Australian gardeners have long harboured a love for all things European: rolling green lawns, flowerbeds full of hydrangeas and camellias, and perfectly trimmed hedges.

But as our climate becomes hotter and drier, some landscape architects are proposing a radical shift.

Celebrated gardener and landscape designer Paul Bangay told Blueprint For Living's Jonathan Green he's seen first-hand the impact of climate change on Australian gardens.

"Hydrangeas, for instance, are not made for this moment; [they] are really a bit of a dinosaur now," he said. "We don't plant rhododendrons … camellias burn, so we're just phasing them out."

His solution? Reigniting a respect for Australian natives.

Read Mr Bangay's guide to climate-proofing your garden, and listen back to other stories from Blueprint for more design inspiration.

Then, take a trip to the towering native forests of south-west WA, one of the world's most diverse natural environments.

For the past 50 years, activists have been campaigning to end logging in this biodiversity hotspot and recently, to their surprise, they won.

Hear from The History Listen how their long journey, fraught with passion, danger and a few celebrity cameos, ended in a historic shift in Australian environmental policy.


Until next week,

Anna Levy, deputy RN digital editor

 

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Australians are finally discovering their own unique landscape design style and we may have climate change to thank for it. 

For the past 50 years, forest activists have been campaigning to end native logging in one of Australia's most diverse natural environments. The campaign has been long, passionate, dangerous, and now, victorious.

Plenty of Australians collect things, but for people with hoarding disorder, those things can have a real hold over how they live.