Pipe Dream is the name of a small concrete garden design created by Alison Douglas that was entered into the Boutique Garden category of the 2015 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. The name Pipe Dream references the large concrete pipes used to create focal points throughout the garden design.

Each of the concrete pipe sections is used for a different purpose. There is a meditation moon gate / day bed, a fire pit zone and one with a water feature contained within it.

The idea was to create a hidden oasis within a busy city environment. An oasis within a concrete jungle might be a “pipe dream” making this garden not only a visual pun with the use of concrete but a poetic one as well via the choice of several dreamy pipe interiors.

The plants selected and the blue/green colour palette where chosen to create an all season garden.
Photography by Tim Turner

Butterfly Effect Garden

This is Alison Douglas’s Butterfly Effect Garden created for the Singapore Garden Festival in 2016. It is a tropical garden featuring waves of pink foliage meandering through green bamboo and palms.

The Butterfly Effect garden trellis has an added feature of LED lights on the end of every second shade slat. The shape of the shade trellis was the muse for the name of the garden.

Underneath the butterfly wings is a small raised water feature and a sunken outdoor living room complete with an area rug of greenery. Both are surrounded by an organic deck with voids for plants.

Small Space Outdoor Living

This reclaimed timber fence that Alison Douglas designed includes a drop down feature, a small kitchen and night time ambience.

The drop down feature is a dining table large enough to seat 5, the small kitchen is a fence mounted barbeque and the night time ambience is a series of linear  lights mounted to follow the direction of the reclaimed timber slats.
Alison Douglas

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