Greening where there may be no space for a tree

Balaclava, City of Port Phillip

Richmond, City of Yarra

Lane in Middle Park

The Port Phillip Council has been exploring how to 'green' narrow streets and lanes where it is difficult to plant trees. These are a few examples I have seen in inner Melbourne recently.

Raingardens in Docklands

Every visit to Melbourne's changing Docklands reveals something new.

Today I saw these raingardens in front of Mirvac's new townhouse development on the south side of the Yarra River. I liked them because they sit very easily in the landscape right on the Yarra River and for the high quality materials used for the borders and pavers. The raingardens are planted with Ficinia nodosa, or Knobby Club-rush - a coastal plant well suited to the filtering task.

Melbourne Water is encouraging householders to introduce raingardens into their gardens to clean and filter stormwater before it reaches waterways. For more information, click here.

Visit of Queen Elizabeth: arrival and departure

From dawn to dusk, people gathered along the Port Melbourne waterfront to watch the ships on Friday 25 February. The Queen Elizabeth attracted most attention, even though the other ship in Port was considerably larger. My interest was in watching people watching the ships, and how they used the place. All eyes were directed outwards to the water, and every person had a camera in hand. Balconies were theatre boxes to the show, monuments provides points of elevation, and the bumpy seawall provided seating. Even riders, usually too busy to stop, paused to take a picture.