- A large Bursaria spinosa at
the Indigenous Grassland Bed,
Melbourne Observatory.
Photo: Sarah Hicks - Indigenous grasses are used to great
effect at the Forest Edge Garden by
Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture in
the Hunter Valley, New South Wales.
Photo: Dianna Snape - Hassett Park by Jane Irwin Landscape
Architecture in Canberra features an
edge of grassland with wildflowers and
forbs. Photo: JILA
from that. We design gardens because [it allows us to]
test how well things do. I’m very surprised at some of
the wildflowers that we’ve been using, how robust they
are, how they come back in flower ... It gets people
used to that sort of aesthetic – you see it in private
gardens and then it translates into public landscapes.
And if the public can understand and relate to
what they see, perhaps they’ll accept what is
before them more readily?
Exactly. If we can demonstrate other possibilities in a
more accessible medium such as a [private] garden,
hopefully it spreads and people start to appreciate it. I
do think there is a shift happening.
In terms of maintenance, our indigenous land-
scapes, and particularly grassy ecosystems, depend
on fire and grazing. Grassy ecosystems evolved from
Aboriginal farm management and were also main-
tained by the constant grazing of kangaroos and
wallabies – various marsupials.
When the settlers first arrived they raved about
these park-like environments and that’s because they
were burned and grazed, and you didn’t get the messy
dead stuff. But now there’s a messy period in these
types of landscapes. If you look at the English land-
scapes and perennial gardens, there is an acceptance
that they die in the winter. So we should be able to
reach a point where we accept that indigenous land-
scapes require some downtime.
Especially if the public can understand the
reasons for the downtime.
That’s right. There are so many different landscapes
in this country. It is interesting [when viewing the
land] from the perspective of flying – you can see
how many different environments there are and how
beautiful each one is. Even really denuded country
that’s been overgrazed has a weird beauty about it.
I’ve become really interested in the ecology of
the grassy ecosystems through our work in Canberra.
[Canberra has] lowland grassy ecosystems, which are
heritage listed. There are so many different tiny plants
in them – appreciation of these landscapes can be
related to the Japanese idea of slowing down to see
the tiny things, the subtleties. There’s a lot of empha-
sis on wow factor now, and I like to go the other way
and look at subtlety because it’s longer lasting.
It seems like our grassland ecosystems are a victim
of their own subtlety, despite their status as some
of the most biodiverse regions. There’s hardly
anything left...
But I think that this is slowly changing. There are
people working to try to save those ecosystems, and
then what I’m trying to do – what I did in Canberra –
is trying to put them back. So even if they’re just on
the edges of the parkland, people will begin to under-
stand what they see, that these grasses don’t need
mowing. The birds actually feed off the grasslands,
and you need all those lovely wildflowers for the bees.
We should be doing more to support local birds, bees
and insects.Diversity could be phenomenally increased.
We have to get used to the idea that [a garden] may be
orange in the winter. I love the golden landscape of
summer. My parents had a lawn of kangaroo grass,
which will actually make a sort of lawn if you mow it.
We’d leave it in the summer and in the spring for a
while – it had trigger orchids in it and some spiral
orchids, and then the little Danthonias would come
up and the birds would get the seed. The grass was
just longer for a season and then you’d mow it again.
Beautiful.And if these types of landscapes were a part of our
public spaces in the city, many more people would
be able to share that experience and appreciation.
And to understand it; to understand where things
come from, where your food comes from or why bees
are important. I guess it’s like developing a new
aesthetic, and living with risk.INTERVIEW
3LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA MAY 2017 67