Landscape designer Hanna Galagan, who became the ambassador of Ukraine at the international symposium "Dynamic vision - design and support of naturalistic plant communities", which took place at the end of August in Germany, tells the readers of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA about the new mainstream in modern urban landscaping and the challenges that are relevant for Europe and Ukraine.
Hanna Galagan, landscape designer, winner of the RHS Gold Medal
In which direction to move?
The world has already accepted and sincerely loved the naturalistic plantings of the new wave; Perennials and grasses are a "must have" in modern landscapes, but the question is being asked more and more often: do naturalistic plantings meet modern challenges? Climate change, loss of biodiversity and wildlife, scarcer and more expensive resources force us to pay more attention to ecological processes and to combine design and ecology. And now in the world the topic of ecological or dynamic plantations is no longer a naturalistic one.
Dynamic vision is the topic of a symposium held in Mannheim, Germany, in August. It gathered 450 participants from 30 countries of the world, including Australia, Argentina, Chile, USA, Haiti, Canada, South Korea, Japan (!) and almost every EU country. Among the speakers and guests are the most famous and coolest designers of our time. Those who initiated the change 20 years ago have now gathered to review the experience and outline the direction for the future. Nigel Dunnett, a professor at the University of Sheffield, an ecologist and the founder of the "Sheffield Landscape School", who was present at the symposium, called this event the "perennial event of the year" — an existential event of the year.
Natural plantings in the Hermanshof garden, created by landscape designer Cassian Schmidt. Photo: Hanna Galagan
So why are naturalistic plantings, after so much talk about their positive impact on biodiversity, suddenly not sustainable enough?
Naturalistic plantings have a natural look due to the creation of certain visual cues. They resemble natural landscapes, they give us a sense of touch with nature, they inspire, but they are created artificially, with a view, but without the use of natural / ecological mechanisms. Unlike naturalistic plantings, ecological plantations are an attempt to create a truly diverse and dynamic new ecosystem that almost exactly reproduces the natural one. The density of plantations here is such that we will not see bare land, and the picture changes year after year.
Presentation by Noel Kingsbury at the Symposium "Dynamic Vision - Designing and Sustaining Naturalistic Plant Communities". Photo: Hanna Galagan
The root system of meadow grasses allows them to survive in the most difficult conditions, including drought conditions
As rightly noted Noel Kingsbury, a British landscape designer, writer and researcher, most urban dwellers do not want real nature with its mosquitoes, ticks and flies in the city, nor real natural vegetation. True nature is difficult for many to read: sometimes too wild, sometimes too boring, too messy, too difficult to understand. Naturalistic plantings offer a safer alternative—nature ordered, organized (if only a little), tamed…but still nature (Wild: The Naturalistic Garden, p. 7).
So why are there all these conversations about ecosystems and dynamic landscapes in the city now? Why do people need what they are not ready to accept?
The point is that even if we don't want to be aware of the fact that the climate crisis is consuming us, it continues to consume us. And if we model the changes in advance, one of the fundamental problems that will have to be faced, according to Noel Kingsbury, will be the lack of agricultural land after climate change. It is quite possible that the only spaces for nature will be precisely those that we specially set aside, design, populate, manage and protect as such. He argues that the landscapes we create may be the best hope for the survival of nature (at least in part), as well as for the preservation of a healthy human psyche.
Natural plantings in the Hermanshof garden, created by landscape designer Cassian Schmidt. Photo: Hanna Galagan
Different ways to the same goal
For designed landscapes of any scale to offer a haven for nature, we must design in a paradigm of dynamic ecology that will support biodiversity. But it must also satisfy human desires, particularly our deep need for an aesthetically pleasing environment. So, if we take naturalistic and ecological plantings as extremes (opposite positions), we have to find that balance between them, that level of gradient that will accommodate different extremes in user preferences.
Is there a single correct solution here? Of course not. Sometimes the approaches differ greatly, and the discussions within the symposium once again confirm this
For example, Nigel Dunnett usually uses annual flowers to fill the space between perennial plantings, given the importance of instant visual impact for the public (“people first” approach). I am particularly interested in this topic in the context of creating perennial ornamental meadows in the city. Indeed, it is difficult for people to explain why, in the first year of sowing, a single thing sticks out of the ground next to a bright sign "Here will be a flowering onion."
But designers Tom Stewart-Smith and James Hitchmow, no less authoritative on the scale of the planet, still believe that to create really stable perennial plantings, it is better not to add annual plants. The experience and level of the projects of Nigel Dunnett, Tom Stewart-Smith, James Hitchmow does not raise doubts about their professionalism, so the choice remains with the designer who is preparing to start designing. Is he ready to take a risk and ask the public to wait or not?
Symposium participants on a tour of the Hermanshof garden. Photo: Hanna Galagan
Technologies and ideas
Creating dynamic landscapes and artificial ecosystems is, of course, not an easy task. The experience of a landscape designer or landscape architect should go beyond combining colors and textures. Creating a viable ecosystem is about deep knowledge of plants, biotopes, what lies beneath the topsoil, and understanding and accepting "natural chaos" without trying to endlessly improve it.
John Little tells the participants of the symposium about the unusual resilience of plants. Photo: Hanna Galagan
John Little's experiments in growing plants in different soils in his own garden. Photo: Jooney Woodward
The report was very interesting in this regard John Little. He believes that nature needs structural complexity, not ideal soil made of solid biohumus. This structure can be crushed industrial or construction debris, sand, and even a mixture with calcium carbonate, which is a byproduct of sugar production and is available for almost nothing.
John Little in his experimental garden in Essex. Photo: Jooney Woodward
Wildflowers feel great even on a pile of ordinary construction debris. Photo: David Rose
Such a pragmatic approach to the use of waste, in particular in the landscape field, has long been used in Europe. Think of Sarah Price's own garden on a pillow of crushed construction debris or James Hitchmaugh's spectacular meadows, which he created on a foundation of crushed concrete.
Tom Stewart-Smith demonstrated at the symposium his garden project at Knep Castle, where plants were planted in a 20 cm layer of substrate consisting of a mixture of crushed concrete and sand in the proportions 75/25 and 50/50.
Tom Stewart-Smith's garden at Knep Castle. Photo: Charlie Harpur
Tom Stewart-Smith's garden at Knep Castle. Photo: Charlie Harpur
I hope that I will also be able to test this approach someday, because to date I have not yet managed to live with samples of crushed construction debris or calcium carbonate. For Ukraine, this question will be more relevant than ever, because we have crushed cities, and all this construction waste will have to be somehow disposed of. Therefore, it is much better to use them to restore and create ecological plantations than to create landfills.
Plants in the center of attention
Ecological plantations usually consist of aboriginal flora. But does it make sense to strictly limit your flight of imagination and distinguish between local and foreign plants? Shouldn't we think about more meaningful differences, such as gradients of biodiversity value, competitiveness/invasive potential, aesthetic value, forage value, etc., asks Noel Kingsbury.
Plantations in which the native flora is supplemented with plants from other regions, but from similar natural communities, are becoming more and more common, which makes it possible to increase not only the aesthetic appeal of such plants, but also the ecological value: for example, a longer flowering period gives a longer feeding period for insects .
A cerrado garden in the wet season. The author of the project is Mariana Siqueira. Photo: Mariana Siqueira
The experience of the Brazilian designer Mariana Siqueira (@jardinsdecerrado), who creates Brazilian cerrado meadows, was especially valuable for me. She faced the same problems as I am now: the nurseries do not grow the necessary assortment of plants for this (we are talking about aboriginal meadow plants), and there are no seeds either. So, step by step, she started collecting seeds and organized the cultivation of plants, cooperated with scientists, popularized this topic. And there is a result! It also gives me hope that decorative meadows will become popular and have a demand in our country, we are only at the beginning of this journey, it is not only necessary to grow planting material or have available seeds, it is even more important to adapt the technology to our soils, weather conditions that every year more and more abnormal than the previous ones, and also to consider the issue of care.
Flowering Cerrado Prairies in Brazil. Photo: Herman Faulstich/Flickr
By the way, about care
This problem was practically the main one at the symposium, and it is confusing designers all over the world. You can create the most incredible project, but in the absence of care or if the care was incorrect, your project will turn into a complete disaster.
Customers save on care EVERYWHERE (not only in our country). Landscaping is everywhere seen as an expense, while paving and curbs are an investment... Everywhere there are projects where the lion's share of space (and, of course, an incredible amount of money) is wrapped in granite, because it further saves money on maintenance of green spaces.
Each speaker paid attention to this, and in addition, a discussion panel devoted to the care of plantations was held. I will say right away that the participants did not form a single opinion or a concrete decision. But interesting ideas and views were still useful, for example: if you want to create a meadow that resembles and feels like a meadow, why not create a real meadow from scratch?
Natural landscape in the Kyiv region. Photo: Olga Kononenko
That is, I will repeat: naturalistic plantings require intensive care to maintain them in the same form as the designer intended, in particular, this is a waste of time. Organic plantings (such as onions) are less expensive, but require a completely different level of care. It is no longer about time, but about experience, deep knowledge of biology and ecology.
In general, the following vision is being formed in Europe and the world: the care of green areas is transformed into the management of areas. And plantation management becomes an integral part of design, creation of new landscapes. In general, the whole process is no longer focused on an end result, but rather a journey with many possible destinations, or, in the words of Noel Kingsbury, "no destination at all, when the journey is the destination." And this requires changes in the training of specialists: what is needed are not gardeners, but environmental gardeners. But the result of this transformation will be an increase in image, respect from society, higher self-esteem of specialists.
Symposium participants on a tour of the Hermanshof garden. Photo: Hanna Galagan
Finally, I would like to say that for our country, where the concentration of environmental disasters over the past half century is simply off the charts, this new ecological direction is not only important, it gives us the opportunity to collect pieces and restore the incredible beauty and wealth of Ukrainian nature, which were once generously given by the sky
