Create a diverse & resilient garden ecosystem that's low maintenance & tastes great!
SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND EQUIPMENT
We have years of experience in designing, implementing and then maintaining edible landscapes
Site and Soil Preparation
the most critical aspect of any garden is the soil. Our attention to detail in this area will ensure your garden thrives.
Construction of Retaining Walls
Quality, sustainable material choices. Our hardscaping is aesthetic and practical.
Installation of Irrigation Systems
Give your garden a great start and keep it thriving with an automated watering system.
Raised Garden Beds & Wicking Beds
Proven performance: our raised garden beds are great for intense food production in small spaces.
Edible Forest Gardens
Practical experience of working with nature to produce resilient, producitve garden ecosystems.
Netted Structures for Orchard Protection
Ensure you get a fair share of the harvest with a crop protection system.
Supply of Plants & Fruit Trees
We propagate many rare, edible plants to ensure your garden thrives.
Ponds & Water Features
Stunning wildlife habitat that is low maintenance. Build it and they will come!
Chicken Coops & Compost Systems
Take your household sustainability to the next level with some feathered, composting companions.
Our Focus is Soil Preparation
We understand the most critical aspect of any garden is the soil.
We ensure the soil is well prepared, through removal of invasive grasses and unwanted plants, cultivating the soil and the incorporation of organic matter and compost. We use nature’s model of soil succession to ensure that the soil is prepared as best as possible.
After clearing the site of unwanted vegetation, we look to improve the soil. We add lots of compost and organic matter to the soil and mix it through.
Ideally, the next step would be to sow the plot with sweetcorn, bean and pumpkin seeds as a three sisters garden (or broad beans and annual flowering plants in autumn and winter). This helps to condition the soil ahead of the full implementation of the foodscape in 4 to 6 months’ time. These crops will be incredibly productive and engaging for you as well as acting as a green manure crop. However, we are always keen to point out, that any food harvested from this stage is a bonus. We just want to create lots of organic matter to “chop and drop” and become compost. This stage also gives multiple opportunities over the coming months, to locate and weed out any invasive grass runners we may have missed first time around.
Once the soil has been conditioned with the green manure crop, we move into foodscape development. Our garden ecosystems are designed and implemented to be productive, resilient and low maintenance. This sort of preparation takes a lot of time and effort, but the outcomes for you are worth it. There’s nothing instant about our gardens!
Supply of Plants
We generally aim to plant our Edible Forest Garden Foodscapes with up to nine plants per square metre. That’s a lot of plants! We focus on useful plants that perform all sorts of functions, such as living mulch, attracting beneficial insects and dynamic accumulation. As you would expect, many of our plants are also edible!
Because we use such a unique palette of plants, they can be very difficult to reliably source in large enough quantities. Therefore, we focus on propagating as many of the plants as possible, for our foodscape implementations. We propagate most of the plants that go into our edible landscapes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need to have a design prior to having you install a Foodscape or Edible Forest Garden?
Yes! We have amazing working relationships with our clients. We work hard in communicating with you about your expectations. This ensures that everyone is happy with the outcomes. Part of good communication is ensuring that there is a solid plan for the works in place. Therefore, a Permaculture Design completed by Leaf, Root & Fruit is essential to any Foodscape implementations that we undertake.
What regions do you install edible landscapes?
We cover most of Metropolitan Melbourne and Central Victoria. We definitely cover your area for landscaping, if you are within the list of local government councils on our consult page. Areas outside of this list may be also be covered, please contact us to discuss your project further.
How much will it cost to construct an edible landscape on my property?
That depends on what is being implemented. Plants are expensive, and we use a lot of them in our landscapes.
As a rough guide you could spend as little as $100 per square metre over a large space with very little infrastructure to be installed (no irrigation, paving, retaining walls, raised garden beds, netted orchard structures etc).
For smaller spaces, or those with lots of required infrastructure such as irrigation, netted orchard structures, retaining walls etc you could spend over $1200 per square metre.
The good news is that we work with you to get the best outcomes for the budget that you have. That’s right – you tell us how much you want to spend!
We can also plan the work in phases over several years, to enable work to be carried out as and when the budget is available.
Do you use organic certified soil in your foodscapes?
As far as we are aware, no such thing exists. Landscaping companies advertising organic soil are simply referring to the fact that there is organic matter such manure or greenwaste included in their soil. It is not organically certified.
Instead, we work with reliable garden supplies companies. We’ve worked with and experienced, most of the garden supply companies across Melbourne and now have a very specific and small group of suppliers that we work with. They supply us with products that perform well and get your garden off to a great start.
Do you install lawn or turf?
Yes, if it is part of the design that we have put together, we will certainly install it for you. However, we don’t do one off jobs such as installing turf (or irrigation, retaining walls etc) without a design. There are plenty of other local landscapers out there that can help you with that.
Do you sell the plants you propagate to the public?
Unfortunately no; we only just propagate enough plants for our landscape projects. Therefore, we do not sell plants to the public. We are not a retail nursery.
How do I go about getting a quote for Leaf, Root & Fruit to foodscape my yard?
Start by booking a site consult with Duncan. During the consult we can discuss your needs and come up with a plan for design implementation works and a timeline. We look forward to working with you to produce a productive and attractive edible foodscape ecosystem on your property.