Sustainable Landscapes

• Looking after the future
• The Challenge
• The Project
• What is a Sustainable Landscape?
• What has been achieved?
• Demonstration Landscapes
• Landscapes Alive!
• Loxton Mill Corner road redevelopment
• Sustainable Landscapes Project - finalist in Banksia Awards
  

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Looking after the future

A well designed garden pond area provides habitat for local native fauna such as frogs, ladybirds, butterflies and small lizards

The Sustainable Landscapes project is a collaborative partnership that aims to demonstrate and promote appropriate park and garden design, plant species selections and sustainable horticultural practices for South Australian environments including effective, efficient and appropriate water use. It is leading the direction of sustainable public and private landscapes in South Australia.

Current partners include:

• Botanic Gardens of Adelaide (Department of Environment and Heritage)
• Innovations and Economic Opportunities Group funded by the Mawson Lakes Economic Development Project
• Land Management Corporation
• Adelaide & Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board
• SA Water
  

Click on each to get larger images

Contact: Sheryn Pitman

Sustainable Landscapes Project Officer
Botanic Gardens of Adelaide
North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000

More Information:

Sustainable Landscapes Brochure (585Kb PDF)
Demonstration Site Trail Brochure (1.51Mb PDF)
Native and Exotic Plants suitable for South Australian Gardens (35Kb PDF)
Environmental Weed List for the Adelaide Region (116Kb PDF)

Sustainable Landscapes poster set for schools

Four delightlful, full-colour A1 posters designed for schools, libraries and community centres.
Click on images for a preview. Posters are available from the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide for $45 per set (includes postage and packaging). Call (08) 8222 9311 to order.

The Challenge

The Arum Lily, a popular garden plant, is invasive and has infested many of our waterways

Many of our urban landscapes are unsustainable. They are resource-hungry environments that require substantial inputs of energy, water, nutrients and chemicals. Because of the heavy European influences in the design of our parks and gardens, we have many plant species that need regular watering in order to thrive in our semi-arid and arid landscapes. A typical urban park or garden not only requires regular watering to keep it green, but also fertilisers to keep the plants healthy, pesticides to control unwanted bugs and weeds, power tools to keep it neat and uses materials removed from other vulnerable landscapes to help create an appealing environment. The result is all too often a lush and green park or garden that is very thirsty and hungry, depletes the soil, contributes to waterway contamination and provides limited habitat for native fauna.

To ensure a long and healthy future it is important that our urban landscapes be more sustainable in their use of resources and in harmony with the arid and semi-arid environments of our state. It is also important that our community participates in taking on the challenge of landscape sustainability and accepts responsibility for addressing the issues and making the changes.

The Windsor Street Linear Trail in Unley is a popular sustainable public landscape

The Project

This partnership project aims to demonstrate and promote appropriate garden design, plant species selections and sustainable horticultural practices for South Australian environments.

The Sustainable Landscapes project commenced in practice during July 2004.

It is located at the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and is hosted by the Science and Conservation Directorate of the SA Department for Environment and Heritage.

The Whipstick Mallee in the Adelaide Botanic Garden is an excellent example of a sustainable landscape

What is a Sustainable Landscape?

A sustainable landscape is a healthy and resilient landscape that will endure over the long term without the need for high input of scarce resources such as water. The natural functions and processes of the landscape are able to maintain themselves into the future.

Our South Australian landscapes are sustainable when they are in harmony with local environmental conditions.

This innovative project brings together the diverse elements of urban landscape sustainability into a user-friendly set of principles for designing and creating parks and gardens of all types.

The project engages with all sectors of the community to draw on expertise, identify best practice, communicate and educate.

The project puts the theory into practice by working with land managers to identify, design, build and interpret demonstration sites that fulfil the sustainability criteria. Demonstration landscapes show that there are effective alternatives to traditional unsustainable garden practices and plant selections.

The project addresses and fills the need for an integrated and easily applicable approach to building healthy urban landscapes, as evidenced by the high level of interest and participation from local government, landscape architects and designers, builders and developers, educators and students, as well as home gardeners!

View the Sustainable Landscapes brochure (585Kb PDF)

What has been achieved?

While the list of achievements is significant, highlights include:

• Development of eight principles to guide design and creation of sustainable parks and gardens, which are already being used by several local government councils, builders, landscape consultants, educators and gardeners
• Establishment, identification and interpretation of a diverse range of demonstration gardens throughout South Australia, accessible to the community as a source of ideas and concepts, best-practice information and education.

  The Garden Gurus television crew enjoyed filming the Sustainable Landscapes segment

• Research into plants and materials leading to development of user-friendly documents regarding invasive and recommended plants as well as sustainable landscaping products
• Production of colourful, user-friendly brochures, posters, signage and other communication materials that explain sustainable landscapes and how to achieve them, used by councils, schools, builders and developers, landscape designers, general community and private gardeners
• Professional development seminars for industry groups such as builders, landscape designers, horticulturalists, planners and educators
• Education activities with students from primary, secondary and tertiary sectors
  Presentation of the project at conferences and seminars throughout Australia to communicate with a range of industry groups
• Integration of the Sustainable Landscapes principles into various policy and planning strategies within organisations
• Development of productive working relationships with industry, business, research organisations, government and educators
  
  

Demonstration Landscapes

Demonstration sites are a combination of selected existing landscapes that fulfil the criteria and landscapes that have been, or are being, specially designed and created to demonstrate sustainability principles and practices. These include design for local conditions, low water use and non-invasive plant selections, water conservation practices, habitat provision, minimal chemical and energy requirements, and use of sustainable products not taken from wild landscapes.

The Strand Square at Mawson Lakes demonstrates several principles of sustainable landscaping

Sites include public parks and gardens, community spaces, roundabouts, median strips, road verges and private gardens.

Approved demonstration landscapes, which fulfil the criteria, display interpretive or identification signage to indicate their association with the Sustainable Landscapes Project. These sites contribute to a developing Register of Sustainable Landscapes in South Australia that will be used as a trail accessible to the community as a source of for ideas and concepts, best-practice information and education.

Current demonstration sites include:

• James Schofield Drive Roundabout, Adelaide Airport
• Strand Square, Mawson Lakes
• Mill Corner, Bookpurnong Road, Loxton
  
• Windsor Street Linear Trail, Parkside
• Normanville Foreshore Sustainable Garden, Normanville
• Barossa Bushgardens, Nuriootpa
• Whipstick Mallee, Botanic Gardens of Adelaide

See the Demonstration Site Trail Brochure (1.51Mb PDF) for the full list.

Landscapes Alive

Local indigenous, South Australian & Australian native and suitable exotic plants can all be chosen for South Australian landscapes

Landscapes Alive is an exciting new project to research, collate and publish recommended plant species lists for the varying geographical, climate and soil zones of the Greater Adelaide Region.

A key need of both local government and the community is easy access to recommended non-invasive and low water use plant species lists for each local area. While several local government Councils have been enthusiastically developing sustainable landscapes in their jurisdictions, there are no comprehensive local area lists that bring together the local indigenous, Australian native and exotic plants that will suit local environmental conditions.

Local plant lists will enable councils and residents to more effectively and efficiently develop sustainably landscaped parks and gardens that will save water and avoid invasive plant threats to creeks bushland, dunes, farmland or other vulnerable environments or ecosystems.

The lists will include local indigenous, Australian native and exotic plants that fulfil the two criteria of having low supplementary water requirements and being non-invasive in the local area. The lists will incorporate essential information about the plants and be highly relevant to all landscapes under the care and control of local government, such as parks and gardens, community areas, roundabouts and road verges.

This project is supported by the Local Government Research & Development Scheme.

Loxton Mill Corner road redevelopment

This 1.2 kilometre long roadway re-development close to the heart of Loxton includes fourteen traffic 'islands'. The landscaping of these 'islands' tells an important and inspiring story.

The objectives are:

• to create a an attractive pattern of traffic islands that follow and flow with the road development, and are in harmony with the natural landscape while allowing each 'island' to have an individual flavour appropriate to its location and conditions
• to demonstrate sustainable landscaping using only plant species that are local to the Loxton area and thereby encourage the use of appropriate low water use and non-invasive plant selections in public and private landscaping projects

The landscape design includes the following features:

• One of 14 traffic islands in the 1.2 km long Sustainable Landscapes Project

  8,500 local indigenous plants
• 50 plant species selected for their low water requirements once established and for aesthetic appeal
• subsurface irrigation when necessary supplied from the nearby stormwater retention pond
• use of local waste rock in the landscaping
• water retention through mulching with council prunings of mallee mulch
• a trial of combinations of water retention, compost and fertiliser products in the different 'islands'
• planting throughout winter 2007 in conjunction with Loxton High School students, Council staff and community volunteers
• excellent interpretive signage to explain sustainable landscapes principles and to encourage residents, business and industry to use local native plants in landscaping
• all plants sourced from native nurseries with some less commercially available species being grown specially by Port Augusta Arid Lands Botanic Gardens

Loxton High School students working with the Sustainable Landscapes Project

This is an exciting and ambitious community project:

• Design and plant selection: Sustainable Landscapes Project
• Funding and site preparation: Loxton Waikerie Council
• Plant sourcing and coordination: Berri Native Plants
• Planting: Loxton High School, community volunteers, Council staff - coordinated by Sustainable Landscapes Project
• Monitoring and maintenance: Loxton Waikerie Council, Loxton High School, community volunteers
• Interpretive signage: Sustainable Landscapes Project

Design story

Generally the 'islands' are elongated to follow the roadway and interrupted by smaller roads off to each side. Each island contains several underground service pipes and may be up to 180 metres long and 15 metres wide.

Artist's impression of the above island once developed and planted

Each of the 14 'islands' is slightly different in its requirements. Because of infrastructure services passing underground some islands can only support relatively shallow rooted species. Others require low plant forms due to the need for high traffic visibility. Some have swales running through them, incorporating drains and sumps. Some have existing trees, light poles and other structures. The landscape design of each island takes account of its specific requirements.

Most of the 'islands' incorporate gentle mounds and swales. Stormwater is directed though the swales and these will generally be damper areas as they carry ephemeral stormwater flows.

The 14 'islands' are designed as variations on a theme. This accommodates the varied requirements of each while maintaining a sense of unity. The designs use plant selections from the same comprehensive palette of local indigenous mallee and floodplain species. Each island uses a similar mix of plants for bands or swathes of groundcovers, grasses, low shrubs, occasional medium shrubs and small trees. These bands or swathes provide a repeatable pattern that can be used whatever the particular requirements of the island.

Rocky areas represent rocky outcrops using local rock that is surplus to requirements. Under mulch leaky hose irrigation is supplied to most plants. This will assist plants through the first year or two, and will be provide an emergency water supply should dry conditions persist. All planted areas are mulched with council amenity maintenance prunings of mallee leaves and branches.

Each island contains a microhabitat environment for local fauna such as small birds, lizards, insects and bats. This is created through design, species selection and careful use of sustainably and locally sourced materials.

Sustainable Landscapes Project - finalist in Banksia Awards

The Sustainable Landscapes Project is proud to be a finalist in the national Banksia Awards 2006.

This award recognises outstanding achievement in the development and delivery of educational programs that contribute to the protection, enhancement and sustainability of the Australian environment.

Go to the website for details Banksia Awards 200