AGENDA
I
look from the fifth-floor office window and
wonder at the human thinking that produces
a landscape of mown grass, mass-planted
Lomandra spp. and a scattering of identical
street trees interspersed with roads, concrete and
buildings. What is supposed to live there? I drive
through the suburban streets planted with endless
Pyrus spp. in all shapes and sizes. When did we
decide that landscapes needed to be tidied, with
grass mown and nature dominated? And why?
In the bustle and rush of getting landscape proj-
ects designed, it might seem expedient to stick to a
limited palette of known plant performers. The result
is often a bit boring, but mass plantings of reliable
plants give the best chance of a predictable outcome
with minimum effort. Some clients even demand this
approach with requests for assurances from the
designer about the reliability of the plant material or
a requirement to only use plants from their approved
list. The unfortunate result can be a green desert, fit
only for occupation by animal species in unbalanced
populations. Is this dumbing down of planting design
a result of the well-targetted marketing campaigns of
some plant breeders, designer laziness, clients losing
confidence that landscape architects know about
plants or all of the above? When planting design
becomes all about making geometric patterns with
plants, with no consideration of their environmental
services and other benefits, I suggest that we have
lost the plot.
The international plant breeder’s rights (PBR)
system was introduced in Australia in 1987. It aims to
encourage plant breeding and innovation by protect-
ing the rights of the breeder of a registered plant
variety for twenty to twenty-five years (depending on
the species) and providing an opportunity for finan-
cial benefit. The result has been a flood of new plant
varieties, which have been incorporated in large
numbers into our landscapes. Every specimen in a
mass planting of a PBR plant is genetically identical
since the PBR system requires that each plant is a
clone of the breeder’s original selection.
While using PBR varieties is convenient for
designers looking for predictable performance from
their soft landscape component, all those plants are
occupying niches that could otherwise be used by
plants with a huge variety of genotypes. If the PBR
variety also has sterile seed, which is good for reduc-
ing weed spread, then the plant has completely lost
the opportunity to adapt genetically to changing
conditions. The fundamental problem here is that
resilience and adaptation in natural systems is under-
pinned by diversity. At the very time when we needdiversity to combat new pests and diseases, we are
enthusiastically implementing the opposite. We need
genetic diversity of plant material for climate adapta-
tion. Landscape architects are in a good position to do
something about this.
The catch is that increasing genetic diversity
in landscape planting requires different design
approaches. Conventional mass planting in rows of
equally spaced specimens can look a bit tragic when
there is more variability in the plant material. Rather
than achieving uniformity, increased genetic diversity
offers chaos and exciting possibilities for designers to
explore – a glorious riot of form, texture and colour.
Along with this comes the opportunity to make more
interesting places with stronger connections to
nature. We have many examples from which to draw
inspiration and there are, of course, contemporary
Australian designers who embrace plant diversity in
their work. Paul Thompson and Jim Fogarty immedi-
ately spring to mind. Both of them produce work that
is characterized by an extensive understanding of
plant material and opportunities for plants to move
into the space where another has failed without spoil-
ing the design.
For some years I have found the Sustainable
Sites Initiative and its SITES tool useful when think-
ing about ways to design landscapes more sustainably.
For planting design, SITES encourages plant selection
to suit existing soils, the use of endemic plant species
and local food production. My experience is that this
approach delivers landscapes with a strong sense of
place and that support a wide range of fauna. We also
have an emerging opportunity to work with our first
Australians to expand the use of endemic plant
species as food. Sourcing plants can be a challenge
since we have lost many local, specialist nurseries
with the industrialization and nationalization of plant
supply. It is increasingly likely that only a small range
of well-known plants with limited genetic diversity
will be commercially available unless designers create
a demand for more diversity and local species.
These ideas are not new but are in need of revis-
iting to help our urban populations to reconnect with
nature, understand the rich natural heritage of our
land and begin to adapt to the changing conditions.“When planting design becomes all about making
geometric patterns with plants, with no consideration
of their environmental services and other benefits,
I suggest that we have lost the plot.”- Jim Fogarty Design’s entry in the
2013 Australian Garden Show Sydney.
Jim Fogarty is an Australian landscape
architect who is well known for
embracing plant diversity in his projects.
Photo: Jim Fogarty
18 MAY 2017 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA