Needs, wants, and the five-year view
Clients ask for what they can picture, not what they need. The professional skill is separating the two, and asking what the property has to do in five years — kids, dogs, ageing, resale — before committing concrete to the ground.
People do not ask for what they need. They ask for what they have seen — an outdoor kitchen, a fire pit, a strip of artificial turf, a water feature. Those are answers, and they arrive before anyone has asked the question.
Your job at this point in the brief is to run that in reverse. Take every item on the wish list, find the function underneath it, and write the function down. That is the requirement. The item is just one of several ways of delivering it, and it is usually not the cheapest one.
Then you do the second half, which almost no homeowner does unprompted: you ask what the property has to do in five years, not what it has to look like on handover day.
What a professional is doing at this stage
A designer taking a brief is building a list they can trade against a budget. They already know that a chunk of the wish list is not going to survive the quote, and they want those cuts to happen now, on paper, while they are cheap. Cutting something in week three of the build costs a variation, a rescheduled subbie and usually some already-poured concrete.
There is a second reason, and it is the one that separates competent designers from order-takers. If you build exactly what the client asked for, they can still hate it. That happens when the thing they actually needed was never articulated — shade on the western wall of the living room, a path a wheelie bin rolls down, somewhere to stand in February that is not 40°C. The wish list was made of features. The disappointment is about function.
So the professional writes down functions, ranks them, and only then decides what objects deliver them.
Tracing wants back to needs
Work through your list one item at a time and ask what it is for.
| What is on the list | The function underneath | What that opens up |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in outdoor kitchen | Cook and eat outside without walking in and out | Shade, a power point, a tap and a flat 3 x 3 m surface. The joinery is optional. |
| New lawn across the whole yard | Somewhere soft the kids and the dog can run | A smaller lawn in the one spot that gets morning sun, and mulch or paving elsewhere |
| Big paved entertaining area | Twelve people seated at Christmas, twice a year | Check whether a 4 x 5 m paved area plus overflow onto lawn does the same job |
| Instant screening hedge | Not being overlooked from the neighbour’s upstairs window | A 2.4 m screen at one specific point beats 18 m of hedge you have to clip |
The point is not to talk yourself out of nice things. It is that once the function is written down, you can compare three ways of achieving it and pick the one that fits the budget you set in the money conversation.
The must-have test
Use the test the MoSCoW method uses: what happens if this is not delivered? If the honest answer is “the garden still works, it is just less good”, it is not a must-have. Must-have is reserved for things where there is no point doing the project without them, plus anything legal or safety-related.
Borrow the effort split as well: no more than about 60% of effort in must-haves, with roughly 20% held as could-haves forming the contingency pool. Perth renovations turn up buried builder’s rubble, a slab under the lawn, a limestone wall with no footing, and 25-year-old poly retic that shatters when you touch it. If your must-have list consumes the whole budget, the first surprise takes something out of it.
The five-year view
Write down who lives here in five years and what the block has to do for them. Be specific — ages, dogs, cars, work-from-home, who mows.
- Kids. Today’s toddler is on a bike; today’s twelve-year-old has a licence and friends who park out the front. Play space converts to something else, so do not build it in permanently.
- A pool, even a maybe. If a pool is more than about a one-in-three possibility, set the barrier line now. Anything holding more than 30 cm of water needs a compliant barrier isolating it from the street, the neighbours and every habitable building, and retrofitting that line through paving and planting you have already paid for is where budgets die. See pools and pool fencing.
- Dogs. A dog decides your turf species, your edging detail, your gate hardware and whether surface drip irrigation is viable at all.
- Ageing, yours or a parent’s. Levels are the least reversible thing in a garden. A continuous step-free run from the car to the door, and a main path wide enough for two people or a wheelbarrow — call it 1.2 m — costs almost nothing to design in now and a fortune to add later. Single steps are the worst detail in domestic landscaping; either make it a proper flight or make it a ramp.
- Resale. REIWA ranks landscaping below location, home age, liveable rooms and build quality. Design for yourself, but do not build something a buyer will price as a liability — a large thirsty lawn, or 30 m of hedge that needs clipping four times a year. Landscaping and property value goes further into this.
- The climate. This is the WA-specific one. Rainfall in the south-west is down 15–20% since the mid-1970s, and that has cut streamflow into Perth’s dams by about 80% — from a pre-1970s average of 420 billion litres a year to 35 billion litres in 2025. Sprinklers are off entirely from 1 June to 31 August, and outside that window you get one run before 9 am or after 6 pm on your rostered days. Design a garden that lives on that, or less.
Rank your decisions by how hard they are to reverse
This is the ranking that should drive how much time you spend arguing.
| Decision | Reversibility | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Levels, retaining, drainage | Effectively permanent | Everything else sits on it. Getting a fall wrong puts water under the house. |
| Pool and its barrier line | Effectively permanent | Constrains gates, paving, planting and sightlines across half the block |
| Tree positions | Five to fifteen years | Water Corporation wants 2.7 m from the boundary and 0.5 m from its assets before you even discuss aesthetics |
| Paving and concrete footprint | Expensive | Demolition, spoil removal to a Perth tip, new base, new edge |
| Buried services — retic mainline, power, water points | Expensive if under paving | Cheap now, jackhammer later |
| Structures, pergolas, screens | Moderate | Footings are the sticking point |
| Plants in beds | Cheap | The forgiving part of the garden. Change your mind freely. |
| Mulch, pots, furniture, light fittings | Trivial | Do not spend brief-stage energy here |
Spend your design effort in proportion to permanence. Argue about the levels. Do not argue about the shrubs.
You are renovating, not starting from sand
An existing garden is a bank of assets you have already paid for, and the cheapest way to fund a want is to keep something that already works. A mature shade tree in the right place is worth more than anything you can buy. A sound limestone wall, a paved area that is level and drains, a functioning mainline — all of it counts.
The trap is the opposite error: keeping something because it exists. A path in the wrong place, kept out of thrift, compromises the layout for twenty years. The test is the same as everywhere else here — does it serve a function you have written down? If not, its only value is the demolition cost you avoid, and that is usually a small number.
You will get the evidence for these calls in auditing an existing garden and tree assessment. For now, mark items as keep, probably-keep or unknown, and move on.
Where this goes next
Writing the design brief turns this ranked list and your five-year statement into the single document a designer, a builder or your future self can work from — and it is the document that functional zoning in Phase 5 lays out on the block.
Checklist
- Split your wish list into must-have, should-have and nice-to-have
- Write what the garden must support in five years
- Identify the decisions that are expensive to reverse
Where to go deeper
Every link below was fetched and checked before it shipped. Nothing here is a guess.
- Freearticle10 minWorks anywhere
What is MoSCoW Prioritisation?
Agile Business Consortium
Why this oneThe primary source for the must/should/could method, from the body that formalised it. Two things here are worth stealing for a garden brief: the test for a Must Have — "what happens if this requirement is not met?", where the only qualifying answer is that there is no point proceeding — and the effort guidance of no more than 60% of effort in Must Have with around 20% held in Could Have as the contingency pool. Most home wish lists are 100% Must Have, which is the same as having no priorities at all.
Change this for PerthWritten for software projects. The vocabulary is the same, the arithmetic is the same, and the discipline transfers directly — read "requirement" as "element of the garden" and "effort" as "budget".
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freetool20 min to build a shortlistPerth / WA
Waterwise plants directory
Water Corporation
Why this oneFree, searchable by suburb, and filterable by origin (WA native, Australian native, exotic), growth habit, garden type and flower colour. At brief stage you are not writing a planting plan — you are checking that the look you want is achievable on your rostered watering days, and getting mature sizes so the five-year picture is honest rather than the nursery-tag picture.
Change this for Perth"Waterwise" here means established, in improved soil, watering roughly once a week through summer. Straight out of the bag Perth sand is not improved soil, so the water figures assume work you have not done yet.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freegovernment15 minPerth / WA
Selecting the right tree
Water Corporation
Why this oneThe tree is the one element of your garden that is materially different in five years, and this is the WA page that gives you the constraints in numbers rather than adjectives. It sets a planting position of 2.7 m from the property boundary line and a minimum of 0.5 m from water assets, rates species for root invasiveness from low to high, splits the list at 5 m mature height, and rates established watering need. It also tells you to check Before You Dig Australia before you plant, which almost nobody does.
Change this for PerthThe setbacks protect Water Corporation infrastructure — they are not the whole story. Your own paving, footings, soakwells and sewer connection need their own clearances, and your council may have separate rules for verge trees.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freegovernment5 minPerth / WA
Wet winter belies true impact of declining streamflow to Perth dams
Water Corporation
Why this oneIf you only read one thing before deciding how much lawn to keep, read this. The pre-1970s average inflow to the Darling Scarp dams was 420 billion litres a year; 2025 delivered 35 billion litres, against an average of 76 billion litres since 2010. A 15–20% drop in rainfall since the mid-1970s has produced an 80% drop in streamflow, and rainfall now supplies only 10–15% of drinking water. That is the trend line your five-year garden has to sit on.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freearticle15 min plus the plan downloadPerth / WA
Landscape design — Josh's House
Josh Byrne & Associates / Curtin University
Why this oneA documented Perth landscape design with the reasoning published alongside it, and a free landscape features plan PDF you can download and read. Worth studying specifically for the future-proofing: the shared garden between the two houses was laid out so it still works if a boundary fence is installed later. That is exactly the move this lesson is asking you to make — designing so a likely future change does not wreck the layout.
Change this for PerthA 1160 m² Hilton block with two purpose-built houses on it, designed from scratch. You are renovating around an existing house, existing levels and an existing garden, so take the decision logic rather than the layout.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freegovernment10 minPerth / WA
Swimming pool and spa safety barrier requirements
Building and Energy, Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety
Why this oneRead this at brief stage, not at pool stage. A barrier has to restrict access from the street, from adjoining properties and from all habitable buildings, for anything holding water more than 30 cm deep — which means the barrier line is a layout decision that constrains paving, gates, planting and sightlines across a large part of the block. Pools installed after 1 May 2016 must comply with AS 1926.1-2012 and AS 1926.2-2007, and local governments must inspect at intervals of no more than four years.
Change this for PerthThe primary-source page is a summary. Before you commit to a barrier line, confirm the detail with your own local government, because they are the ones who inspect it.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
- Freearticle6 minPerth / WA
Will a garden add re-sale value to your home?
REIWA (Real Estate Institute of Western Australia)
Why this oneUseful precisely because it refuses to flatter you. WA's peak real estate body ranks the drivers of value as location, neighbouring prices, home age, number of liveable rooms and build quality — with landscaping in the trailing group of lifestyle attributes. It also warns that an elaborate garden becomes a financial burden as water gets more expensive, and that the garden should suit the lifestyle of the likely future buyer, not the current owner's hobby.
Change this for PerthWritten by an industry body with an interest in presentation and no interest in your maintenance load. It offers no numbers on return on investment, because there are none worth quoting — treat any landscaper who quotes you a resale percentage with suspicion.
Link checked 2 Aug 2026
The rules, with sources
WA regulation changes. Each point below names its primary source and the date it was last checked — always confirm with your own council before you build.
The winter sprinkler switch-off runs from 1 June to 31 August each year and applies to households and businesses in Perth, the South West and parts of the Great Southern.
Water Corporation — Watering days ↗ · checked 2 Aug 2026
Outside the switch-off, sprinklers may run only once before 9 am or after 6 pm on your rostered watering days, and the roster is allocated by street number.
Water Corporation — Check your watering days ↗ · checked 2 Aug 2026
Any pool or spa holding water more than 30 cm deep requires a safety barrier that restricts access from the street, adjoining properties and all habitable buildings. Pools installed after 1 May 2016 must comply with AS 1926.1-2012 and AS 1926.2-2007, and local governments must inspect barriers at intervals of no more than four years.
Building and Energy WA — Swimming pool and spa safety barrier requirements ↗ · checked 2 Aug 2026
Water Corporation requires trees to be planted 2.7 m from the property boundary line and a minimum of 0.5 m from its water assets.
Water Corporation — Selecting the right tree ↗ · checked 2 Aug 2026