Mark Browning Landscape Design

Landscape Design Services in Southeast Melbourne: Mark Browning Landscape Design Studio

Formerly Cycas Landscape Design, Mark Browning Landscape Design has been operating for 16 years, providing landscape design services. Along with landscape design, Mark Browning Landscape Design incorporates several other services related to the landscape industry including materials selection advice and sourcing. Since entering the landscape design scene in Melbourne, Mark Browning Landscape Design has enjoyed great success with their projects. Some of Mark Browning Landscape Design’s gardens have featured on houses that have won noteworthy awards and Mark Browning Landscape Design has been a keen participant in the garden show and festivals arena.

Our reputation as landscape designers has been enhanced by winning Silver medals at the 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2017 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Shows, the “W.A. Comeadow” Gold Award for outstanding design at the 2004 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and Gold medals at Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

At the 2007 Chelsea Flower Show in London, Mark Browning Landscape Design was invited to design the Flemings and Trailfinders Australian Garden. Constructed by Kiama Landscapes, the show garden showcased Melbourne culture, outdoor living and architecture, whilst highlighting the need for trees in the urban landscape. All materials used in the construction were shipped from Melbourne, whilst plants were sourced in the UK, Italy and Spain. The garden was awarded a Silver Gilt in the Show Garden category; the second highest award available.

Mark Browning Landscape Design prides itself on sustainable and sensible design principles and we encourage our clients to strike a balance between both hard and soft landscape treatments thereby minimizing their carbon footprint and hence doing their part by cooling the environment starting in their own backyards. At Mark Browning Landscape Design we believe the planting of trees in the landscape is a positive and argue that a treed garden is not only good for our environment but has positive implications for property values and proven social benefits for family life in general.

In relation to hard landscape practice, at Mark Browning Landscape Design we encourage natural stone materials and in particular materials that are often byproducts of quarrying such as the use of aggregates and random paving materials. When man-made products are desired, we encourage using materials manufactured by companies with sound environmental credentials.

As far as soft landscape is concerned, we always recommend mulching, whether it be through organic means or using gravels and aggregates usually comes down to aesthetics. Materials such as pebbles sourced from Asia are discouraged.

Water, of course, is of paramount importance as our climate warms and gets drier. At Mark Browning Landscape Design we are proactive with the use of harvesting both rain and grey water. Our philosophy is to make the end user responsible for their needs. Naturally, the volume of water stored or grey water system in place needs to be appropriate to the needs of the individual garden, where the ability to harness water is more limited, we encourage more drought tolerant plantings.

– We are a Design Firm based in Sandringham

– We are a well-established Bayside Design Firm

– Servicing all areas: Bayside, Southeastern Suburbs, Melbourne, Victoria

Mark Browning Landscape Design is owned and operated by Mark Browning.

Mark has worked in the landscape industry since 1985 beginning his career as a landscape contractor. After 18 years on the tools he made the transition from construction to design and Mark Browning Landscape Design was born.

Under Mark Browning Landscape Design, Mark along with the staff provide landscape design and consultancy services catering for all styles of landscapes. His design philosophy is centred on the objective to provide high quality computer generated landscape designs and documentation with an emphasis on natural materials and sustainable planting.

Bluestone and granite are preferred hard landscape materials over concrete and ceramic pavers. Plants offering foliage qualities are generally preferred to those that rely on flowering for their beauty.

Mark Browning Landscape Design pursues different approaches to mulching and garden aesthetics with gravel and stone treatments frequently employed. We love to challenge traditional methodology by using walling materials on the ground and paving material on vertical surfaces. We love to demonstrate the versatility of materials and adore steel and glass, we loath chunky pinebark.

Initial Consultation

Upon contact with Mark Browning Landscape Design Landscape Design from you, our prospective new client, we will respond via phone call or email to set up an initial consultation to discuss your needs, wants and aspirations for your landscape.

Unlike many landscape designers, Mark Browning Landscape Design does not charge a “call out” fee for this initial meeting unless travel time to and from the proposed meeting location is estimated at more than an hour. If this is the case we encourage you to come to our offices to discuss your garden.

The initial consultation is really about sharing information between us; the landscape designer and you; the landscape owner to get an understanding of what you want to achieve for your garden.

We will discuss anything and everything that is central to your lifestyles to things that you may want to incorporate into your outdoor home life that are new and unfamiliar. Materials, plants and lifestyle options will also be discussed as we want to get to know as much as possible about our customers so the design process is as streamlined as can be.

Following this initial meeting, Mark Browning Landscape Design will prepare a written quotation to prepare a conceptual landscape design for your garden. This fee will include the preparation of one landscape concept plus one further round of revisions to that landscape concept. If further changes are required an hourly rate is applied. Within the fee, we will also produce a bound and electronic document including images of all plants and materials included in the conceptual plan. We also print three hard copies and electronic copies of all plans as part of this fee.

Conceptual Design

Upon acceptance of the Mark Browning Landscape Design fee proposal, we will begin the landscape design process. The first step in this process is a site evaluation and analysis. We will arrange a site meeting to assess the existing conditions and measure up the site as required and take photographs for reference. From this point, we transfer all the data obtained and create a personal file of your project. The site observations and parameters are put into a computer aided drafting file and the design process commences.

Over the following week or two we formulate a conceptual landscape design based on the initial consultation, site analysis and any other information discussed. The first draft concept is a high quality computer generated drawing with hand rendering and is presented to you in our offices once completed. Although conceptual, this plan will include all plants, hard landscape surface selections, soft landscape finishes and all other landscape elements within the plan. Where plan view is insuffient to completely explain a landscape element, we will include elevations and blown up sections as required. We will provide you with three copies of each drawing produced as well as electronic versions.To assist you in understanding your landscape concept we also produce a document with images of all of these landscape selections, this will be provided as both a bound booklet as well as in electronic format.

At Mark Browning Landscape Design we believe it is unreasonable to expect you, our customer, to be 100 percent happy with the first draft landscape concept so we include a further round of revisions within our fees. More often than not, our concepts need only minor tweaking but we understand that our customers may need time to absorb the concept so we leave it up to you to come back in your own time to discuss any modifications you would like to make. We are entirely flexible in the revision process, you may like to meet again in our offices to discuss changes, or you may prefer at your home, it may be achievable via phone call or email. Regardless of the process we will produce a second draft once you are ready, this usually takes less than a week. All being well this completes the conceptual design process unless further revisions are required. If so, these changes are made and charged at an hourly rate.

Landscape Construction Plans

At Mark Browning Landscape Design we believe that in order to achieve the best landscape construction, our clients will require a high quality set of drawings outlining the various aspects of the landscape including specifications and construction drawings.

Although many of our gardens are constructed from conceptual drawings, we encourage the preparation of these drawings to guarantee the integrity of the investment already undertaken.

We believe that with appropriate documentation your garden will be constructed as it should be. Also over time we have learnt that the funds invested in such documentation save two or three times that investment.

Landscape contractors will not need to make assumptions and unnecessary allowances with accurate specifications and you, the landscape owner, can be rest assured that every landscape contractor that provides a quotation to construct your garden is quoting on the same work as the other contractors.

Mark Browning Landscape Design will prepare a fee proposal to prepare landscape construction plans upon completion of the Conceptual Design.

Materials Sourcing

At Mark Browning Landscape Design we appreciate that landscape design is just the start of the process in creating a new garden. Over many years experience we have come to learn that incorrect material selection can have very negative outcomes in the landscape.

In order to safeguard your investment in the landscape we offer a materials selection service. The type of landscape products we can source and supply are many and varied.
Through our extensive experience within the landscape industry we have established relationships with stone and paving material suppliers, decorative screen manufacturers, garden accessories suppliers and plant growers and wholesalers.

Using Mark Browning Landscape Design to source and supply key materials for your garden guarantees the integrity of the landscape finishes and promotes responsible quoting from landscape contractors.