In Reply to: Bali Landscaping Sites? posted by cozz on Friday, 15. April 2005 at 16:31 Bali Time:
Hi Cozz
I live in Sydney and stared our Balinese garden about 4 years ago originally it was a tropical garden but yes we got caught up in the Balinese culture.We call our garden a garden in progress as the plants will taken several years to mature (unless you have heaps of money to buy very advanced ones).
We (wife) got our inspiration from a book called 'Tropical Garden Design' by Made Wijaya an expat. Australian who has designed some of the best gardens in the Bali hotels & resorts, he has also written several other books on Balinese architecture. I am sure you will get many great ideas to landscape your garden fom his book.
Our Balinese garden has 3 fish ponds/water features,with pathways which meander through several sections(Rooms as Jamie Druey would say)ie. rainforest walk, bromeliade section,the spiritial area, the courtyard, the pavillion/entertaining area around the swimming pool,the small rain foest walk down to our lower yard which we only planted in September last year.
We have a fairly steep & large garden (land 860 sq. metres)so we had to build a lot of infrastructer like brick & rock retaing walls, stairways, pathways, rock features real & artifical. We have over 20 Balinese statures most sitting on top of concrete block plinths which I rendered & my wife painted bright colors such as pink,saffron,vivid blue & purple which highlight the dark green foliage of the many different plants in the garden.
There are 2 Balinese archways that I built from treated pine & stained teak with shingle roofs with a colored Balinese cloth wrapp around the enterence.The large pavillion has sun tuff roofing instead of allang allang material due to our pooum pals that inhabit our garden & gather material for their nests so they now use our palm fronds.The garden has over 100 palms of which there are at least 50 different species of palms,these act as a shade cover for some of the more delicate plants such as bromeliades,ferns,orchards,gingers etc.
If you live in Sydney you will have to substitute some of the more tropical plants for tropical look alikes sush as cordylines,some of the crotons, frangipani, hibiscus,Mose in the cradel,to name just a few, but be advised by the garden nursery what plants that will grow in your area.
As far as statures we have bought all ours from Daya D&L Interiors the shop is called 'That Bali Shop' it is located at Warriewood Sydney Geoff & Lee are the owers & they are very knowledgable & great people to shop with & very reasonable priced.
We are both mad gardeners & will be entering our garden in the local competion next spring.