INTERVIEW
Your design is what is unique and new. It is most
helpful to be the one with the most plant knowledge.
Clear, strong ideas are needed. In the teams that I
collaborate with, I am usually the most experienced.
However, it took me many years and many projects to
establish any sort of authority.
The Barangaroo project is a case where a new
highly technical landscape process has been
commenced using designed soils, matched with inter-
pretations of the imagined original vegetation – a
splendid marriage of art, science and a broad diversity
of knowledge.
What can we do to further incorporate the local,
underlying landscape into our urban environ-
ments? What’s missing?
Urban environments require durable, tolerant species
that respond to harsh, unpredictable changing condi-
tions. This may include locally indigenous species, if
they suit the changed unnatural condition.
Any reinforcement or re-establishment of the
original character is a personal objective, yet it must
be understood and embraced by the broader local
community; for the community to accept it, they must
be assisted to see the purpose of it.
Over the past fifteen years or so people have
become more interested and aware of Aboriginal land
management practices and the Indigenous stories
attached to plants. Many of these are used and refer-
enced in ornamental urban landscape design. Without
stories, without cultural purpose, planting may just be
decoration. Of course, this may be the purpose of the
selection but the plants still must be durable.
Over the past few decades the market has greatly
improved in terms of availability, yet still gener-
ally offers only a small percentage of our
remarkably diverse plant species. How do you
predict this will change in the future?
There are about 4,000 taxa – at a guess – available in
cultivation over a two- to three-year period.
Approximately 12,000 of our 23,000 species are
described in W. Roger Elliot and David L. Jones’s
nine-volume Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants.
When I began my interest in Australian plants
during the early 60s there were at least 2,000 species
in cultivation regularly. What has changed are the
numbers, sizes and reliable availability of plants. I
have an impression that reliable numbers of diverse
species are reducing. Facts and figures outlining all
this would be most useful.
Within our cities there are a few examples of
successful, highly detailed and diverse landscapes
that reinterpret the local, pre-existing landscape. Why
are there still so few of these remnants within densely
populated urban areas?
One reason is changes in growth conditions.
Possibly there is a low appreciation of this subtle
aesthetic of grasslands or the ecological values of such
complex systems.
There is good information on how to preserve
grasslands, but not on how to create them. A curious
question for me is why floristically diverse places such
as the broader Sydney region and southern Western
Australia do not exploit their splendid natural flora to
advantage. Many places want to grow plants from
elsewhere. We are not behaving wisely when we plant
high-rainfall plants is semi-arid regions, or the oppo-
site. A way to understand what might have a long life
is to examine the horticultural literature and look at
the natural range of likely plants or groups you may
wish to use. When a plant or a group of plants is
wideranging over diverse climates you can assume it
will have high tolerances. You can then match or
extrapolate to your situation – this is what I do when
working with new species that have not been
commonly cultivated.How could seasonal change, ephemeral condi-
tions and subtle detail be further integrated into
our public urban landscapes?
This needs to be embraced and championed by the
community. Brian Carter tried this extensively in the
City of South Melbourne during the early 1970s.
During the years he was there his ideas prospered,
softening the harsh edges and introducing a sort of
designed ecology.
Designs can be appreciated when the ephemeral
plants with all their biodiversity are designed as a
visual bonus, sitting within a visually strong, more
appealing durable frame that can stand alone with
design integrity.What does it take to inspire a cultural shift toward
a broader appreciation of local landscape? Who
are some key people who have achieved this?
Juan Grimm (Chile) and Raymond Jungles (America)
impressed me enormously at a conference in
Melbourne in 2013. They understand plants and use
them boldly in a painterly manner with great success
over large areas. They are both influenced by the great
master Roberto Burle Marx (Brazil). The refined
cultural basis for the [traditional] Japanese garden
offers insight into Japan’s landscape and flora. These
are gardens structured with plants. They largely use
regional flora, but not solely, and the aftercare is- The Australian Garden at the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, with
planting design by Paul Thompson
in collaboration with Taylor Cullity
Lethlean. The planting design pictured
here interprets the “coming to life” of
the Australian desert landscape after
rain. Photo: Paul Thompson
470 MAY 2017 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA