Biodiversity in Landscaping

Throughout the world, across the span of time and the breadth of culture one pursuit has seen a sustained passion for mankind; The noble art of Landscaping. From the earliest times we have altered our environment to suit our needs and our desires. Whether that was to build farms, fields, cities or fortifications we have sawn, hewed, carved and chopped our way to a kind of mastery over the land. We can construct a mountain, well, little ones at least; we can create vast gorges and flatten hills. Through the use of machines weighing over 13,000 tonnes we can carve whole new waterways, create vistas where there were none before and arrange the lie of the land to our design.

Plants also become our instruments, whether for the production of food, medicine or for decorations in our gardens we hold dominion over the plant world and the keys to the kingdom are the secrets of genetics. We can breed roses to be frost resistant and bloom brighter and have more pungent odours. Splicing and grafting have been techniques of altering genetic strains to produce more viable crops, hardier plants or tastier foodstuffs for many years, yet never before have we been able to directly manipulate the DNA code.

Cultures around the world have maintained biodiversity in food strains, from the rainbow hued corn of South America to the wild varieties of rice that seed in secluded paddies throughout Asia.
Yet now the diversity is being threatened, the keys to the kingdom of food are being held to ransom and the price? The homogenisation of all the food in the world.

Do you want your garden to look like everyone else’s? That each sculpture you put in place is proscribed? That each strain of plant you place is limited by the few that will suit all climates and grow to carefully encoded dimensions? No more wild nature, not even the semblance of wilderness, and no choice, our ability to decide what we will eat will be determined by who owns the seed stock. Our ability to enjoy a richness of delights from our gardens and the gardens of those we know will be decided not in our cozy homes, by the fire, planning out what to plant for the coming season, no. What we get to eat will be decided in laboratories and courtrooms.  Far from any of the structures of democracy the fate of the worlds food resources will be brewed in a test tube.

If you are reading this and have any interest or care for the land, the people and the plants of this planet then please do some more research on the topics I have raised. There are ways of taking action to preserve the biodiversity of the plant kingdom and there are many avenues to digitally, vocally and physically lend support to doing something about the threat to our food. Of all the things fundamental to life it is water and food. This is one issue worth standing up about.

Thankyou for reading.

Written by Jamie Grant for A&R Evergreen Landscape Construction and Design Brisbane

The Principles Of Landscaping

Principles of Landscaping.

Humankind has always sought to alter the landscape to suit our purposes. Whether that be for agriculture, construction, mining or even beautification of our surroundings. Landscaping has been a part of civilization since man began the agrarian path ten thousand years ago. From clearing fields and creating common grounds for community gatherings we have always sought to alter our environment to suit our means. As society has become more sophisticated has meant that the ways in which we interact with our environment has also become more sophisticated.  Through our observation of natural phenomena and the rules of the universe such as the golden mean and the rule of three means that we have begun to see the way in which nature arranges itself and that which is pleasing to the human senses. Today we will have a brief look at some of the elements of Landscape design.

The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects have released statements about some principles of Landscape design. They are:

 

Protect

Where possible Landscape design seeks to protect the naturally occurring features and ecosystem of a location. This serves to create a contiguous landscape, where the local flora is represented with the design plan. Often ecosystems develop a harmonious relationship between flora and fauna, where only particular plants. For example, most of us at least know that koalas eat gum leaves, some know that it is only specific gum leaves and fewer still would know that in particular regions koalas prefer differing gum leaves, still fewer folk would know that Koalas will also eat paperbark, tea tree, wattle and even pine.
So if you were a landscape designer and there was a Koalao colony in the locality you would have to find out which species of local gum the koalas preferred and include those plants in a design brief.

Enhance

The preservation of local resources, highlighting the natural beauty of an area, mitigating deleterious impacts of human interaction all serve to enhance the sustainability and natural beauty of an area. The tenets of this principle are creativity and sustainability. The highlighting of naturally occurring beauty to be more attractive to the human eye may be done by planting natural species according to design principle of threes i.e planting species in groups of three will make these installations more noticeable and attractive.

Sustainability ensures that the design is long lasting, that the plants are companionable, in that the presence of that plant does not negatively impact the environment. For example the use of Lantana is common in Perth gardens, where as Lantana in the northern rivers region of N.S.W. is a virulent pest and would never be included in a plan for that area.

Regenerate

A design should include any regeneration of natural ecosystems and environment if they were damaged due to natural, or human means. This may mean that the Landscape designer researches the composition of the flora prior to the damage and plants the area according to the naturally occurring ecosystem.

For all of your local Landscaping Brisbane  please contact us at  http://www.mylandscapedesign.com.au

Thanks for reading

Written by Jamie Grant for A&R Evergreen Landscaping Brisbane. Landscapes Of Distinction.