Our group started the day at the rooftop, courtyard and William Guilfoyle historic Gardens of Parliament House on Spring St, Naarm. Thank you to lead horticulturist, Rachel Robertson for telling us all about your work in the gardens. Simply incredible work you do. Thanks also to Lucas Dean, associate landscape architect at @tcl_studio for telling us all about the design process for the newest parts of the garden. The design is shining!
Fun fact: The oldest lawn bowls green in Victoria is still in use at parliament. If you’re a member of a lawn bowls club you can write to your local MP asking to use the Parliament bowls lawn sometime.
After lunch we went to visit the rooftop garden of Phoenix Tower, the second time EWHA has toured this garden. It was a lovely opportunity to see how the garden has progressed. Bent Architecture posted on their instagram page:
“Everyone who attended EWHA’s City Green Roof event today enjoyed every moment.
Thank you to Gerard & Kim for welcoming us to your home garden, 27 storeys up. Thanks also to Merran Porjazoski plus colleagues from Bent Architecture and Gary Simpson from Infinite Landscapes for explaining your collaborative design process.
Thank you to all you attended and to the volunteers who organised this event Rosemary and Em.
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It was wonderful to re-visit our Phoenix Rooftop on this glorious Melbourne day to host a visit by ‘Encouraging Women in Horticulture’ (EWHA), an organisation which supports and encourages women working in the horticulture industry.
It was great to see this ground-breaking garden (the highest roof garden in Melbourne) going from strength to strength, as the planting becomes progressively more established.
Visible to thousands of office-workers every day, this project is a billboard for environmental sustainability. The message reads, ‘our buildings can be greener, both literally and figuratively’. This project embodies our philosophy that green roofs should be designed to be enjoyed and experienced by people. To us, creating functional, beautiful and liveable rooftop gardens adds a layer of social sustainability to the environmental outcomes green roofs alone can provide.
The planting encourages biodiversity in this densely urban environment, including creating a valuable habitat for birds and bees (a surprising sight to witness so high up). We were even surprised to learn of a recent visit by a cockatoo!
Thank you to Gerard and Kim for generously allowing us to re-visit their garden. It really is a tranquil green oasis in the city with undoubtedly the best views in Melbourne!”
