Truth to practice from gardening in public

The first verge at Heartland was planted on a whim. But the unassuming planting has been among the most meaningful and luminous to our practice and approach.

Heartland is my garden, where I cultivate a sense of home and one big experimental 'plant lab'. Plantings and approaches are tested and trialled – where plant thinking and curiosity are cultivated. It is a layered working and living, the personal and professional (though admittedly, we find our plant work to always be very personal - in the best meaning of the expression).

Plants are transformative to places and spaces. Heartland's suburban block was literally 'plant packed' quickly. It was then to the nature strip and the opportune time to plant and test planting design models and naturalistic possibilities in Australia, especially in the local dry summer context. The great incongruency to the 'nature strip' label in Australia is that there is minimal nature about it being a monoculture of lawn and a street tree, if lucky. Naturestrips also sit in an interesting tidal area, between public and private. There has been the most meaning in the practice through planting and caring for a garden in public.

Dry dynamic plantings on the street at Heartland

The act of 'doing' - the planting and the care from the concept is the best exploration of the artistic and intellectual practice of planting design. It is the true enaction of thinking. You refine and explore the practice the most from daily life with plants – it is endless, the patterns of growth, how the community shifts and changes, the spontaneous interactions and the response to seasons and interventions, but also blowing apart the assumptions we hold dear. It is an endless loop of curiosity, discovery, action in practice, and the thinking of plants. It is also true to our approach that plantings must be experienced and immersed within beyond renders or visualisations.

Every profession has assumptions and opinions, which is very true for the world of plants. As we explore practice and projects at Super Bloom, we hear more and more beliefs around what the public desires and expects from plantings, what is 'best' for the community or environment, that biodiversity and beauty are mutually exclusive rather than intertwined, for example, or how the public will engage with plantings, the worst being an assumption that plantings will be damaged or relocated.

The act of gardening on the street and the small talk you engage with your neighbours and local passers-by shines a light on where assumptions at an industry level do not necessarily align with public sentiment and behaviour. There is an inescapable truth that happens from gardening in public.

We know some things to be true: people want more plants in great diversity and complexity. There is a great hunger for beauty and a desire to connect to nature through plants in immediate proximity to our homes. The simple neighbourly conversations as you care for plants in public are significant insights that drive curiosity and are thought-provoking and luminous.