Landscape Architecture Australia — Issue 154 — May 2017

AGENDA

Another way of categorizing the ways we use
plants is by dividing them into these groups of
design usefulness:

• Feature specimen


• Emergent/silhouette value


• Sculptural form


• Windbreaking


• Hedging


• Shrubbery/filler


• Edging


• Groundcovering


• Provides dense shading


• Provides dappled shading


• Edible (fruit/foliage/roots)


• Forage food for animals


• Cut flower/foliage


• Toxic remediation


• Attracts birds


• Attracts butterflies


• Fragrance (flowers/foliage)


• Bad smelling


• Danger: thorns, prickles


• Danger: heavy drops of fruit, cones, fronds


• Danger: slip hazard fruit/nuts


• Danger: toxic/poisonous/allergies


• Other (which encourages innovation!)

However, these design usefulness categories are

not the only identifiers used in plant selection. We

need better ways to describe the visual forms and

habits of plants. Some planting books use neat icons to

indicate plant form and size. They use both familiar

and unusual jargon such as “rounded,” “fastigiated”

and “weeping.” Typically these are gathered under the

headings of trees, shrubs and groundcovers. I find

these categories most unhelpful. For a subtropical

designer, it is not easy to locate large herbaceous

gingers, Ravenala madagascariensis (traveller’s palm)

or Strelitzia nicolai (bird of paradise), within these

categories. When I prepared a new proforma for my

students to gather information about plants, I used

words and images that capture these visual forms.

It is difficult to believe that some designers

reject the use of traditional visual elements (line,

form, colour, texture, pattern) and design principles

(unity/variety, emphasis, balance, scale, proportion,

contrast/tension, movement/rhythm). Plants are

much more than spatial definers or building obscur-

ers. Plants also satisfy non-visual senses, have

meanings associated with philosophical ideas or

spiritual and religious significance and are indicators

of environmental health.

Plants are awesome. Planting design is the best

part of being a landscape architect.

Upright/bushySpreading Carpet Clumping/rosettesTufts/spikesVertical climberHorizontal trailing

Vase-shapedUpright Rounded Open Arching Irregular/twistedTufts/spikesSpreading/ horizontal

Open Rounded Columnar (pointy)Columnar (blunt) Conical Broad-headedWeeping Horizontal Twisted

FORM: TREE
(WOODY)

FORM: SHRUB
(WOODY)

FORM: GROUNDCOVER
(HERBACEOUS)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA MAY 2017 21