Greening a Harsh EnvironmentHillside, in Melbourne’s outer north-western suburbs, is experiencing a housing boom. New streetsand homes are springing up everywhere.

But it’s one thing to build a nice house here; it’s quite another thing to establish a garden.

It’s a tough environment – rocky and windswept, and the area has a fairly low rainfall by Melbournestandards. An indicator of its harshness is the original native vegetation, which is grassland with ascattering of tough trees and shrubs.

The grasslands, for all their hardiness, contain the most incredible diversity of beautiful wildflowers,and during spring especially, grasslands are vibrant.

The areas of native grassland that now remain are protected and, according to local landscapedesigner Wendy Clarke of Dirtscape Dreaming, the new locals are getting curious about the plants.

Grasses and wildflowers that grow naturally in the area are being planted in the newer gardens, aslandscape designers help owners realise that some of the more traditional exotic plants and evensome native plants just aren’t going to survive.

Wendy explains that the key to plant survival is to have a big focus on preparing the soil well beforeplanting with plenty of compost and mulch.

‘We always ensure a lot of recycled green waste is added to a site,’ she says. ‘In this garden, forexample, around 75 cubic metres of mulch and many trailer loads of horse poo were added.’

The clients are Brian and Jackie and their children Anthony and Alana, and their new garden isbarely two years old. Jackie and the children are pictured at top, with Wendy on the right.

‘Jackie did a lot of the soil preparation and the planting,’ says Wendy. (Being a hands-on client doeshelp with keeping costs down!) Jackie is also very fond of antique farm machinery, which make forinteresting garden ornamentation!

The planting, while including some native and local species, is quite an eclectic mix. Smaller plantsand groundcovers include Statice (Limonium perezii), Scaevola aemula (pictured above), Myoporumparvifolium (Creeping Boobialla), as well as succulents such as Echevera (right), Sedum (below left)and grasses. They are all mainly massed plantings so over time the plants will clump and growtogether, forming swathes of colour and texture.

The stand-out achiever in this landscape so far is the Creeping Boobialla (Myoporum parvifolium)(right), which has already formed a dense and lush green mat that highlights its worth as agroundcover in a dry environment.

At the time of visiting, the Statice (left) was putting on a brilliant vivid blue display.

Some of the larger plants include a copse of Agonis ‘Burgundy’ (right). An elegant semi-weepingdwarf variety of this tree with, as the name suggests, strong burgundy-coloured foliage.

Informal paths of granitic sand bordered with local river pebbles (‘Sunset Blend’) wind their waythrough the garden and around the front of the house to the entrance.

Black slate has been used as a veneer to walling and Wendy confesses that this was a suggestion ofthe landscape contractor, TKKK Landscapes, as Wendy’s original plan called for Castlemaine slatebut this was a bit more expensive.

It’s heartening to know that over time, landscapes like this will not only help to ‘green up’ a harshenvironment, but when the larger trees grow, they will soften the effects of wind and sun.