Brunswick West
The designer's own back garden behind her house in Brunswick West, bought ten years earlier when the yard was mostly concrete, a few lean-to sheds and some established fruit trees, and rebuilt over eighteen months once her children reached their teens and the trampoline, cubby house and lawn could go. About 100 square metres, zoned for dining, entertaining, relaxing and growing food, with the thirsty lawn swapped for native grasses, flowers and edibles, in her words a mix of meadow and modern cottage. The Design Files published it in December 2024.
The pergola carries an ornamental grape for dense summer shade and autumn colour over the big timber deck, bluestone pavers step through a carpet of dichondra, and the built-in bench in the picture sits on a base of small pink tiles by Nagoya Mosaic, beside a custom fire pit whose timber lid doubles as a coffee table. The garden also has a cedar hot tub and an outdoor shower, a small pond with a white water lily, a mini food forest of dwarf cherry, apricot, apple, nectarine and peach, and wicking beds for lettuce, basil, tomatoes and snow peas. The garden has no published name.
Miniscape Projects
Miniscape Projects is Clea Cregan's landscape design studio in Merri-bek, in Melbourne's north, working on small, compact and often tricky gardens. Cregan began with terrariums as a hobby while working in film production, wrote the book Miniscapes, then studied garden design before starting the studio.
Landscape design Miniscapes (@miniscapes), Clea Cregan. Photography @caitlinmillsphotography. Seen via @thedesignfiles.
The picture comes from this post on Instagram.
Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.