Indigenous Landscape Design Australia

Quotations to inspire you

The exotic vegetation that replaces indigenous plant communities in urbanising regions, disassociates us from the rhythms and diversity of the native landscape and a sense of the place; and we are the poorer because of it.
Michael Hough, Professor of Landscape Architecture, York University, Canada
Our technologies have advanced far ahead of our collective wisdom to incorporate them in a thoughtful way. We've surrendered our future to the market forces that have run amok, and where the only relevant bottom line is short-term profit.
Sanho Tree, Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, USA: Avatar’s History Lesson
Many Westerners, from astrophysicists to prosecuting attorneys, are beginning to grasp how much they have to learn from aboriginal cultures, whose connection with Planet Earth and the great rhythms of life - whose understanding of the healing process - has never been broken. They should be our teachers.
Robert C. Koehler, journalist: The Progress of Man
We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.
G.K. Chesterton, 1874 - 1936, writer
The triumph of space over place has created . . . the "geography of nowhere." To conquer the momentum of growth we must reclaim our somewheres. And to do so we must come full circle by revitalising place against space, the 100-mile economy over the 1,000-mile, small markets over big, the community over the corporation, democracy over statism.
Michael M'Gonigle, EcoResearch Professor of Environmental Law and Politics, University of Victoria, Canada
Consider the wildflowers, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you, King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Jesus of Nazareth: The Gospel of St Luke
It has taken the secularism of modern science and the contemporary environmental movement to re-awaken our consciousness, culpability and responsibility for the natural world in the current crisis. Hopefully, if secular, spiritual and religious forces can together learn to listen to the silent narrative of nature in general, and trees in particular, we might just be redeemed.
Thor Beowulf, property developer turned environmental advocate
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900, dramatist, novelist, poet
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into those I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
The Senility Prayer
We lose one acre of rainforest every second. Imagine a giant invader from space, clomping across the rain forests of the world with football field size feet – going boom, boom, boom every second – would we react? That’s essentially what’s going on right now.
Al Gore, recovering politician, environmental advocate
When a business fails to serve the general welfare, it forfeits its right to exist.
Adam Smith, 1723 - 1790, moral philosopher, political economist: The Wealth of Nations
Expand Your Heart. Be open to new ideas. Live gently. Live simply. Laugh often. Love deeply. Be hospitable. Give generously. Stand for a cause. See God everywhere. Dream into being a world without war!
Coman Brady, 19?? - 2009, parish priest, Brooklyn, USA
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882, philosopher, poet
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will speak for them.
President Theodore Roosevelt, 1858 - 1919, 26th President of the USA
Nature is always my starting point.
Michelangelo, 1475 - 1564, painter, sculptor
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
William James, 1842 - 1910, philosopher, psychologist
Less is more. 
Mies van der Rohe, 1886 - 1969, architect
White Australia’s imperatives have always been to change to an imitation of the little islands on the other side of the world.
Judith Wright, 1915 - 2000, poet, environmentalist, Aboriginal land rights campaigner
Australia is the world’s driest continent , but it still has public and private gardens that are inappropriately planted, poorly mulched, using obsolete irrigation technology and precious drinking water; and sending its rainfall, unused, down the storm drains.
Sallyanne Pascoe, horticultural journalist
Let the site determine the design.
Anon
I hate the statues, knots and fancy topiary, and generally extol the beauty of simplicity.
Francis Bacon, 1561 - 1626, philosopher, scientist, statesman, lawyer
Every part of this neighbourhood is beautiful. It is a succession of earthly paradises. The Bay of Sydney is surrounded by wooded hills, of great variety of forms, and into which run deep coves right and left, their shores being beautifully overhung with woods.
William Howitt, 1830 - 1908, natural scientist
A variety of flowering shrubs abound, most of them entirely new to an European, and surpassing in beauty, fragrance and number, all I ever saw in an uncultivated state.
Watkin Tench,1758 - 1833, Marine Corps officer: A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay
There is nothing more beautiful than Australian trees growing in groups and groves.
Paul Sorensen, 1890 - 1983, garden designer
Perhaps the greatest principle, and the one most lacking in the average garden today, is a sense of unity. It is a quality found in all great landscapes, based on . . . the domination of one type of vegetation and [where] human use and buildings have kept in sympathy with their surroundings. When we say that a landscape has been spoilt we mean that it has lost this unity.
Sylvia Crowe, 1901 - 1997, landscape architect
One of the more subtle properties of plants is a certain relationship in colour and proportion between the stem, the leaves and the flowers, and the poise of the flowers upon their stems. It is these qualities which give the plant species a grace often lacking in garden hybrids. . . The intensifying of flower colours by hybridisation can also throw out the subtle harmony of the wild plant.
Sylvia Crowe
Callitris species have outstanding qualities . . . whether for utility or for ornament there is a Native Cypress suitable for almost every purpose. They are of very great beauty, fast growing, remarkably free from disease, very hardy and mostly very drought and cold resistant.”
Wilfred de Beuzeville, forest ecologist 1884 - 1954: Australian Trees
Take care of form and let colour take care of itself.
John Brookes, UK garden designer
Start looking at your native forms and your native shapes. . . You can make the new Australian garden. . . Go to it!
John Brookes, ‘Gardens for Tomorrow’ conference, Melbourne 1994
Insects such as bees and butterflies have specific native wild plants on which they feed or lay their eggs. If these plants are no longer being grown in domestic gardens, or have been entirely destroyed in the wild, the insects will naturally fail to survive. Many modern plant cultivars carry little or no nectar, making them useless as food plants for local wildlife.
Jill Duchess of Hamilton, journalist, founder of the original, UK Flora for Fauna
Only by being in touch with and touched by nature will we find our own place and learn to see this planet, not only as gift and opportunity, but as a responsibility to be nurtured and cherished.
Jerry de Gryse, landscape architect
Suburbia: A place where they tear out the plants, then name the streets after them.
Mike Archer, professor of biological science, paleontologist
The object of art is to crystallise emotion into thought and then fix it in form.
Francois Delsarte, 1811 - 1871, musician
There can be no greater fulfilment in life than finding the thing you were born to do and doing it. . . You have to get out of your head and into your heart.
Barbara Biggs, child abuse survivor, author of In Moral Danger
While preservation of fauna and flora and biodiversity may not be important to those whose preoccupation is money and personal aggrandisement, it is important to many in our community who regard ‘nature’ as important to their psychological well-being. What influence has the destruction of the natural environment had on producing the state of hopelessness that exists in much of Australian youth?
Dr Peter Carter, medical practitioner
Reconciliation of man with the natural world is no longer merely desirable, it has become a necessity.
Murray Bookchin aka Lewis Herber, 1921 - 2006, political and social philosopher: Our Synthetic Environment
This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone who asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown.
Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892, poet, essayist, journalist: Leaves of Grass
The beauty is in the walking; we are deceived by destinations
Gwynne Thomas, poet
A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done and his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.
Lao Tzu, c. 600 BC, philosopher
I am repelled by the expensive, emotionally and horticulturally sterile gardens filled with box hedging, pleached avenues and mondo grass that have become the norm for many “designed” gardens in Sydney.
Peter Watts, Director, Historic Houses Trust of NSW
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma--which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011, Apple CEO
Ecology and economy are both derived from the Greek word oikos - a house or dwelling. Our survival depends on the rational management of this home: the space in which life can be sustained. Ecology is the stock from which all wealth grows.
George Monbiot, journalist: The Guardian UK
If everyone agrees with what you do, I encourage you to change what you are doing.
Augustine of Hippo, 354 - 430, philosopher, theologian
The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes.
Marcel Proust, 1871 - 1922, novelist, critic, essayist
Where there is hatred, let me sow Love. Where there is injury, Forgiveness. Where there is doubt, Faith. Where there is despair, Hope. Where there is darkness, Light. Where there is sadness, Joy.
Francis of Assisi, 1181 - 1226, Poet, warrior, knight, lover, madman, saint


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