We believe it is important that our lives and work have as little adverse impact on the environment as possible. We don’t claim to be completely sustainable in everything we do, but is a goal we aim for and colours all our decision making.

All electricity in our house and office is generated from our solar panels. We are not connected to the grid, instead we have batteries to store energy during the day for us to use at night.

Renae Palmer

At Fresh Landscape Design we have a strong interest and focus on creating healthy environments for people, plants and animals. Soil and water testing can be expensive and beyond the needs and resources of many people. A great, low cost and practical way to monitor and support the sustainability of your designed landscape is to incorporate bio-indicator plants and animals.

Nine years ago, sitting at the top of the site cut for our new house, I found myself gripped with design paralysis. The garden could be anything so what should it be? The house under construction combined bold architectural design with every principle of sustainable building design that we could achieve. Could these principles also be applied to a garden?

Did you know that soil bacteria can literally change your state of mind?

We all know that gardening is good for you – getting out into the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine, general benefits of physical activity, growing your own food and cultivating beautiful plants.

Just back from a series of seminars in Canberra run with Catherine Neilson from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. Catherine put together a compelling case for why individual gardeners can make a difference to the way the Canberra’s urban areas deal with the effects of climate change.

We are celebrating the release of this eagerly awaited book by Heather Venhaus from the USA. Two years in the making, the book is a treasure trove of practical strategies for making small sites and residential landscape designs more sustainable. It draws on Heather’s work for the Sustainable Sites Initiative and is the first that we have seen that focuses on small sites.