Residential Archives • Orterra

The Role of Environmental Design in Preventing Crime

July 3, 2023October 22, 2023 administratorEducation, Environment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

Did you know that the design of outdoor spaces plays a significant role in the occurrence of crime? It’s actually a concept we’ve long employed in our work with local government and developers in creating new urban landscapes. It is guided by a set of principles based on extensive research from across the globe. It even has its own acronym – CPTED What is CPTED? Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED, is exactly that: creating a space that feels safe, so that people can make use of it. Sometimes referred to as Designing Out Crime, it’s multidisciplinary and integrates […]

The Best Way to Not to Kill Plants….

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 debbieGarden Design, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

Did you know that there’s an Instagram hashtag used over 45,000 times? It’s #plantkiller and while some of the captions are hilarious, we think it’s time to dispel some myths about how ‘hard’ it is to keep plants alive and thriving. Let’s put that hashtag to bed with a little secret that’s not really much of a secret at all: improve your soil, and your plants will thrive. Plants aren’t necessarily fickle or precocious. They put up a good fight and can thrive only to the extent to which their soil is healthy. Not unlike baking a gorgeous cake that’s […]

Easement 101 I have one. Now what?

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 debbieGarden Design, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Uncategorized

Easements are one of those features that are often misunderstood. They sometimes cause undue stress about their potential impact on a landscape design, of what can and can’t be included. Here at Orterra, it’s not usual for a client to say in the design brief process themes along the line of ‘we’d love a row of trees on that back boundary but there’s an easement,’ or ‘that easement along the side means we can’t xyz’. There’s that undeniable sigh of relief when we tell them that their ideas for their space may not actually be limited by the presence of […]

The Year That was 2022

November 29, 2022November 25, 2022 debbieAbout Orterra, Education, Environment, Garden Design, Infrastructure, Residential

It’s been a year- this has been a challenging year hear at Orterra. We have had some amazing highs and some lows. We have been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. I know we generally like to give your great content consistently however, we have been very busy creating some amazing designs over the last few months for our clients and as we don’t like to provide you with terrible content hence we have let this slide a bit. But don’t worry we have been planning and there are some great things in the pipeline for next year. […]

Weeds and How To Tell If You Have One?

September 21, 2022October 9, 2022 debbieEnvironment, Garden Design, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

For many gardeners and non-gardeners, the notion of weeds is that they are this very bad thing that grows too fast and makes the place look ugly. However, the issue of weeds is more complicated. They cause a lot of damage to our natural environment. They cost billions of dollars a year and have a large impact on our biodiversity. What is a weed? The definition of a weed is “a plant that grows very quickly where it is not wanted and covers or kills more desirable plants” Basically, it is a plant growing where you don’t want it to […]

What do the Terms Cut and Fill Mean?

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 debbieGarden Design, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential, Tech

When talking to our clients we often use the terms cut and fill. These often come up when discussing how you might change the ground to create different types of spaces in a garden. Often they are terms that clients are unfamiliar with. So wanted to go into more detail today about what this meant. If you have a development or build on a slope, it is extremally helpful if you understand these two terms. And, how it affects your site. Today, we are going to break it down for you. So you can have a better understanding of what […]

What is Better Organic or Inorganic Mulch?

August 9, 2022November 14, 2022 debbieGarden Design, Residential, Tech

We often have discussions with clients about mulch. What options there are, costs, lifecycle. But today we thought we would just talk about what are the pros and cons of organic vs inorganic mulch to help you make a more informed decision when it comes time for you to choose. What is Mulch? Mulch is “ a protective covering (as of sawdust, compost, or paper) spread or left on the ground to reduce evaporation, maintain even soil temperature, prevent erosion, control weeds, enrich the soil, or keep fruit (such as strawberries) clean” They supress weeds, prevent soil compaction and help […]

To Answer your Question here is our Design Philosophy

July 27, 2022August 1, 2022 debbieAbout Orterra, Education, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential

We often get asked by our clients what is your design philosophy? So, today I wanted to dive a bit deeper into this question of design philosophy and what it means to us here at Orterra. Places People Love That is our philosophy. It is that simple. But what I will do is break it down for you a little more to get to the core of this statement. A philosophy is “a particular system of beliefs, values, and principles.” We here at Orterra have very clear values here that we work from that underpin our design philosophy. Equality Inclusion Empathy Diversity Biodiversity Transparency We use […]

How To Screen Out Your Neighbours With Plants?

June 15, 2022November 24, 2022 debbieGarden Design, Residential

With property land sizes shrinking and the size of the average Australian house growing, privacy is becoming compromised in the urban suburbs. There are many ways to screen your neighbours for more privacy in your yard. However, in this blog, we are going to focus on some of the types of plants that make great screens and provide you with a bit more privacy making your yard feel more secluded. In this blog post we are going to look at some groups of plants to consider. However, with all our advice on plants make sure you choose the right plant […]

Why is Biodiversity so Important to Orterra?

May 18, 2022January 24, 2023 debbieAbout Orterra, Environment, Infrastructure, Property Development and Commercial, Residential

If you have been following us for a while you might have seen us harp on a bit about biodiversity. It is one of our core company values. Our value states that “We promote, campaign and defend our environment and improve, rehabilitate and regenerate the biodiversity and the environment of our projects.” The 22nd of May is Biodiversity Day we love this time of year as it is a great way for us to really celebrate our environment. It is a time for us in the office to really think about what biodiversity means to us and our work. How […]