Since 1995
Melbourne's Trusted Gardening & Landscaping Company
Cost-effective garden maintenance and landscaping, delivered by one of Melbourne's most established landscaping companies.
Est. 1995 - 30 Years / Licenced & fully Insured / 4.1 Star Average Google Reviews
Melbourne's garden maintenance and landscaping specialists
Consolidated Horticultural Services is a family-founded gardening company that has cared for Melbourne gardens since 1995. From ongoing garden maintenance to complete landscape construction, we work across the city's inner, eastern, and south-eastern suburbs — bringing council-grade horticultural expertise to every property. As one of Melbourne's most established landscaping companies, our reputation is built on consistency, craftsmanship, and long-term relationships with the clients whose gardens we help grow.
Our Services
Garden Maintenance
We provide a service that maintains all aspects of your garden.
Earthmoving & Transport
CHS operates a range of excavators and tracked loaders to minimise impact on the ground.
Irrigation Installation & Maintenance
We have vast experience in irrigation design and installation; whether it be a simple single valve system or a huge 60 valve system
More than 30 years in the business
Meet Alistair Bethke, founder
Consolidated Horticultural Services was founded in 1995 by Alistair Bethke, after he had spent seven years working for the City of Melbourne’s Parks and Gardens division. With his broad experience and hands on approach, Alistair has developed a reputation for maintaining premium gardens across Melbourne’s inner suburbs, many of which have been captured in Paul Bangay’s books.
At CHS, our standard-driven service places a high value on horticultural excellence, as well as the development of positive relationships with clients as we help their gardens grow and develop over time.
🏅 Gardens featured in Paul Bangay’s books
Local Specialists
Areas we serve
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Melbourne's trusted garden maintenance and landscaping company. From the areas we service to how to get started.
What areas of Melbourne does CHS service?
Consolidated Horticultural Services is one of Melbourne's most established gardening companies, servicing inner, eastern, and south-eastern suburbs including Toorak, Carlton, Fitzroy, Beaconsfield, and Glen Waverley. Visit our Areas Served page for a full list of suburbs we cover.
How long has CHS been operating?
CHS was founded in 1995, giving us over 30 years of experience delivering garden maintenance and landscaping across Melbourne. Our founder, Alistair Bethke, also spent seven years with the City of Melbourne's Parks and Gardens division before establishing the business.
What services do you offer?
As a full-service landscaping company, we cover garden maintenance, landscape design and construction, paving and hardscaping, hedge trimming and pruning, lawn care, irrigation, and water tank installation. See our Services page for the complete range.
Is CHS licensed and insured?
Yes. CHS is fully licensed and insured, with over 30 years of trading history and a 4.9-star rating from 40 Google reviews.
How do I get a quote?
Get in touch via our contact page or call us directly. We'll ask a few questions about your garden or project and arrange a time to assess the site before providing a written quote.
What makes CHS different from other landscaping companies in Melbourne?
Our team combines council-level horticultural expertise with three decades of private landscaping work. Including gardens featured in renowned landscape designer Paul Bangay's published books. That's a level of craftsmanship most gardening companies in Melbourne can't match.
Great group of hardworking people! I’ve been working with them all for a few months and everyone has been really friendly and happy and do good work. High end properties and they pay well.
Recent blogs & Insights
Most people never think about how the pipes under their irrigation system are actually joined together. It's not a glamorous detail, and it's usually buried before anyone gets a chance to look. But electrofusion pipe fittings are exactly the kind of thing that separates a system built to last from one that's back on the callout list within a few years. We came across a good example of this recently on a domestic irrigation install: a manifold built through copper pipe, joined with electrofusion pipe fittings rather than the push fit or barbed connections most residential systems use. Here's what electrofusion actually is, why it shows up on jobs like this, and what it's worth knowing before your next irrigation quote. What Are Electrofusion Pipe Fittings? Electrofusion is a welding process, not a mechanical connection. A fitting with an embedded heating element is slid over two pipe ends, an electrical current runs through the fitting, and the surrounding plastic melts and fuses into one continuous piece of pipe. Once it cools, there's no separate joint left in the way a push fit or barbed fitting has one. The pipe and the fitting become the same material, welded together rather than clipped, glued or pushed into place. It's a method borrowed from mains water and gas pipework, where a joint failure isn't something you can afford to risk. Electrofusion pipe fittings bring that same reliability down to a domestic irrigation manifold. How Electrofusion Differs From Standard Push Fit or Barbed Joints A standard poly irrigation fitting relies on a mechanical seal, a barb gripping the inside of the pipe, or an O-ring compressed inside a push fit connector. Both methods work, and both are faster and cheaper to install than electrofusion. The trade-off shows up later. A mechanical seal can loosen slightly over time as the ground shifts, as temperatures swing through a Melbourne summer and winter, or as water pressure fluctuates through the system. When that happens, it doesn't usually fail outright. It weeps slowly, often for months, showing up as a soft patch of lawn, a damp garden bed that never seems to dry out, or an unexplained rise in the water bill. Electrofusion pipe fittings don't have that failure mode. There's no seal to loosen because there's no separate seal at all, just fused pipe. Copper Pipe and Electrofusion: A Manifold Built to Last On the job pictured here, the manifold itself runs through copper pipe rather than poly, with the poly sections either side joined using electrofusion pipe fittings. That combination is closer to what you'd see on a commercial or civil job than a typical residential irrigation install. It costs more upfront, in materials and in labour, since electrofusion needs the right tooling and a properly trained installer to do it correctly. What it buys is a manifold that isn't likely to need digging up and repairing a few years down the track, which matters more on a property where the manifold sits somewhere awkward to access once the landscaping is finished. Valve Wiring: The Other Half of a Reliable System Good pipework only solves half the problem. Every solenoid valve on a system like this needs its own wiring run back to the irrigation controller, and how that wiring is installed affects how easy the system is to look after later. On this job, each valve's wiring was run and secured individually rather than bundled together loosely. If a fault does turn up down the track, whoever's troubleshooting it can trace the right cable straight away, instead of guessing which wire belongs to which zone on a multi zone irrigation system. It's a small thing on install day. It's the difference between a five minute fix and a half day of trial and error a few years later. Where Electrofusion Fittings Make Sense Electrofusion isn't necessary on every irrigation job, and a good contractor won't push it where it's not needed. For a modest single valve system in an accessible garden bed, well installed poly with quality push fit fittings is often perfectly reliable and better value. Electrofusion tends to earn its keep on: Larger properties running a multi zone irrigation system, where a manifold repair means digging up more established garden. Manifolds that sit somewhere hard to reach once landscaping, paving or a structure is built over the top. Underground irrigation pipe runs where a slow leak could go unnoticed for a long time before anyone spots it. Anyone who wants a system built once properly, rather than budget-installed and revisited every few years. The same logic applies whether it's copper irrigation pipe on a manifold or heavier poly elsewhere in the system: match the build quality to how much digging up a future repair would actually involve. Choosing an Irrigation Contractor in Melbourne Who Builds This Way Not every irrigation contractor in Melbourne will offer electrofusion as an option, and that's not necessarily a red flag on its own, plenty of good, straightforward residential systems don't need it. What's worth asking about is whether a contractor can explain the trade-off at all: why they're using the fittings they're using, and what that choice means for the system in five or ten years, not just on install day. A contractor who can walk you through that, and who's happy to build to a higher standard on the parts of a job that matter most, whether that's the manifold, the valve wiring, or how the whole system is laid out, is usually the one who ends up on far fewer callback lists. CHS has designed and installed irrigation across Melbourne for over 30 years, from simple single valve garden systems through to properties running dozens of valves and zones. You can see the scope of that work, along with the wider landscape and civil side of the business, on our projects page. Getting It Right the First Time An irrigation system lives underground, out of sight, for as long as it's in the ground. The materials and jointing methods chosen at install time are what decide whether that stays true for twenty years or turns into a recurring repair job. Electrofusion pipe fittings won't be the right call for every property. But knowing what they are, and what they're solving for, makes it a lot easier to have a proper conversation with whoever's quoting your next irrigation install. If you're planning irrigation work on a Melbourne property and want it built properly the first time, get in touch and we'll take a look at what your site actually needs. Frequently Asked Questions What are electrofusion pipe fittings used for? Electrofusion pipe fittings weld a pipe and fitting into one continuous piece using an electrical current and an embedded heating element. They're used anywhere a joint needs to be highly reliable and maintenance free, including mains water and gas pipework, and on higher grade irrigation manifolds. Are electrofusion fittings better than standard poly fittings? They're more reliable over the long term because there's no mechanical seal that can loosen or weep. They also cost more to install and need specific tooling and training. For smaller, accessible residential systems, well installed standard fittings are often a perfectly reasonable choice. Do irrigation contractors in Melbourne commonly use electrofusion fittings? Not universally. It tends to show up on larger properties, systems with harder to access manifolds, or jobs where the client specifically wants a build quality closer to commercial or civil standard. It's worth asking a contractor directly whether it's an option and why they would or wouldn't use it on your property. Why does valve wiring matter as much as the pipework? A poorly organised wiring run makes future troubleshooting far harder, even if the pipework itself is faultless. Running and securing each valve's wiring individually means any fault on a multi zone system can be traced quickly rather than guessed at.
Anyone searching for trench safety in Melbourne has probably pictured timber shoring, steel props braced wall to wall, holding a trench open while someone works below. That is one way to do it. It is not the only way, and on plenty of civil earthworks jobs it is not even the best way. On a recent job on Melbourne's fringe, the CHS team was laying pipework in a trench with real depth to it. Instead of shoring, the walls were cut back in a stepped batter, a technique that solves the same safety problem in a completely different way. What Is Trench Battering? Battering means cutting the trench walls back at an angle instead of straight down. A stepped batter takes that a step further, literally. Rather than one continuous slope, the wall is cut back in a series of level steps, each one set back slightly further than the one below it. The result looks a bit like a staircase carved into the earth on both sides of the trench. Each step reduces the amount of soil pressing down and outward on the level beneath it, so the trench holds its shape without needing anything bolted, propped or braced into place. Why Not Just Use Shoring? Shoring has its place. On a narrow trench in tight, unstable, or heavily trafficked ground, timber or steel bracing can be the only practical option, and CHS uses it when the site calls for it. But shoring comes with its own trade-offs. Props and braces take up space in a trench that is often already tight. They have to be installed, checked, and removed as the job progresses. And on longer trench runs, moving shoring along as work advances adds time to every stage of the job. A stepped batter avoids most of that. Once it is cut, there is nothing further to install or maintain inside the trench itself. Anyone working down there, laying pipe, checking levels, connecting fittings, has a clear run without ducking around bracing. How Stepped Battering Works in Practice Getting a stepped batter right is not just a matter of digging wider and hoping for the best. It depends on reading the site properly and cutting to a shape the ground can actually hold. Reading the Soil Different soil types hold different angles of batter. Firm clay behaves differently to loose sandy fill, and a site that has been recently disturbed or filled behaves differently again. Before cutting a stepped batter, the crew needs a realistic read on how that particular ground is going to behave once it is opened up, especially if rain is on the way. Cutting the Steps Each step is cut back further than the one above it, spreading the load down the face of the trench rather than letting it all bear on a single vertical wall. The depth and width of each step depends on the soil, the total trench depth, and how much room is available on site, since a stepped batter naturally takes up more width at the surface than a shored trench of the same depth. Room to Work Once the batter is cut, the trench floor stays clear. On this job, that meant the crew could move pipework into place and work along the trench without threading around timber or steel bracing at every step. When Battering Isn't the Right Call Stepped battering is not always available as an option. It needs room. A trench running hard against a boundary fence, an existing structure, or a road doesn't have the surface width to spread a batter out, and shoring becomes the practical choice instead. Depth and ground conditions matter too. Very deep trenches, or ground that is genuinely unstable, can call for a combination of approaches, or shoring outright, rather than relying on a batter alone. Every site gets assessed on its own conditions rather than defaulting to one method because it is faster or easier. Trenching as Part of Civil Earthworks in Melbourne Trenching like this rarely gets noticed once the job is finished. Backfill goes back in, the surface gets reinstated, and within a day or two there's no sign a trench was ever there. But the decisions made about how to open that ground safely are some of the most important on any civil earthworks site. It's the same principle CHS applies across earthmoving and transport work throughout Melbourne, on residential developments, growth corridor sites and larger commercial jobs alike. The visible result, whether that's a finished pipe run, a level house pad or a completed civil site, depends entirely on groundwork most people never see. A look through our projects shows plenty of examples of that groundwork across different site types and scales. Getting It Right From the Start Whether a trench gets shored, battered, or a mix of both comes down to reading the site accurately and making the safer, more practical call for that specific ground. That judgment, built over 30-plus years of civil earthworks across Melbourne, is what keeps a job moving without cutting corners on safety. If you've got a project that involves trenching, pipe laying, or broader civil earthworks, get in touch to talk through what your site needs. Frequently Asked Questions What is a stepped batter in trenching? A stepped batter is a trench wall cut back in a series of level steps rather than straight down, spreading the load of the surrounding soil so the walls hold their shape without props or bracing. Is battering safer than shoring? Neither method is universally safer. Battering works well where there is enough surface width and the soil conditions suit it. Shoring suits narrow trenches or tighter sites. The right choice depends on the specific ground and site conditions. Why not just shore every trench? Shoring is effective, but it takes up working space inside the trench and needs to be installed, checked and moved as work progresses. Where site conditions allow, a stepped batter can achieve the same safety outcome with a clearer trench to work in. Does a stepped batter cost more than shoring? It depends on the site. Battering generally needs more surface width, which isn't always available, but it typically needs less specialised equipment inside the trench itself. Each job is assessed on its own conditions rather than a fixed approach.
Anyone who has looked into garden steps in Melbourne for a narrow side passage knows the problem before the quote even lands. Most standard step solutions are designed for open garden beds with room to move, not a tight run between a boundary fence and the side of a house. When a block has a real change of level and next to no width to work with, the usual approach needs rethinking. That was exactly the situation on a recent job, a side access running down the length of a Melbourne home with a decent slope from front to back. The fix was a set of steel stair units, slim structural frames that hold the shape of the steps before anything else goes in on top. Why side access is its own problem Melbourne's inner and middle suburbs are full of period homes built long before anyone thought about side access as a design problem. Narrow gaps between the house and the boundary fence were left over space, not planned circulation. Somewhere down the track, that gap usually ends up as the main route to a garden shed, a bin store, a side gate, or the back garden itself. Add a natural fall in the block, which is common across large parts of Melbourne, and that narrow strip suddenly needs to manage a change of level as well as foot traffic. There is rarely room to spread a gentle ramp or a wide set of steps across the width available. Whatever goes in has to do its job in a fraction of the space a step in an open garden would use. This is where a lot of standard landscaping approaches run into trouble. A generously proportioned set of garden steps looks fine on paper, but in a passage that might only be 800mm to a metre wide, there simply is not room for a bulky structure on either side of the tread. Why steel stair units solve it The answer on this job was a series of steel stair units, welded steel frames set into the slope to form the risers and hold the structure of each step. Rather than pouring a full concrete stringer or building a masonry structure to support the steps, the steel frame does the structural work in a much slimmer profile. Poured concrete versus a steel frame A poured concrete step structure needs formwork, curing time, and enough width either side to build and finish it properly. In an open part of a garden that is rarely an issue. In a side access hemmed in by a fence on one side and a house wall on the other, it can eat into space that was never generous to begin with. A steel stair unit does the same structural job, holding soil and fill in place and defining the shape of each step, but it arrives pre-formed and goes into the ground far closer to the boundary than a poured structure could safely sit. For a narrow side access, that difference in footprint can be the difference between steps that fit comfortably and a passage that feels tighter than it did before the work started. Structure first, finish later What is visible in a job like this partway through is just the steel frame, sitting in raw soil with no surface finish yet. That is deliberate. The frame is the structural stage, get this right and everything that follows, backfill, base preparation and the finished tread surface, has something solid and correctly shaped to sit on. It is not the most photogenic stage of a landscape construction job. There is no paving, no planting, nothing that looks finished. But it is the stage that decides whether the steps sitting on top in a few months' time stay solid or start to shift, crack, or settle unevenly within a couple of years. What happens after the frame goes in Once the steel units are set and levelled, the next stages are backfilling behind and within each riser, compacting that fill properly, and building up a base ready for the finished tread. Depending on the brief, that tread might be paving to match the rest of the property, exposed aggregate, or another hard-wearing surface suited to a side access that gets regular foot traffic. Because the steel frame has already set the shape and pitch of the steps, this later stage is mostly about getting the base and finish right rather than fighting the structure itself. It also means changes to material or finish further down the track do not require touching the structural steps underneath. Drainage behind the steps matters just as much A narrow side access is often the path water takes off a roof, a driveway, or higher ground at the front of a block, especially once a fall has been built into it deliberately, as steps require. Water sitting against the back of a step structure, steel or otherwise, is one of the more common reasons steps in tight side passages fail early. Getting drainage right behind and beneath the steps, so water is directed away rather than pooling against the structure, is part of the same stage as backfilling and base preparation. It rarely gets a mention in a finished photo, but it is one of the details that separates steps built to last from steps that need attention again within a few wet Melbourne winters. Where garden steps fit into landscape construction A job like this rarely happens in isolation. Side access steps are usually one part of a broader landscape construction scope, connecting a driveway or street frontage to a rear garden, a pool area, or a renovated outdoor living space. Getting the structural stages right, steps included, is what the rest of a landscape construction project gets built on. It also overlaps with paving and hardscaping , since the finished tread on a set of garden steps needs to tie into whatever paving material runs through the rest of the property. Matching material, falls and finishes across steps and paving is what makes a side access feel like part of the property rather than an afterthought squeezed down the side of it. Timing also matters more than most homeowners expect. Structural work like a steel stair unit install is best done while a side access is already stripped back for a broader landscape construction or renovation project, rather than as a standalone retrofit once paving, planting and fencing are all finished and in the way. Where the two can be planned together, the steps end up better integrated and the job as a whole runs more efficiently. Getting it right the first time Steps in a high traffic side access take a beating over the years, weather, foot traffic, bikes and bins included. A structure that is undersized, poorly supported, or built without proper drainage behind it tends to show that wear early, with cracking, movement, or pooling water at the base. Starting with a proper structural frame, whether that is a steel stair unit or another engineered solution suited to the site, is what avoids that outcome. It costs more attention at a stage nobody will ever see finished, but it is exactly the kind of groundwork that keeps a side access looking and functioning the way it should for decades rather than years. Frequently asked questions Do all garden steps need a steel frame like this? No. A steel stair unit is one option among several for building garden steps, and it tends to suit tight, narrow sites where a poured concrete or masonry structure would take up too much space. Open garden areas with more room to work in often suit other structural approaches just as well. Can steel stair units be used on a sloped side access with existing fencing and services? Yes, that is a common scenario. Steel units are set into the slope in stages and can be positioned to work around existing fence lines, drainage points and other services already running through a side access, which is part of why they suit constrained sites. What happens to the raw steel frame, is it visible in the finished result? No. Once backfill, base preparation and the finished tread are complete, the steel structure is concealed beneath the surface. What is visible afterwards is the finished step, whether that is paving, aggregate or another chosen material. If a narrow side access at your own property has an awkward change of level, it is worth having someone look at the structural options before locking in a finish. Get in touch with the CHS team to talk through what a site like yours would need.
