Pool Landscaping In Melbourne
At New Era Landscapes, we build everything around the pool. Coping, paving, levels, drainage and planting, on new pools and on pools that have been sitting in a bare yard for years.
New Era Landscapes does pool landscaping across Melbourne's south east. Coping and paving around the shell, the levels and drainage under it, retaining and screening behind it, and the planting and lawn that finish it. Quotes are free and measured on site.
A pool builder hands you back water in a hole. Everything from the edge of that hole outwards is a different job, and it's the one people underestimate, because it's the part you actually stand on.
We do it as one trade. The same crew sets the levels, lays the coping and the paving, builds the wall behind it and lays the turf up to the edge, so you get a surround that meets the pool cleanly instead of nearly.
Levels and water
What Makes A Pool Surround Work?
Where the water goes. You have a large flat area next to a body of water, and every bit of rain that lands on it has to go somewhere that isn't the pool and isn't the house.
Get the fall wrong and you find out the first time it rains properly. Either water sheets into the pool carrying whatever was on the paving, or it sits in a low spot and you end up with a second, much worse pool.
So the levels come first. We set them off three fixed things: the height of the pool coping, the threshold of the door the area runs back to, and the ground beyond it. Everything else is built to fit between those.
Then the surface. Around water, paving has to give you grip when it's wet and your feet are bare, and it has to cope with whatever comes out of the pool, which in a salt pool is salt.
The work
Our Pool Landscaping Services
You don't need to arrive with a plan. Tell us what your yard looks like now and how you want to use the space around the pool, and we'll work the rest out.
The surround itself
This is the hard landscaping, and it has to be right before anything else can happen. Your paving has to shed water away from the pool, meet the coping cleanly, and finish level with the door and the lawn beyond it.
Here's what our pool surrounds cover.
- Coping in bluestone, granite, travertine or precast
- Pool paving in stone, porcelain or large-format pavers
- Levels set off the house, the pool shell and the ground beyond
- Falls and drainage that take water away from the shell
- Steps, terraces and retaining where the yard changes height
- Rendered or clad walls behind the pool, and equipment screening
Planting, lawn and finishing
Planting around a pool has a shortlist, because most of what looks good in a garden is a problem next to water. Anything that drops small leaves ends up in your filter, and anything with a spreading root system eventually finds the shell.
Here's what our pool planting covers.
- Screening and privacy planting set back off the barrier line
- Feature planting in raised beds and pots that clear the setback
- Instant turf laid up to the paving edge
- Irrigation to beds and lawn, in before the turf goes down
- Garden lighting, mulch and edging chosen so nothing blows into the water
The stone
Pool Paving Materials We Lay
Around a pool, three things decide the stone: how hot it gets in full sun, how much grip you get when it's wet, and how it handles salt. Looks come fourth, which surprises most people.
Most pool paving in Melbourne ends up as travertine or bluestone, and they sit at opposite ends of the table below. Whatever the stone, the finish matters as much as the material: honed looks beautiful and gets slippery, while flamed, tumbled or bush-hammered gives grip without being rough on feet.
| Material | Underfoot in summer | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Travertine | Coolest of the lot under your feet. | The usual pick around a pool for exactly that reason. It's soft and absorbent, so you'll want it sealed, and a salt pool is harder on it than a chlorine one. |
| Bluestone | Warm in full sun. Dark stone holds heat. | Dense, hard wearing and Victorian, so it suits a Melbourne house better than anything imported. If you face west, pair it with shade or a lighter coping. |
| Granite | Middling, and it depends on the colour. | The hardest thing we lay and the least bothered by salt. Ask for a flamed finish and you get grip without sandpaper under bare feet. |
| Limestone | Cool, close to travertine. | Pale and soft looking, and softer in fact too. It seals well and looks right against render, but you'll mark it more easily than granite. |
| Porcelain | Cool in pale colours, hot in dark ones. | Frost proof, stain proof and completely consistent. You can choose it off a grip rating, which is the one thing natural stone can't give you on paper. |
A site visit is the right place to start, and if the pool isn't in yet, the earlier the better. Seeing the yard before the pool goes in is the only chance to get machine access sorted while there's still room.
We take the levels off the coping and the house, look at where your water goes now, and talk through stone, planting and how much of the yard you want the pool to take up.
The edge
What Happens At The Pool Edge?
The coping overhangs the shell, the paving falls away from it, and a drain catches what runs off before it reaches anything else. You get the same build-up on nearly every pool we work on.
The setback on the right of that drawing catches people out. A barrier needs clear space outside it with nothing climbable in it, so a raised planter, a bench or a pot against your fence can put a compliant barrier out of compliance.
We don't sign barriers off and we say so plainly. What we do is build your surround so nothing we put there is the reason it fails, and show you where that line runs before we start.
The process
How A Pool Surround Gets Built
The order is the same whether your pool went in last week or fifteen years ago.
- Levels off the coping. We measure from the pool, your door threshold and the ground beyond, then work out what has to move.
- Access and excavation. We do everything needing a machine while a machine can still get in.
- Retaining and structure. Walls, steps and screening go up next, because they set the edges everything else is built to.
- Drainage and base. Strip drains and pits go in, then we compact crushed rock to the fall your paving will run at.
- Coping and paving. We set the coping first and lay the paving off it, so the two meet on a line rather than near one.
- Irrigation, beds and turf. Pipework, soil and planting, then we lay your lawn last, once nobody has to walk across it.
Small yards
What About Courtyards And Small Pool Yards?
They're the same job with less room to hide anything. Courtyard landscaping in Melbourne is increasingly built around a plunge pool or a spa, and when your whole yard is the surround, every decision you make shows.
Large-format paving makes a small courtyard read as bigger, because fewer joints means fewer lines breaking up the floor. Go vertical with the planting once the floor is spoken for: climbers on a screen, a clipped hedge in a narrow bed, a couple of good pots.
The constraint that bites is access. If you have one gate and no side, we work out how the stone and the spoil move before we quote, not after.
Why New Era
Choosing New Era Landscapes For Your Pool Surround
We bring over 10 years of experience in landscaping and turf work across Melbourne, and pool surrounds are some of the best work we do.
You get one crew and one quote for the whole surround, which matters more here than on most jobs, because a pool fixes the levels everything else has to meet.
That's the practical difference between us and most pool landscaping in Melbourne being quoted as three separate trades. The paving, the retaining wall behind the pool, the drainage under all of it, the irrigation and the turf are our own crew on one quote, so there's nobody to blame when a level doesn't line up.
If you haven't put the pool in yet, call us before you do. Access, spoil and where the equipment ends up are all cheaper to solve on a drawing than around a finished pool.
Quotes are free, measured on site and itemised, and you're under no obligation to go ahead. You can see finished surrounds on Instagram.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does pool landscaping cost in Melbourne?
It moves with the size of the surround, the stone you choose and how much the ground has to change to get level. If you have a flat yard that only needs paving, that's a different job from a pool sitting a metre below the house. Quotes are free, measured on site and itemised, so you see each part priced separately.
Do I need to register my pool with the council?
Yes, in Victoria. If you have a pool or spa that holds water deeper than 30cm, you have to register it with your council, then have the safety barrier inspected and lodge a certificate of barrier compliance, and do that again every 4 years. You have 30 days from the date the certificate is issued to get it in.
Source: Bayside City Council.
Do you install or certify pool fences?
No. We're landscapers, so we build everything around your pool and we work to the barrier rather than on it. A registered inspector or building surveyor signs off compliance, not us. What we do is make sure nothing we build gives a child a foothold, because that's the part a landscaper can get wrong.
Can you landscape around a pool that's already built?
Yes, and a lot of our pool work is exactly that. If your pool is already in, the levels are fixed, so the job becomes working out how the surround meets the coping you have. Check access early, because a finished pool in a finished yard leaves us less room for a machine.
What plants work next to a pool?
Anything that holds its leaves and keeps its roots to itself. You can't go far wrong with palms, clumping bamboo in a pot, agaves, succulents, or evergreen screening like viburnum and lilly pilly. Plant a deciduous tree and you'll be cleaning the filter all autumn.
Areas We Serve Across Melbourne
We're based in Melbourne's south east and we work right across the city. There's no shopfront to visit, so we come to you and quote in the yard.
You'll find us regularly in Brighton, Berwick, Frankston, Cranbourne, Glen Waverley, Cheltenham, Narre Warren, Pakenham, Dandenong, Bentleigh, Beaumaris, Mentone, Mordialloc, Hampton.
Not on that list? Call and ask. If you want the stone rather than the pool, our paving page covers it, and our landscaping page covers the whole yard.
Written by Jono O'Brien, who runs New Era Landscapes and has been in landscaping and turf renovation for over ten years. You can talk to him directly about your yard.
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