Naturalistic planting design has been described as the most revolutionary shift in landscape thinking for over 100 years. Far more than just an aesthetic model, it’s being supercharged by emerging values for biodiversity and ecological integrity, and being enthusiastically adopted worldwide for small private gardens through to large public projects.

Two of this movement’s greatest International proponents – Professors James Hitchmough and Nigel Dunnett – will be in Australia in March ’25 as part of their work for Laak Boorndap – part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation (MAPT) project. They’re teaming up with Melbourne University’s Professor John Raynor and Assoc. Prof. Claire Farrell, along with Jon Hazelwood, Principal – Public Realm at Hassell for the MAPT project, and in this rare moment when they’re all going to be in the one place at the one time, they’re also going to present a day-long workshop, discussing design approaches for naturalistic plantings for different plant palettes, contexts, climates, soils, planting methods, maintenance regimes and planting.