Inner City Nature is a Melbourne-based Landscape Design business.
Founded by Patrick Belford in 2004, Inner City Nature has a focus on sustainable and resilient gardens, that bring maximum functionality, value, and well being for clients and the planet.
Inner City Nature can manage the construction of your garden, and have a team of horticulturalists who can prepare, plant and care for your garden.
Patrick Belford
Principle Designer / Director
Patrick is a Burnley-trained Horticulturalist and and graduate of Fine Art and Design at VCA. His gardens are known for their creativity in style and standout planting concepts mastering play of colour, form and texture. Garden space designed by Patrick are an elevated reflection and interaction with nature in the urban setting. He has collected a wide following of clients and admirers in the inner suburbs for this talent.
Inner City Nature Garden-making Philosophy
A love for nature, and the knowledge of the benefits of nature to the human spirit and the planet informs our garden philosophy.
​
We use ecological concepts of layered plantings from the taller plants creating the ‘canopy’ through to the mid story plants right down to the detail of the groundcovers and small plants. This creates an overall composition, embracing a diversity of species, and creates an opportunity to play with contrasting colour, shape, texture and form.
​
By selecting plants that naturally fit their place in the composition and ‘ecology’, the longer term maintenance of the garden is greatly reduced, as plants do not need as much trimming to keep them at their required size and shape. This makes a naturally planted garden more resilient, as the garden is fundamentally self supporting.
​
It is well documented that nature has profound positive wellbeing effects of psychological balance. Surrounding yourself with nature promotes a calm yet vibrant environment where everyone can thrive. This can be done in small spaces in our cities with clever use of space and plants and planters.
We create resilience to your garden planting with a naturally diverse selection. Our plantings are a break from monocultural plantings, where if one plant dies the whole design falls apart. This not only makes the garden more visually resilient, this garden is healthier as diversity also supports a larger system of integrated pest management that expands the local ecology.
​
We recognise that the materials we use to build your garden are a product of nature and the natural world. We are mindful to source materials from sustainable sources and to minimise the built form where possible to conserve resources more broadly. We endeavour to walk lightly on the earth and add rather than subtract from the earths bounty and beauty.
