Melissa Wilson:
I’ve grown up loving gardens. My grandfather had a huge garden in Killara and my mum and I would spend every second weekend in our tiny little garden. So we lived in a flat, like in a two bedroom flat, and we had this tiny little garden and we would spend every second weekend in this tiny little garden or in my grandfather’s massive garden. And then when it came time to deciding what I was going to do, somebody said to me, “You should think about landscape architecture.” I’d looked at architecture, industrial design, I’d looked at forestry, all of the sort of design professions merging into other slightly kookier things. But I think I was actually somebody at Ryde Tafe. I looked into horticulture and they said, “You might want to check out landscape architecture.” And that’s what I did. I mean, gardener, you’re physically working on a space, you’re evolving it in real-time.
Whereas with landscape architecture, you are designing spaces for posterity to creating something that people can live in and they can experience all their various daily activities within that space or various spaces that you create. I mean, the plants frame the space of course, and the plants create this beautiful little universe and without the plants it’s nothing, but you also need a really fantastic structure. So if the spaces aren’t working, if you don’t have that connection between the inside and the outside that flows beautifully, or you don’t have that funny little pocket in the back corner of the garden that you can go and retreat to, then the garden doesn’t really work as well as it could.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah, it’s like an architect, an interior designer, and a gardener all roled into one, right?

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah, across many disciplines.

Anthony Denman:
And just not identifying which plants to put where, but you’re also planning a space and then choosing the materials.

Melissa Wilson:
So we choose the materials, we work with the levels, we work with a climate that’s created by the building. So there’s the Sydney climate, for instance, and then the building itself creates its own little microclimate that you have to work within.

Anthony Denman:
Is this common practice for you working as part of a team with an architect and interior designer or-

Melissa Wilson:
Oh, more often than not, we get our work through architects. So it starts with the building. We sometimes call by an individual client who just wants their garden made over or they’ve built a house and they haven’t got to the landscape and then they come to us. But usually we work, start to finish with architects, interior designers, engineers, artists.

Anthony Denman:
On projects as opposed to individual houses.

Melissa Wilson:
On individual houses, it’s with the full team. Projects can run for five years or six, seven, eight years even.

Anthony Denman:
Have you worked within MHNDU often?

Melissa Wilson:
We do actually.

Anthony Denman:
What’s that look like?

Melissa Wilson:
It’s been a lovely process. Yeah. Look, they have a lovely team. We have good communication. Their work is beautiful and they respect what we do as well, which is always a really good kind of way to start a project.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah, totally. Because there must be a lot of crossover, right?

Melissa Wilson:
It’s a nice thing when you do have that crossover and just having that discussion between you, that dialogue that you get to push a wall or change a window or…

Anthony Denman:
Pick a material?

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah, pick the materials.

Anthony Denman:
Do you subscribe to that theory that texture is more important?

Melissa Wilson:
Then tone?

Anthony Denman:
Yeah.

Melissa Wilson:
Look, I think texture is really important. I think that’s the thing that you gravitate towards. If you see something that’s a really beautiful texture, you want to touch it. It’s like plants are the same. There’s a plant with a really furry leaf and it looks really soft and velvety and you want to touch it.

Anthony Denman:
When you think about texture, how you select, and the varieties of plants and pair them with the materials of the hard landscapes, what that process look like?

Melissa Wilson:
I guess we really start with the sun/shade, whether it’s been protected by the building or even by a boundary wall or what the aspect is, that’s really the way it starts. And then we start to look at scale where you want to create shade as well, where you want to have spaces that are open. And then once you have that sort of structure and also views, views are incredibly important as well, not just views out beyond the building, but views through the garden, and through to certain little pockets within the garden. So yeah, that’s all part of that initial structure. And then we look at the planting and so then we start to look at trees and I really do start with an overlay of where we want to see the trees, the overstory basically. And I mean, I do consider palms to be a canopy structure as well, particularly the Livistonas, the cabbage-tree palms.
We’ll work with the trees and the palms and then start to look at the understory planting. It’s really starting at that level. And then once you work out what your little family of plants needs to do, and what it needs to cope with in terms of light, shade, water, then you can start to think about the texture, and what your combination of plants is going to look like. And that’s really how we have to look at it. It’s not just about whether this plant looks good with this plant. You really do have to look at how they’re all going to live together.

Anthony Denman:
Okay. So when we work on projects, and we have done for many years, more often than not, we get briefed by the architect, we get briefed by the interior designer, and then there’ll be this space, more often than not on a rooftop, that’s where the landscaping’s going to be. Do we even have a landscape designed for it in the project marketing space? It really felt to me like landscaping was a bit of an afterthought, but I felt like I’ve noticed that change recently.

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah, I feel like it is changing ever so slightly, very incrementally.

Anthony Denman:
But I feel like with this project, one of the biggest aspects of it has been, and this is through every discipline of design, all the various design consultants that I’ve spoken to about the project, probably the single most biggest aspect of this project is that the built form occupies such a small percentage of the site compared to the rest of the site.

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah, that is definitely one of the standout features of this project for sure. And it’s an amazing opportunity to create garden spaces that you wouldn’t normally see in developments like this that have layers and texture and a depth to it, both metaphorically and physically speaking. So that’s been really lovely to be able to play with all of the things that we like to play with. Normally we’re left with this tiny little strip of garden, and it can be incredibly difficult to create a beautiful landscape and something that people look out onto from their living space and go, “Wow, that’s amazing.” And makes you feel good when you’ve got a meter of garden. Having all of this space laid out in front of you is really quite a beautiful thing.

Anthony Denman:
I guess it doesn’t happen very often.

Melissa Wilson:
No, no, it doesn’t. Unless you have a large residential property.

Anthony Denman:
Which you don’t have normally in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney

Melissa Wilson:
Exactly, yeah.

Anthony Denman:
Do you do much beachside landscape design?

Melissa Wilson:
I do, actually. I have done, gosh, I mean, since I worked for Jane Owen back in 2001, I think for five years and we did a lot of coastal beachside residential, big residential. And one of the projects that I cut my teeth on was a project in Dover Heights that was right on the cliff, and it was a really amazing experience because I was able to design this planting palette and all of these spaces on this cliffside and see it succeed as well.

Anthony Denman:
Must be really hard to pick plants that can live in an environment like that.

Melissa Wilson:
Really difficult, yes. And it was not particularly heartening when the neighbour’s plants, they had tried every species that they thought would survive and they all just died one after the other because it’s just brutal.

Anthony Denman:
How do you balance the kind of coastal vegetation with more mature plants that are able to survive in a more genteel environment?

Melissa Wilson:
It is setback a little bit, as you say. It is that landscape that takes a step back from the full-frontal coastal. So it is naturally a little bit more protected. It slopes down to the south, so that naturally lends itself to slightly more tropical plants that would not ordinarily cope with that full-frontal coastal situation. But then, as you go up the floors to the terraces above, it is more exposed and that’s where we have explored that kind of Banksia scrub native planting typology. Not that it’s what I would call a pure Banksia scrub typology, but it is that type of… It has that texture and that kind of feel. It’s more exposed and wind beaten and the plants will naturally be wind pruned, which is a really beautiful thing as well.

Anthony Denman:
Can we come back to this idea of space and the luxury of space.

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
Because I asked the architect what that means to them and ask the interior designer what that means to them? And I just really want to talk to you about, want to understand from your perspective, luxury of space, what that means to you?

Melissa Wilson:
I think it doesn’t necessarily to me mean that it has to be huge. There’s enough space within the landscape where you can have multiple spaces to go explore or go sit in, or you’ve got the pool space, or you might have a little corner even down that western boundary or down the eastern boundary that’s slightly more protected, or it has a slightly different feel in summer or winter, as opposed to just this one space that you can have multiple little pockets where there might be a tiny space where you could put a single chair, and that’s your favourite little pocket of the garden and it might not be the most obvious thing in plan, or anybody else. But I think that’s a really beautiful thing to have in a garden that doesn’t have to be huge, but having a little bit more space does offer you that luxury.

Anthony Denman:
Outdoor rooms?

Melissa Wilson:
Outdoor rooms, that’s what we do. We create outdoor rooms, and in the same way those outdoor rooms might be, they kind of relate to indoor rooms in a way where you could have a little study nook, you can have a tiny little nook in the garden that is just a chair or you have your beautiful outdoor dining space similar to what’s inside.

Anthony Denman:
Much nicer eating outside.

Melissa Wilson:
So much nicer. Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
Why is that, do you reckon?

Melissa Wilson:
I think as humans, I think that we do need to be connected to nature. I think that’s really important. I think it’s important to our mental health, our physical health, our general wellbeing. We all feel better when we’re outside.

Anthony Denman:
How do you feel about that urban environment dissipating into a natural environment?

Melissa Wilson:
I think the urban environments are always going to dissipate into the natural environment. And that was one thing that I really thought about was how does the urban environment meet the natural environment? The natural environments are always going to take over, even if you can try your utmost not to prevent it, but like even in Bondi, you’ve got the Esplanade, the beach and the rest of Bondi, wind will just whip that the seawall or the footpaths, everything will show signs of wear from the environment. The trees will grow and despite your best efforts, the roots will start to slightly lift the footpath. So we really are at the mercy of the natural environment.

Anthony Denman:
But also if you flip that, and you think about harnessing that, which is essentially what your profession is doing.

Melissa Wilson:
Well, doing our best to sculpt it. I wouldn’t want to tame it. I don’t think you can tame it. And I think that’s the beauty of landscape architecture or not necessarily landscape architectures. The beauty of plants is that they are peculiar. They have their own personalities and unless you are topiary-ing them, they will do whatever they want to do and you can slightly manipulate that, but it’s always a beautiful surprise.

Anthony Denman:
Tell about frangipani trees, because they’re my favourite tree.

Melissa Wilson:
Are they? I think they’re a favorite for a lot of people. I love frangipani trees because they’ve got a beautiful flower. The flower is incredible. They flower for an incredibly long period of time from December right through to autumn, really. And they’ll just keep throwing out sprays of flowers. So just when you think they’re done, they throw out another little spray of flowers. So it’s Christmas all over again. The leaf is stunning. It’s just a really beautiful, satisfying green. The colors are incredible, not just the classic white frangipani, but the oranges, yellows, the pinks. Yeah, it’s just-

Anthony Denman:
The scent.

Melissa Wilson:
The scent is incredible. You can float frangipani in a bowl. It’s lovely. It makes you feel like you’re on holiday. They have become an iconic Sydney tree from around the 1920s.

Anthony Denman:
And when they do lose their leaves, they take on a different personality.

Melissa Wilson:
Completely different personality. Yeah. And it’s beautiful. It lets the sun in, everything that was under the tree has a chance to show its true form as well. So yeah, the Frangipani takes a backward step from being the hero.

Anthony Denman:
The way you’ve just articulated the frangipani tree, are there any other trees that you’ve selected for…

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah. The cabbage-tree palms, the Livistona australis, which is a native palm, just an incredible palm. It’s so beautiful. It’s elegant. There’s so many different types of Livistona. Often we associate them with, it’s that real LA, Boulevard thing. For me, it’s very much north coast. You go up around Smith Lake, Seal Rocks, and you just see these incredible stands of Livistona with just grasses underneath and it’s the most magical thing.

Anthony Denman:
In their natural environment too, right? Yeah.

Melissa Wilson:
Yeah, completely. I feel passionate about all the plants, maybe some less than others, but…

Anthony Denman:
Tell me about Bangalow.

Melissa Wilson:
Bangalows, again, are a classic iconic Sydney palm. Again, beautiful, straight, elegant trunk. You see them with the old Sydney semis and Californian bungalow. It’s that classic thing. Yeah.

Anthony Denman:
What else?

Melissa Wilson:
There are a lot of flowering plants, the little ground covers, banksias

Anthony Denman:
What about grass?

Melissa Wilson:
Oh, native grasses are so varied. In fact, I think there are whole groups of people dedicated just to studying grasses in tiny pockets of Australia. I went out to Braidwood years ago and there’s one very shallow, wouldn’t even call it a mountain, not even a hill. It may be a hillock. And these people just explore this little hillock because it’s full of such an array of grasses and wildflowers and the detail in a grass is incredible, but you really have to look closely. And I think that’s the beauty of grasses is that on mass you don’t really see that, but you just take a slight step closer and, yeah.

Anthony Denman:
So maybe we can talk about when you design Halcyon, like do you look at things on a macro level and then at a micro level as well?

Melissa Wilson:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like I was describing before, we start to look at the spaces, how the spaces work, how you move from inside to outside. But then in particular with this project, there’s a fair slope at the back of the site on the south side. So we then have to look at how we’re going to move from one level down to the next level, and what that experience might be as you move through. You don’t necessarily just want to walk down a set of stairs. You want to walk through the garden and experience the garden and feel like you’re surrounded. And then I think, like I said, we look at the overstory, so the structure, which then forms what we like to call landscape rooms, the trees, helps to frame those spaces, those rooms.
And then we look at the understory, and all of those things are looked at in an enormous amount of detail, but particularly the planting. In fact, we’ve just gone through this process now of reviewing the whole planting palette and just making sure that the species are working together, the textures are working and it’s one of those things that you never feel like you’ve quite finished. It takes time. And when you talk about the luxury of time, that’s where I like to have time is to really go through and work that through in detail.

Anthony Denman:
Can you talk to me about seasonality? How did you plan the Halcyon garden in respect to enjoying the garden through the various seasons?

Melissa Wilson:
It comes down to, again, all of those aspects that we think about from the start. So the space where the sun shade, north, south, east, west, all of those particular elements, where you’re going to spend most time in summer, where you’re going to spend time in winter, what those spaces feel like, whether you’ve got a deciduous tree like a frangipani to give you winter sun or something to protect you in the heat of summer. And then, of course, there are flowering times. So thankfully the frangipani gives us a very long flowering time. A lot of the flowering plants are actually up on the rooftops. So we’ve got the aloes, which are not native. They’re winter flowering, which is also really unusual. Acacias as well. So they tend to flower late winter into early spring. So we do consider all of those things.

Anthony Denman:
Yeah. So you’ve got different colours and textures and tones.

Melissa Wilson:
Flowering times.

Anthony Denman:
You begin to identify seasons with the way your garden’s behaving, right?

Melissa Wilson:
Completely. Absolutely. I kind of love… Summer usually is fairly, it’s just green. A little bit of yellow-

Anthony Denman:
White and yellow.

Melissa Wilson:
In the frangipanni. Everything just grows mad, and then while other things are still growing. And actually there are very few Australian natives that are deciduous if you’re going to look at pure native planting. Not that this is purely native, but…

Anthony Denman:
Is it mostly native?

Melissa Wilson:
Yes.

Anthony Denman:
And why? Why do you choose mostly native plants when you prepare a garden like this?

Melissa Wilson:
Love natives. Natives are incredibly diverse, beautiful group of plants. I think we don’t actually use them enough. I don’t use purely native plants simply because sometimes there are just plants that will suit a certain space or climate, or situation better, but they can work really beautifully together.

Anthony Denman:
Finding that balance. Yeah.

Melissa Wilson:
It is finding the balance.

Anthony Denman:
Oh, yeah. I want to talk about this. Evoking like a classic beachside setting, a little reminiscent of the ’60s.

Melissa Wilson:
I think it’s in the form. So you know that sort of everything’s just a little bit rounded. The materials, the stone, the frangipani, it has for me that sort of ’60s feel.

Anthony Denman:
But polished.

Melissa Wilson:
But a little bit, yes, certainly polished. We don’t have the Kombi van out front.

Anthony Denman:
Birds.

Melissa Wilson:
We do like to use plants that attract birds. A lot of the flowering plants will attract birds, the Banksias out the front. The aloe actually, as well up on the rooftop will attract birds, lily pilly, lorikeet, our beautiful myna birds.

Anthony Denman:
Okay. So do you want to talk a little bit about inspirational Bronte Gully?

Melissa Wilson:
It’s not so much that it’s inspired by the Bronte Gully. It’s a sort of similar microclimate really. You’ve got this sloping site, it’s quite protected and that is kind of the definition of a gully. So that’s really what it-

Anthony Denman:
It also has that coastal edge.

Melissa Wilson:
And it has the coastal edge.

Anthony Denman:
And this is probably the final question.

Melissa Wilson:
Okay.

Anthony Denman:
How can a garden soothe your soul?

Melissa Wilson:
Just being in a garden, it’s obviously not any garden. If you walk out onto a patch of lawn surrounded by three hedges, that’s not going to soothe your soul. And in fact, you’re probably going to want to kill someone. That would be my response.

Anthony Denman:
How does the garden at Halcyon you soothe yourself?

Melissa Wilson:
I guess through the variety of spaces that are supported by the planting, which is beautiful trees, palms.

Anthony Denman:
Just having a really stressful day in a really hectic, brutal urban environment, and then retreating to a garden. How does that make you feel? And why does it make you feel that way?

Melissa Wilson:
I think just knowing that you’re going to walk through and be in a greener space, just simply looking at green is an incredibly soothing thing. It’s a complete relief. Look, I was in a studio space in Kippax Street, beautiful old warehouse space. It was a big share space, and after being there for a couple of years, I just had this urge to have plants in the space. I called my now very good friend, horticulturalist and plant supplier, and I just said, “I need plants in my space. Where do I go?” He’s like my plant dealer. He said, “Call Keith. He’ll sort you out.” So I called Keith and I explained the situation, and he said, “Well, just go through our list, mark out what you want and we’ll send you plants.” And two boxes this size of a mix of ferns, like these beautiful ferns arrived all packaged up like little green babies.
And I had them just sitting in the box. I opened the box, both boxes. I had them sitting in our studio space for a week before I worked out how I was going to arrange them and everybody in the studio space came by to see our little green babies and kept them and it made everybody feel good. And then when I did finally arrange them, people would just come by to talk to me as I was spraying them or watering them. We became the little green oasis in the middle of this space.

Anthony Denman:
And I think that’s unreal because I reckon that those sort of moments will occur at Halcyon where people are just pondering at the growth of a certain thing and how valuable and connecting through plants, right?

Melissa Wilson:
Absolutely.

Anthony Denman:
So well done. That’s awesome.

Melissa Wilson:
Thank you.

Anthony Denman:
If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Melissa Wilson:
I would say via email or phone.

Anthony Denman:
What’s your email address?

Melissa Wilson:
Melissa@melissawilson.com.au.

Anthony Denman:
Perfect.

Melissa Wilson:
Thank you.