Design Principles and Approach

The Southern Highlands Reserve planning and design effort has been guided by the principle of "don't mess up what's already here".

In the beginning, Dick Bir identified the problem and responsibility of building a garden in an existing forest that was already a beautiful and fragile high elevation ecosystem. Robert Balentine put it best when he said "we just need to polish the diamond".

The Reserve has been a collaborative effort of design professionals, talented local artisans, staff consultants and, most importantly, a work staff that totally bought into the value and importance of the task at hand.

Gary Smith, SHR Landscape Architect, has outlined some of our basic design principles:

  • "Right plant, right place," which is the horticultural foundation for ecologically sustainable planting design.

  • "If a plant is doing well in a particular location, put in a lot more of it." We can't always predict what will grow best where, so you need to listen to the site and follow its lead.

  • "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity." This principle comes from the great A. E. Bye, a teacher of mine who created many inspiring native gardens during a career that spanned from the 1950s through the 1990s. The plant palette is simplified over what you might find in a native woodland, with a generosity of scale that creates a sense of high drama.

  • "Analogy and contrast" means making plant combinations where the plants have strong visual attributes in common but also vary in some way. This combines unity with diversity, which engages the aesthetic sense while being very satisfying to the analytical mind.

Overall Design Approach

"The general idea was to create a "stroll garden" of destinations, intensifying and celebrating the rich variety of landscape experiences that occur naturally at the Southern Highlands Reserve. All new built features are natural, unobtrusive, and respectful of the existing sense of place.

I began my relationship with the place by conducting a "drawing meditation," wandering through the site and pausing every fifty paces to quickly sketch what was immediately in front of me. This process slows me down and opens my inner eye, internalizing the spirit of a place, informing and influencing the design process with the subtlety of its essential nature.

When we began the master planning process, John Turner put it best:

I think we need to keep Robert Balentine's observation constantly at the forefront of our design thinking, that the Reserve is a 'rough diamond' and we need only to hone the edges. We should always be asking ourselves if we are inserting too much drama. Is the designer's hand too heavy? Are our efforts too obvious? When the existing place starts becoming subordinate to the proposed design we should question ourselves.

The design approach was inherently collaborative. John Turner assembled a design and implementation team with diverse skills and perspectives -- on everything: horticultural and ecological knowledge, creative and artistic abilities, philosophical and spiritual values, a love of play and adventure, as well as practical craftsmanship and technical know-how. As a designer, it's always inspiring for me to work collaboratively with others who know far more than I do about most things, and this was certainly no exception."    .......... Gary Smith