Awards of Excellence
Matthew O’Grady Landscape Designs has been awarded the coveted “Design Residential Landscape award at the Master Landscapers of SA, Awards of Excellence 2016 and 2017. (category Residential Landscape $30,000-$60,000 and Residential Landscape $70,000-$150,000 respectively).
The judging criteria is based on the Royal Horticulture Society, Chelsea Flower Show rules. Each entrant has to achieve 75 points out of 100 before they are eligible for nomination.
The 2017 Award
‘Design of Residential Landscape, $70,000 – $150,000’
This award was for the themed design of a project called “Alice” at Semaphore. This design was to showcase “Alice in Wonderland”, a cast bronze lifelike statue which the owners had specially commissioned from Hampton Court, England.
The garden is based on an English-style theme to compliment Alice’s history. Matthew designed a ‘room’ for Alice with a stunning rustic wooden arbor as the entrance to her room with a stone path leading into it. The Cheshire Cat was a surprise inclusion when Alice arrived, so the perfect place for him was to sit atop this rustic entrance where he looks down on Alice as she looks up at him. Other hard scaping features a stone wall with a large mirror reflecting Alice and the cat. A red brick winding herringbone path leads from the home to the garage across the lawn. Red and white roses adorn the verandah interspersed with mathematically placed french lavender and hedged Japanese box with spheres at the corners.
There are other quirky features to compliment the theme including a pair of pink flamingos nestled against the backdrop of tall crimson spires and other plantings giving a feel of adventure and fun.
The owners are delighted and love sitting in this beautiful garden admiring all the various plantings which showcase Alice so fittingly.
Alice Garden Gallery
The 2016 Award
‘Design of Residential Landscape $30,000 – $60,000’
This award was for the a project on a new build at Somerton Park South Australia. It was featured in Backyard, a renowned national garden magazine.
The garden, featuring an eye-catching central water feature surrounded by beautiful sculptural plants, adds considerable aesthetic and financial value to complete the already stunning property.
Working within the owner’s specifications of being attractive, low maintenance, environmentally sympathetic and hardy, Mathew created a desert spring like oasis to surround the home, reminiscent of the famous Palm Springs garden architecture of the 1950s.
“My great passion is gardens and I love to design and build them, then watch them thrive. More than anything I love to see the people I create gardens for revel in their new garden environment. I coin it creating, ‘living libraries’. Each garden room creates memories for the owner and their families, in this case in particular for them and their grandchildren. It gives me great pleasure to think of them all together enjoying their new ‘living libraries”. Matthew O’Grady
Bond Street Gardens Gallery
Based in Adelaide, Matthew O’Grady Landscape Designs have worked with a long list of very satisfied clients to create exceptional gardens and outdoor living spaces for over a decade.
Mathew commented, “Every project, no matter how large or small, is given the same intense attention. We talk to our clients and develop a real understanding of the kind of outdoor spaces they wish to create, and then we go about building it within their budget.”
A new passion of Mathew’s, and something that testifies to his philosophy that garden spaces contribute to a healthy and joyful ‘frame of mind’, is his efforts in developing Sensory Gardens; Aged care and Dementia Specific Sensory Gardens around Australia.
