A landscape architect bringing wilderness to city spaces | Gardening Design | Gardening Australia

We meet a landscape architect bringing a sense of wilderness and softness to both public and private spaces. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Jane Irwin is a Sydney-based landscape architect and says whether it’s public domain or in private gardens “we can't be thinking about landscape without thinking about plants... all the different places I’ve worked have helped me to see gardens in many different ways."

For Jane’s high-profile work refurbishing the Government House gardens overlooking Sydney harbour, Jane says “we wanted to pay homage to the to the heritage nature of the garden” by using Australian plants in a formal way. Native correas and casuarina ‘Green Wave’ have been clipped into dome shapes, and then balanced with the softness of kangaroo paw, eremophila and native geranium.

“We wanted to push the thinking about what a contemporary garden could be,” says Jane, “to reflect how people are thinking now... and being more aware of and respectful of our landscape heritage.” Clusters of Australian wildflowers show Jane’s skills in design, pairing paper daisies, flannel flowers and everlastings with native flax for a wild perennial look. Jane says, “they just bring so much colour and vibrancy to a garden, so you have a daisy but it's an Australian daisy.”

Discussing her work in residential gardens, Jane says it’s very personal. “It really needs to be something that you can live in and keep going... it’s not static, they're curated spaces, they're changing all the time. What we do as designers is help set up that framework.” Working on a coastal cliff-top garden that sits 60m high off the ocean, Jane says she was “inspired to work with the natural occurring geology.”

Sandstone quarry blocks were incorporated to blend seamlessly with the stone already excavated and arranged to create levels in the landscape as well as protected pockets to plant into. Jane says of the rock orchids “you would think with the coastal wind that they wouldn’t thrive so much, but they’ve become a cornerstone of the garden.”

For this garden, Jane says, “the planting in this garden grew from an idea of seaside ecology” and features grasses such as poas and plume grasses, as well as yellow buttons, cushion bush, scaevola and dichondra. “Everything picks up this extraordinary light from the east that comes off the ocean. This garden I think is really expressive of place which is one of the things that we really try to do” says Jane.

The driving force behind Jane’s work is to curate a harmonious appreciation of the natural landscape. Jane says, “I think for Australian ecologies to come to the fore in our future... we need to be thinking about different aesthetics; appreciating a little more wildness and a little more softness in our gardens.”

Featured Plants:
COASTAL ROSEMARY - Westringia cv.
WHITE CORREA - Correa alba
SWAMP SHE-OAK - Casuarina glauca ‘Green Wave’
KANGAROO PAW - Anigozanthos cv.
AUSTRAL STORK’S-BILL - Pelargonium australe
PAPER DAISY - Xerochrysum bracteatum ‘Dargan Hill Monarch’
NATIVE FLAX - Linum marginale
ROSY EVERLASTING - Rhodanthe chlorocephala subsp. rosea
ROCK ORCHID - Dendrobium speciosum
COMMON TUSSOCK-GRASS - Poa labillardierei
LONG-HAIR PLUME-GRASS - Dichelachne crinita
YELLOW BUTTONS - Chrysocephalum apiculatum
MEXICAN DICHONDRA - Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’
DUNE FAN-FLOWER - Scaevola calendulacea
CUSHION BUSH - Scleranthus biflorus

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