Secret Gardens launches a closer look at Australia’s private landscapes

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Secret Gardens has marked the launch of its second book, Secret Gardens: Designing Private Realms, with an evening bringing together ideas around gardens, architecture and the way we live. Held at the B&B Italia Outdoor showroom in Surry Hills, the launch offered an opportunity to explore the new publication, which documents 20 private Australian gardens rarely seen or photographed.

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Ruby McKenzie

Curated by Secret Gardens founder and creative director Matthew Cantwell, the 324-page volume brings together photography by Nicholas Watt and writing by Peter Salhani. The gardens span different settings and architectural contexts, but share an interest in the relationship between landscape and the homes they surround.

Looking beyond the garden

The premise of Designing Private Realms is simple: some of the most considered gardens are also the least visible.

Unlike public landscapes, residential gardens are shaped around the people who inhabit them. They can create privacy, extend living spaces, frame architecture or establish a transition between the built environment and the landscape beyond.

The book explores these relationships through 20 residential projects, considering the garden not as an afterthought to the architecture, but as part of the broader experience of home.

That makes the publication particularly relevant to the way contemporary residential design is evolving. As indoor and outdoor spaces become increasingly interconnected, landscape is playing a greater role in defining how a home feels, moves and is lived in.

A second chapter for Secret Gardens

The new publication follows Secret Gardens’ first book, released in 2018, and represents another record of the practice’s approach to residential landscape design.

The launch brought that work into a shared setting, with the Surry Hills evening creating space for conversation across architecture, interiors and landscape.

Secret Gardens: Designing Private Realms will be available from November 2026 through selected architecture, design and independent book retailers.

For designers and homeowners, the collection offers a reminder that some of the most meaningful spaces around a home are also the ones that remain largely unseen.