organic soil cultivated through the subbase, watered by a two-solenoid Hunter controller running 19mm supply and 13mm drip line in a grid around the hardscape. In the rear courtyard, builder-supplied planter boxes were tanked in bituminous paint with a corflute moisture barrier, drainage aggregate and geotextile before being filled with lightweight potting mix; a circular concrete planter was clad in white kit-kat tiles, and a second controller waters the courtyard planters via conduited drip lines. Plants were installed to the designer's plan, mulched with Jefferies Recover, and a stone water feature with steel-edged surround was built on its own footing with a recirculating pump.
Brick, limestone and slate, layer by layer
- Mano brick steppers
- 6m² of Mano bricks direct-stuck to curved concrete steppers on the front approach.
- Limestone entrance pad
- Limestone laid over a waterproofed concrete slab at the entry to the villa.
- Slate verandah step
- Large-format slate pieces bedded in mortar around the bay window to form the step up.
- Tiled feature planter
- A circular courtyard planter clad in white kit-kat tiles as a rear-garden feature.
- Tanked courtyard planters
- Builder-supplied planter boxes tanked in bituminous paint with drainage aggregate and lightweight mix.
- Stone water feature
- A stone water feature on its own footing with a recirculating pump and steel-edged surround.
North Adelaide — front garden, walked through.
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