Case study · Gold Coast
Alan & Anna, Sanctuary Cove
Designed, delivered & printed
Alan and Anna garden on a canal-front block at Sanctuary Cove, where their grandchildren visit and use the space. The plan starts where they already spend their mornings, the front garden, and grows outward from there.
The design's biggest single driver came from the sky. A flying-fox colony on a nearby island meant every fruiting and nutting species across the whole plan was chosen for low bat attraction, so no netting is needed anywhere.
What the site was telling us
- The soil tests as sandy loam and drains cleanly, but carries very little biological life, so the design treats that as a biology-building job of compost, mulch, and guild plantings rather than a texture problem.
- The front garden holds six or more hours of direct sun even with the existing palm in place, enough for genuine vegetable production.
- The back lawn and canal view are kept as a deliberately low-intervention zone. That is a choice, not neglect.
- A wind channel runs down the north side of the house, which shaped where tender plants and beds could go.
Existing plants were audited one by one and scored on the work they actually do, structure, mulch, pollinator support, before any removal was even considered.
What we did
- Two wicking beds and a compost tumbler in the front garden, the everyday food-growing heart of the plan.
- Four in-ground fruit-tree guilds, each with its own companion mix, all chosen for low bat attraction.
- A fig and a mulberry espaliered flat against a shaded wall, turning an awkward hot spot into productive space.
- Two food-forest zones that convert the existing ornamental canopy into productive guilds rather than clearing it.
- A propagation stand tucked into the shadiest pocket to grow future stock on site.
- A three-phase staged plan and a full maintenance overview, from weekly through to annual.
The outcome
Stillfoot's first delivered design, printed and hand-delivered as a thank-you. A canal-front garden set up to produce real food without a metre of netting.