European Landscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detailing

Spain

According to the consultant botanist, the JBB site

allows for approximately 4,000 species to be repre-

sented, roughly 7 per cent of the total of around

60,000 vegetal species to be found in these diverse

Mediterranean regions. A list of potential species

was defined for each phytoepisode and preference

was given to the most representative species, as

well as those dominant in terms of the percentage

of soil coverage.

Within each region of the garden, phytoepisodes

are distributed according to principles of succes-

sion, in such a way that those parcels where tree

communities predominate, such as pinewoods, oak

woods, eucalyptus forests, etc., are placed in the

perimeter, whereas brushwood and scrubland phy-

toepisodes are placed towards the centre. This cri-

terion is concerned with preserving overall views of

the garden, but also has practical benefits. Generally,

the perimeter parcels have steeper slopes, someti-

mes excessive for certain maintenance works, but

forest phytoepisodes require less care and integrate

these slopes visually.

Within and between the regions, phytoepisodes

are ordered by criteria of morphologic evolutionary

convergence for educational and aesthetic pur-

poses. For instance, all the driest phytoepisodes

of Australia, South Africa, Chile and California

meet in ‘Desert Square’, and something similar

happens with all the rockeries from the Western

Mediterranean and Northern Africa. This criterion

helps to soften the transitions between the dif-

ferent phytoepisodes and to create a perception of

the garden as a whole, with sequences of similar

textures.

Generally, within each phytoepisode, plants are

arranged according to ‘transects’, imitating the suc-

cession processes of natural vegetation. Each tran-

sect divides a parcel into distinct belts of trees from

2 to 30m high, shrubs from 0.5 to 2m, and finally

low shrubs of up to 1m. It attributes a percentage

of the plot to each belt and defines the plantation

density of each. To represent nature properly, big-

ger plots would have been required; therefore a

concentration exercise has been necessary. The

concept of minimum surface area, defined as the

minimum area necessary for a plant community

to be viable for a long period, has been employed

when sizing and distributing the different phytoepi-

sodes, even though it is a concept which still needs

7.26
Phytoepisodes distribution. Blue: central Chile /
White dotted green: west California / Striped pink: tip
of South Africa / Striped green: southern Australia /
Reddish: north Africa / Green: west Mediterranean /
Green dotted white: east Mediterranean / Dashed
orange: Canary Islands