All over the world policy makers and communities are planning for a climate change-impacted future, figuring out what needs to happen to make sure we have our needs met, and cities with healthy green spaces are a very strong need. Subscribe http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Clare Hart is the manager of Horticulture at the Melbourne botanic gardens and one of the people ensuring the collections adapt fast enough to survive into the future. She says, predicting future climates “depends on what we do in mitigation works”. If Melbourne experiences an increase in temperature “maybe one, two or three degrees warmer. We’re looking at something like modern day Dubbo.”
Long-term planning is a hallmark of a good public garden but in a rapidly changing climate, it might look different to what it would have been ten to twenty years ago. During the millennium drought of 1997 to 2009, Melbourne Botanic Gardens made major changes to their water management plan and saved about 40% of their potable water use. A climate risk assessment report was commissioned by the gardens with the University of Melbourne to understand what was happening in the living collections.
Part of the report includes a graph depicting all the plants in the botanic gardens, colour-coded for plants most at risk. The data reveals that most of the plants growing today would struggle in the future. Clare says the gardens are already transitioning a lot of their species. “We will still have oaks and eucalypts, our beautiful fig trees and palms as well. What we’re essentially doing is changing now, in order to stay the same.” Clare draws our attention to cool climate oak that was lost in 2019 that has been replaced with climate suited plants for 2070 and 2090.
The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria created a climate alliance so that botanic gardens all over the world can help each other and solve these problems together. Clianthus puniceus ‘Albus’, also known as Kaka Beak, is an important plant in their collection, gifted to the gardens by New Zealand to grow here in warmer conditions to their own. It’s a way for New Zealand to test how it grows in a warmer climate, and luckily it is flourishing and reproducing.
Not all sections of the garden will be impacted equally. Amy Downie is the curator of what’s known as the ‘grey garden’, a diverse group of plantings on one of the gardens’ hottest, most exposed sites. “From cactus to palms, they all have in common their grey foliage. The great thing about grey foliage plants is they can survive in hot harsh conditions with not a lot of water.” Some plants may have fine hairs on their leaves, or powdery waxy coating to help reflect the sun and retain water, such as Eucalyptus macrocarpa. Additionally, Bizmarck Palm and Engelmann Oak have been sourced from other climate zones and Amy says, “we are hoping that some of the plants we’ve recently planted will eventually grow up to be the feature.”
A Eucalyptus grandis specimen from southern Queensland was planted here when Amy was in her apprentice year. It’s already on its way to providing shade for the garden, with projections for it to last for hundreds of years. Amy says that projecting this far into the future, into a time when she won’t be around to see the outcome “feels really good. We know climate change can be a scary thing to face, so seeing the positives that we’re doing here with our landscape succession plan and knowing that we’re going to plant trees that will be here for the next generation, fills you with a bit of empowerment and makes the future feel a little brighter.”
Clare says, “it’s about the legacy we leave is there for my family, for your family, for future generations to enjoy, not only to see the plants we see today, but to immerse themselves amongst the canopy of the trees. That’s what I want to see for the future.”
Featured Plants:
KAKA BEAK – Clianthus puniceus ‘Albus’
MOTTLECAH – Eucalyptus macrocarpa
BISMARCK PALM – Bismarckia nobilis
ENGELMANN OAK – Quercus engelmannii
FLOODED GUM – Eucalyptus grandis
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