Abstract

As Landscape Architects, perhaps more than anything else, we show interest in maintaining high quality in the visual landscape, and in this there is no doubt that we are an elitist group, deriving a large part of our income from pampering the wealthy.

But as in any field, only the top few landscapes will ever be in the control of professional designers, and yet we are totally surrounded by man-made landscapes.

Many people contribute to aspects of our surroundings such as, how they are used, how they are constructed, their ecology, maintenance, etc., but interest in the aesthetic qualities often seems to be rather lacking.

This can be frustrating, so some 10 or 12 years ago when I embarked upon my own ‘Decade of Landcare’, I think I may really have been on a crusade to improve the visual landscape.

Through those years my focus was on road corridors, and later on the coast. The client group consisted of road workers and engineers from local government, power authorities, forestry companies and the like, and although we together had involvement in quite a range of activities, essentially I was trying to help them to improve their aesthetic outcomes in the landscape. Sadly not always a natural outcome of their work.

Now it may have rarely been stated, and the techniques were not direct. But we explored the horticultural aspects of tree pruning and the ecological benefits of promoting native grasslands. We took lists of trees from the National Trust and considered the legal implications of ignoring them. Together we investigated road safety and public opinion and soil conservation and the cost of weed control. We looked at works calendars and land calendars and work delegation. There is no doubt that over the years we toyed with every aspect of the “firmness, commodity and delight” triumvirate as it can be applied to public landscapes. Perhaps not grand civic landscapes, but those civil outlooks that surround us every time we drive on a country road or go to the beach.

And through our odyssey my road worker friends and I taught each other some unique perceptions about landscape, and appearance, and what it really takes to make a difference.

Is this landscape architecture? Perhaps it is not. But if improving the visual surroundings is the work of the landscape architect, then perhaps it is. I like to think I have helped my friends to extend their role as custodians of the infrastructure (pot-hole menders and vegetation clearers), to include a role as caretakers of the visual landscape in a deep way that derives from structural honesty and the beauty of elegant functionalism.

I think that together, we have made a difference to the visual landscape, and this presentation will trace something of that journey.

CUSTODIANS OF THE VISUAL LANDSCAPE

Landscape Architects Pursue Visual Outcomes

Famous gardens of the world such as Stourhead, Blenheim, and hundreds of more modern examples, clearly show that Landscape Architects are interested in the creation of places which are (amongst other things) visually attractive.

There is no doubting the magnificence of these wonderful gardens and urban developments, but in this discussion I wish to focus on a much more humble aspect of the landscape, an area in which I have had a considerable focus for some years. The fact is that although ‘designed’ environments are good, it is well recognised that only a very small proportion of the landscape design that surrounds us will ever have Landscape Architectural input

.The outlooks resulting from casual land use by farmers, miners and foresters, or landfill sites, or those housing settlements that develop in an unplanned way, form as much or more of our visual surroundings as do any of those professionally designed landscapes.

Even when professionals are involved it may be engineering, or botanical, or financial, or other interests that dominate the outcome, and it is particularly rare for the focus to be the attractive visual outcomes which we would seek as Landscape Architects. Not only do the outlooks generally lack an initial visual focus, but even when the landscapes are attractive, too often their innate beauties are seriously degraded by the ‘thousand cuts’ associated with the necessary maintenance work of untrained personnel.

Personal Experiences in Tasmania

My island home of Tasmania relies on tourism for much of its income, and although there are many attractive facilities for visitors, most of them must be accessed via the public road network, which passes through the ‘unplanned’ landscapes of the country-side.

Now Tasmania is actually well endowed with stunningly beautiful landscapes, both of natural and cultivated origins, but unfortunately these pleasant outlooks are sometimes rendered rather unattractive by poor siting, inadequate finishing or insensitive maintenance activities.

Unfortunately, these problems are too often evident in the outlook from roads, which may include:
- ugly, hacked, battered or misshapen tree-pruning,
- bare banks and eroding roadside soil,
- vegetation decimated by excessive and indiscriminate weed spraying,
- ugly services lines where the ground has never been rehabilitated after cable laying,
- over-cleared housing and industrial developments with inappropriately sited buildings,
- trees rotting because of incorrect trimming around utility services,
- grossly over-pruned avenues, robbed of their inherent cultural values.

For most of the past decade, a focus of my professional interest has been the landscape
of road corridors and also coastal areas. In my work I have discovered that many other professionals also have an interest in this field.

Engineers are interested in the road pavement, drainage and all things within the road reservation. There are all the utility service providers and of course the road workers, who have the responsibility for roadside maintenance. Natural scientists have developed a concern for the road verges because of the rare plants and other remnant biodiversity which often resides there. Farmers and others are interested in the peculiar ability of road corridors to spread weeds, and of course there are also the road safety experts. Indeed, so many people have an interest that coordination of activities could be a role in itself.

But for all the good work these people do, I think it is true to say that none have more than a passing interest in the visual outcomes of their activities. That’s not to say their work is always bad, even in visual terms; but if its appearance is good it’s more a matter of good luck than deliberate design.

In the past decade I have spent considerable time with Council and utility workers, their supervisors and engineers. My focus has been vegetation management, and I have discovered that these operatives have responsibility for a number of significant elements, including:
- vegetation remnants on country roads,
- heritage trees and street trees,
- road maintenance equipment and materials with the capacity to seriously degrade
vegetation remnants if parked or dumped inappropriately,
- roadside slashing and vegetation trimming,
- minor civil and recreational constructions in parks and on foreshores,
- maintenance of beaches, dunes, foreshores and riverbanks, and
- often what biodiversity remains on roadsides or foreshores comes within their care, as does wetland and lakeside vegetation.

Authenticity Produces Good Visual Outcomes

It is my belief, and I am by no means alone in this, that the best visual outcomes derive less from decoration and clever placement of elements, than from underlying structure and the elegance of elements placed to function efficiently and honestly. That is, an authenticity of appearance, or ‘what you see is what you’ve got’.

In this context the implication is that road workers and service personnel could, and would do work with an attractive and authentic appearance, if only they were taught just what were the subtleties associated with roadside values and significant landcare outcomes.

For example, there is a small Tasmanian butterfly called the Hair-Streak (Pseudalmenos chlorinda) that is found in some of the drier and coastal parts of the state. This is a pretty little creature, but it is a rare and threatened species. For its existence it relies partly on a string of other species, none of which is uncommon, or protected.

The butterfly lays its eggs on the stems or new growth of Silver wattle (Acacia dealbata). Here the larvae are tended by Stink ants (Iridomyrmex sp.) who protect them from parasites in return for sugar secreted from the larvae. The ants live in the heart of Eucalypt trees, usually Eucalyptus viminalis, the White gum. When the larvae are fully grown they follow the ant trail down the wattle tree and up the gum tree where they pupate under the loose bark.

One of the main reasons for the butterflies’ being in jeopardy is that there are no longer enough of the common Silver wattles growing close to the common White gums. In part, this is because Silver wattles are routinely cleared along roadsides because they are brittle, and White gums are cleared because they are thought too large. However, if the road workers knew about their value, they could be less rigorous in clearing these trees, which they presently presume to be unimportant.

With the trees retained the roadsides would appear much more attractive, and more of the Hairstreak butterflies would be present. Authentic beauty, both visually and ecologically.

Training a Key to Success

When I started with the road workers, it quickly became apparent that passing on information and training could contribute significantly to improvements in the roadsides, so I started a series of initiatives under the auspices of Greening Australia, who was my employer/client for this work.

Training devices invented to appeal to this special road worker group (who frequently have poor reading skills) included the following:
- a series of cartoon strips outlining various conservation principles and maintenance hints,
- a special ‘land calendar’ indicating times of flowering and seeding for different native species, as well as appropriate times for various maintenance activities to cause least negative outcomes,
- information about and field trials for a number of new management techniques, including selective weed control, target tree pruning, soil conservation during construction, etc.
- numerous training seminars and field days for both field workers, supervisors and maintenance engineers, to increase awareness, introduce new methods, and display the successful projects of participating groups.

On a recent ABC interview by Margaret Throsby I was reminded of the well-known conflict resolution technique based on the win-win principle. You will recall the classic example where two people are arguing over the last orange, until a detailed analysis reveals that one wants the peel for cooking and the other wants the flesh for eating. By following a similarly detailed approach towards roadside management, we in Tasmania were able to solve some of the conflicts between those many players in the roadside scene, and between maintenance and safety requirements and visual and environmental values.

Some of the successful techniques that have developed from our combined roadside works are as follows:
- Careful field inspection of current vegetation, with relevant botanical experts and other stake-holders present.

- Involvement of school groups and other community members in the project, including mapping areas of significant vegetation.

- Harvesting from farmland of native species such as Kangaroo grass, for revegetation work in the road corridors.

- Working with local landcare groups, schools and other community groups to raise the profile of important natural areas for conservation.
For example one landcare group found an eroding roadside sand bank which they were able to effectively rehabilitate and beautify, by building a low-tech crib wall from waste banksia tree prunings.

- Under electrical transmission lines operators found they could reduce erosion and species loss as well as improving appearance and saving money by only clearing taller species and retaining lower shrubby species, especially where there were dips in some parts of the ground.

- One Council supervisor, keen to revegetate unstable soil on a batter that had been bare for decades, found success by using waste paper shreddings from the administration office as a mulch around donated seedlings. This experiment survived the attacks of local birds wanting to use the paper mulch for nest building, and resulted in shrubs performing excellent erosion control.

- Another initiative in Tasmania is the development of a new road marker system to show maintenance operators which vegetation to retain and what to slash to protect valuable vegetation during their maintenance activities. This project has resulted in special roadside codes being used on white posts. It has received wide support from Council and State roads departments, and is currently well into its trial period.

- We have also had success with recent attempts to involve planners, administrators and other Council staff along with the outside work force on recent coastal projects, where many of the administrative misunderstandings were able to be overcome in a moment, by information sharing within the organisations, working on real projects within their own jurisdiction. Its surprising what the administrators can learn when they sit down with their own outside work staff for a few moments!

Conclusion

t could easily be argued that roadside maintenance work is a long way from Landscape Architecture, but if we really do see ourselves as custodians of the visual landscape, I think the ‘unplanned’ work in the broader landscape is really fair game.

If this is accepted, I can report that there are some good news stories about dealing with issues in Tasmanian roadsides, admittedly sometimes relatively small issues, but not insignificant.

This success is being achieved by working with the people. Helping with training, liaison and general confidence-building among service and maintenance personnel on roadsides and in other Council areas. By thinking laterally and taking a slightly different approach, we are making improvements to the visual and natural landscape, which is usually beyond the scope of the Landscape Architect, but still quite significant in the overall visual landscape for which we are custodians.

RESUME

While completing Landscape Planning studies at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education she worked for 3 years as a trainee under Stuart Green in Scott and Furphy's Hobart office.

In 1983 she started her own consulting practice, and has worked as the Principal since that time. At first the practice focussed on the hard and soft physical design of institutional Landscape projects, mainly schools for the Tasmanian Government, and an assortment of other work.

In 1990 Patricia took a part time position with Greening Australia, working on roadside vegetation, and this started a long term connection with the organisation, and a much greater focus for the practice, on local native vegetation.

Over the last 12 years Patricia has often worked with the people who produce the large scale landscapes (Council workers, utility company employees, engineers), rather than as a designer herself.

Much of her work has been in delivering training and management information to such groups, and working with them in the field.

Most recently the focus of the practice has again shifted, with Patricia often asked to prepare visual and management assessments, and sometimes acting as an expert witness in land use tribunal hearings.

There is also a reversion to more physical design work, and this is often associated with land management issues