With steel edging, planters and more, you can express your creativity and elevate your garden to a new level of artistry
Every year, the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show (MIFGS) brings together Australia’s most talented landscape designers, horticulturists, and design students to celebrate innovation, sustainability, and beauty in outdoor spaces.
For ShapeScaper, MIFGS 2025 was an opportunity to show its edging, planters, and custom steelwork used to full creative effect across a wide variety of installations, offering a vivid reminder of what ShapeScaper does, which is provide high-quality, design-forward products that elevate outdoor spaces and empower creators at every level.
Endless versatility
ShapeScaper’s own MIFGS display garden combined contemporary landscape styling with clean architectural lines, showcasing its flexible steel edging systems and modular planter boxes. Using a mix of Redcor and Galvabond steel, the showcased products provided definition to key planting areas and introduced gentle transitions across both paved and planted surfaces, educating attendees about the endless versatility of steel as a landscape material.
Designed to immerse MIFGS visitors in a modernAustralian landscape experience that celebrated durable materials, organic forms, and native plants, the display featured a circular seating zone formed with custom Corten steel and timber-topped benches. A copper water feature added movement, its edges softened by curved steel borders and lush planting.
Elevated, multi-tiered planter beds offered height variation and showcased planting structure, while raised gardens created smooth elevation changes that subtly guided the eye. All elements worked together to illustrate the variety offered by ShapeScaper’s product range, from captivating architectural features to sturdy structural foundations.
Artistic inspiration
One of the most rewarding aspects of the show was seeing how many student garden entries made use of ShapeScaper products. From curved edging sections that created organic pathways, to planter boxes and rings used to create focal planting zones, the range played a part in shaping the creative process for numerous up-and-coming designers.
The Challenger Achievable Gardens category, designed to encourage emerging landscape design talent, was especially inspiring. These compact gardens were full of originality, often featuring resourceful use of materials and highly refined planting palettes. It was rewarding to see ShapeScaper elements serving a practical role while also contributing to the artistic identity and storytelling of each student garden.
Custom creations
Among the standout show gardens was Matt York’s In Ratio with Africa, a sensory landscape that explored the parallels between African and Australian garden design. Taking out the Silver Gilt medal in the Show Garden category, this installation was a thoughtful meditation on climate resilience, cultural storytelling, and site-sensitive design.
ShapeScaper partnered with Matt on several integral custom components. Chief among them was the sculptural three-metre-high bird motel, a functional and artistic centrepiece constructed with Redcor steel. Designed to provide habitat while serving as a design anchor, the structure highlighted just what’s possible when custom steelwork meets creative ambition.
ShapeScaper also worked with Matt to fabricate other bespoke elements, including edging that helped shape raised planting zones, supporting the stability of larger plants and trees, and seamless transitions between planted areas and paved surfaces to maintain a cohesive, flowing layout.
Making connections
From boutique gardens to commercial exhibitor plots, ShapeScaper products were spotted throughout MIFGS. Modular planters and signature edging lines appeared in a variety of contexts, reflecting the adaptability of the range. One example was RE-SET by Joslyn Bennett of Earthcore Landscapes, Gold Medal winner in the Boutique Garden category. An exploration of the power of nature as a restorative force, the garden used curved lines to create fluidity while the palette of soft greens, earthy timbers, Redcor patinated steel, and stone elements grounded the space.
Framed by ShapeScaper’s Redcor 590mm steel edging, the design balanced strength and softness, structure and stillness. The central water feature served as both a visual anchor and a sensory device, offering visitors a garden that was designed to encourage people to slow down and reconnect with the surrounding landscape.
Harmony with nature
What stood out most at MIFGS wasn’t just the creativity on display, but the consistent undercurrent of landscape resilience, climate-consciousness, and community. Another strong theme was the use of indigenous plant species to strengthen ecological connections, foster biodiversity, and ground gardens in place and story. This emphasis reflects a growing commitment to sustainability and a desire to work in greater harmony with the land through thoughtful garden design and considered plant selection, an approach that ShapeScaper fully supports.
Modular solutions
ShapeScaper is Australia’s leading manufacturer of modular steel garden edging, planter boxes, and custom architectural landscape products. Proudly designed and made here in Australia, these versatile products are widely used by professional landscapers, designers, and design-savvy homeowners right around the country.
To find out more, visit the ShapeScaper website.
