LANDSCAPE DESIGN · Upper North Shore
Landscape Design in St Ives
For more than twenty years we have designed and built gardens across Sydney’s North Shore, and landscape design in St Ives is work we know well. It is a leafy, established suburb of large family homes on generous blocks, many bordering national park and carrying significant trees, where the brief is usually a considered family garden that connects to the house and sits comfortably among the canopy.
As your project gets started, we set up a meeting to understand your needs and the space you’re working with. We talk through ideas and materials, and draw on our past projects to see how they might fit your home. After that meeting we send over a quick questionnaire for you to complete. The questionnaire, together with the insights gathered from our initial conversation, forms the foundation of a comprehensive project overview tailored to your new garden.
With experience within and around St Ives, our understanding of the area is extensive. Our collection of projects and our experience let us confidently create garden designs and build landscapes of various forms, from a single considered courtyard through to a full garden, pool and entertaining area. If you have a question about our services or your own project, call us on 1300 460 690.
- TYPICAL BLOCK Large, leafy, sloping
- COUNCIL Ku-ring-gai Council
- KEY OVERLAY Tree canopy LEP + bushfire prone
Why St Ives is different
St Ives is among the most bushland-rich suburbs on the Upper North Shore, with large blocks that back onto reserves and Garigal and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Parks. That setting puts tree protection, retaining and bushfire planning at the centre of any landscape design in St Ives, alongside the garden itself. Ku-ring-gai’s Local Environmental Plan is built to protect the canopy, so a good design works with the existing trees and levels rather than around a removal that may not be approved, and planting is chosen to blend into the bushland rather than compete with it.
Services in St Ives
Having completed projects across the North Shore, we understand the St Ives brief, from pools and entertaining terraces through to lawns, bushland-edge planting and full landscape builds on large, treed blocks. Our team includes landscape architects, project managers, pool builders, structural landscapers and horticulturalists, so a project moves from concept to a finished, planted garden without being handed between separate businesses.
St Ives council & site notes
Ku-ring-gai Council
St Ives is within the Ku-ring-gai Council area, which runs one of the strictest tree-canopy LEPs on the North Shore. Canopy cover targets shape where a pool, deck or driveway can go before DA stage, and removing a significant tree without approval risks real penalties. Much of St Ives borders bushland and is bushfire-mapped, which affects materials and clearances around decks and structures, and larger structures or pools may need a development application. We factor this in during design and can prepare the documentation council requires.
St Ives FAQs
Every St Ives garden is priced to the site rather than a standard rate, because slope, retaining, tree protection and access all shift the scope. A single courtyard sits at one end and a full garden with pool, terracing and planting at the other. After our initial meeting and questionnaire we prepare a project overview so you can see the likely investment before design work begins. Call us on 1300 460 690 to talk through your block.
Some work is exempt or complying development, but Ku-ring-gai's canopy cover targets mean most substantial St Ives projects intersect with approval somewhere. Pools, larger decks, significant retaining and anything affecting a protected tree generally require a development application. We identify this during design and can prepare the documentation council requires.
Not without checking first. Ku-ring-gai runs one of the strictest tree canopy LEPs on the North Shore and removing a significant tree without approval risks real penalties. We design with the trees and levels you already have rather than building a concept that depends on a removal that may never be granted, which usually produces a better garden anyway.
Much of St Ives borders bushland and is bushfire mapped, which affects material selection, clearances around decks and structures, and the planting palette close to the house. It rarely limits what the garden can become, but it has to be built into the design from the start rather than surface at DA stage.
Yes. Falling blocks are the norm through St Ives and much of our work involves retaining, terracing and level changes that turn an awkward slope into flat lawn, a pool terrace or a series of connected outdoor rooms. Structural landscaping is handled in house, so the engineering and the finished garden are designed together.
Siting is usually a question of catching northern light without opening a canopy clearing large enough to trigger a tree removal application, while meeting bushfire clearances to the boundary. On a large St Ives block there are normally several workable positions, and we test them against sun, slope, the existing trees and how the pool connects back to the house before settling on one.
Planting chosen to blend into the bushland rather than compete with it tends to work best, with layered natives and shade tolerant species under established trees and more considered feature planting near the house and entertaining areas. Our horticulturalists select for the soil, aspect and light on your specific block, and for how the garden will look as it matures.
Yes. Our team includes landscape architects, project managers, pool builders, structural landscapers and horticulturalists, so a St Ives project moves from concept through to a finished, planted garden without being handed between separate businesses.
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