The gardens of the future are diverse and beautiful. We take a look at four boundary-pushing gardens – both private and public – around the world that are addressing sustainability and climate change with style
WORDS GIACOMO GUZZON PHOTOGRAPHS CLAIRE TAKACS
GLENLUCE
Designers Michael Wright and Catherine Rush (Rush Wright Associates). Location Glenluce, Victoria, Australia.
Catherine Rush and Michael Wright are founding directors of Melbourne-based landscape architecture firm Rush Wright Associates. Each with over 30 years of experience in the field, they lead a team of 15 landscape architects.
Their weekend home in Glenluce, northwest of Melbourne, experiences extreme climatic conditions: hot summers, prolonged droughts, and regular bushfires. In front of the tiny, west-facing house, helped by their friend, fellow landscape architect Thomas Gooch, they created and built a garden inspired by the wind-shaped dunes of Wyperfeld National Park, western Victoria. Finger-shaped, slightly mounded planting areas, reminiscent of the dunes, are interspersed with elongated, sand-covered paths. A generous stone firepit area – the garden’s focal point, built with local rocks – is positioned to make the most of stunning views of the surrounding area, and, on a clear night, a vast, star-filled sky.
The whole garden is like a giant creek bed, capable of acting as a reservoir, covered with a layer of 10cm of sand, below which there is a geotextile (permeable fabric), and 20cm of gravel under the paths. Underlying clay soil prevents rapid water infiltration and forms a perfect base for containing stormwater. Buff sand mimics the tones of dry grass covering the paddocks around the property, visually blending the garden with its surroundings, particularly in summer. Fireretardant plants, such as Atriplex nummularia (Australian saltbush) create a native, fire-protective buffer between the garden and adjacent paddock, along with the iconic grass tree, Xanthorrhoea ’Supergrass’, a hybrid cross between X. johnsonii and X. glauca. Xerochrysum bracteatum (native, drought-tolerant strawflowers) provide colourful accents for months and self-seed freely. Resilient exotic species from the Mediterranean and US arid regions are planted closer to the house.
Michael and Catherine have created a low-budget garden that incorporates smart strategies for long-term success in a challenging, fire-prone environment. It also recreates the wow factor of the Australian bush in a small, designed space.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR MEMORIAL LIBRARY ROOF GARDEN
