Australian landscapes design from top to bottom

We can see by looking in our backyards and local parks how landscape design trends vary from street to street and from suburb to suburb. But how about between states? Danielle Bowling contrasts the latest landscape trends in two very different cities: Townsville and Melbourne.

Martin Wilshire, landscape architect manager at RPS Group in Townsville is noticing a number of interesting trends in the landscape design arena, one of which, not surprisingly, is smaller lots with a lower maintenance backyard.

“We’re seeing that the 800 sqm blocks which were the big, traditional blocks are now down to 400 sqm, and certainly with the smaller lots where you get narrow boundaries, we're starting to notice that turf is being put down in areas where it’s going to be difficult to grow. There are more large concrete pavers with pebbles in between,” Wilshire says.

He says while residents are starting to become very interested in veggie patches and growing their own produce, north Queenslanders remain amateurs when it comes to knowing their plants.

“There is a shift, and it's only slowly coming in, towards native shrubs. People have a tendency to think that they get scraggly after a couple of years, but the thing that they also have to recognise is that they need maintenance too. You need to cut them back every year or so to keep them nice and dense.

So people don’t have a lot of education about maintenance of plants. They just put them in the ground and forget them,” he says.

One reason residents are now reluctant to own a big backyard is the cost of up-keep.

Water and irrigation costs are a big concern for Queenslanders, Wilshire explains, but it's something that the council is managing well on his turf.

“Townsville City Council has been very proactive with their irrigation scheme.

They've got a lot of drip irrigations in garden beds and public spaces, and that’s to help with water use and vandalism,” he says.

The council is using water more wisely, and part of that is through revegetation in community gardens and open public spaces.

“There’s a lot of revegetation starting to happen. Instead of having large areas which are irrigating just turf, it’s now going towards a temporary irrigation to start with and then more revegetation. So you’re not trying to throw water everywhere just for the sake of it, just to keep green grass,” says Wilshire.

He says there’s also a big push in Townsville to promote community, largely because of the average houses’ smaller lot size. With small or even no backyards, the importance of public spaces and parks is increasing.

“There's more effort going into those spaces having better quality shelters and barbecues and furniture, drink fountains and bins. So there's a push towards having higher quality finishes for those sorts of areas.”

“Developers are [also] producing these really good recreation and passive interaction outdoor spaces with good linkages for bikeways and walkways throughout the whole development, so you've got this link around the whole site.”

Creating a sense of community is a major trend in Victoria too, and according to Australian Institute of Landscape Architects president and Aspect Studio director Kirsten Bauer, it’s all about wellbeing.

“There's a strong leaning now to what we call wellbeing. It’s a general title where there’s more emphasis through policy and local government, and even through developers as well, about how to approach wellbeing within communities. So things that are really becoming much more on trend are items like community gardens,” she says.

‘Nature play’ is also a phrase looming larger in the southern state; it’s all about encouraging the public to interact with their surrounding environments.

“So you have custom play equipment, where you open up a catalogue and you can choose the items ... but nature play is more focused on natural material, so you might have more of a relationship with water activity or plant activity rather than just custommade or off the shelf furniture.”

Just as in Queensland, water conservation is an integral part of landscape design in Victoria, with most new developments giving the efficient use and storage of water significant consideration.

“Everyone talks about water sensitive urban design and that really is still a trend,” Bauer explains. “We have legislation that enforces that and most developers and engineers are also moving towards water sensitive urban design. It includes things like treatment of storm water on site, rain gardens and bio-retention systems.

“In Melbourne it's really about capturing storm water from adjacent buildings or from the actual landscape itself and then utilising that and storing it in tank systems and treating and cleaning the water before using it in irrigation or in other devices like water features,” she says.

Green roofs and walls are a huge trend in Melbourne, where unlike Townsville, there are a number of modern residential and corporate buildings eager to show off their environmental credentials.

“Green walls are going up in corporate offices. A lot of corporate offices now have green walls as part of their green star rating and there’s also a branding element to it,” says Bauer.

She says there are a few different types of green roofs, including browngreen roofs which are more of a visual amenity than a typical roof; they might have a gravel element to them but not necessarily any plants. A light green roof might have succulents, shrubs and/or indigenous plants, but no trees, and a big green roof includes trees and is an area that can be occupied as a public space.

Bauer reinforces that most of the landscape design trends that she's seeing in Victoria today, which also includes pop-up parks and shared streets, are focused on creating a sense of community with a strong focus on green, sustainable living - something she says has become much easier over recent years.

“Green was about policy pushing and environmental issues, but now it sells. Green sells. And I think developers are getting smarter about this so they don’t see it as a ‘tick the box’ issue, it’s something which is actually fundamental to what they do. That’s the shift.”