Planned Around the Tree.
Hawthorn yards change street by street. The boom of the 1880s put grand houses on the wealthier subdivisions and single fronted workers cottages a block away, so one yard is a broad sunny rectangle and the next is a shaded strip reached down a rear right of way. The constant is the trees. Boroondara treats a tree as a canopy tree once its trunk measures 110 cm around at 1.4 m above the ground, or 150 cm at ground level, and you need a permit to remove one even if it is dead, so the tree shading your yard is almost certainly staying. We plan the lawn around it: a shade tolerant variety where the light allows, artificial where it does not, roots left alone, and a base that still drains. Building the rest of the garden too? See landscaping in Hawthorn. We also lay turf across Kew, Burnley and Richmond.
