Close-up of wilted purple flowers illustrating garden challenges and heat stress.
Designing Resilient Gardens
Designing Resilient Gardens
Designing Resilient Gardens
Designing Resilient Gardens
AU$33.00
Next: Wed, 22 Apr 7:00PM (AEST)

Designing Resilient Gardens


Do you have a garden disaster story—hail smashing your camellias, summer sun scorching your tomatoes, or poor pollination leaving your fruit trees bare and plants constantly dying of thirst? Unsure what to plant, where, or when in this changing climate? Don’t give up just yet! Join horticulturist and landscape designer Alistair Kirkpatrick for this one-hour online Master Class. Using the real life case study of his own garden and home, Alistair will demonstrate the key components needed to make your garden more resilient to whatever the climate throws at it and how this can also impact the resilience of your own home. Topics covered include:   

  • Climate changes across Australia and what they mean for our gardens 
  • What nature teaches us: using plant density, complexity, and diversity to adapt 
  • Insights from scientific research and local observations about what truly thrives 
  • Creating shade and microclimates using both vertical and horizontal structures 
  • Layering plants to boost transpiration and support nighttime cooling 
  • Smarter plant choices, thoughtful clustering, and regenerative planting strategies 
  • Why certain exotics—though sometimes controversial—might still deserve a place in your garden 
  • Surface permeability, raised beds, and natural irrigation techniques—and how these can help you reduce or even eliminate the need for watering your garden

Join us and turn your garden challenges into long-term solutions! 

All sessions are recorded and those booked in will receive the recording link which is active for two weeks. Friends of SGA receive a 15% discount on Master Class full price tickets. You can become a Friend of SGA here. Green Garden Professional (GGPs) receive a 30% discount.


Details

1 hour
Live via Zoom

Appropriate for


Preparation

What to bring

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What to wear

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Your Teacher

Alistair has spent the past 20 years working across academia, landscape architecture and ecology, with a particular focus on Melbourne’s vegetation communities. A lifelong admirer of the plant kingdom, he is committed to preserving remnant ecologies while also recognising the value that novel ecologies can offer in urban environments. He graduated from RMIT with a Master of Landscape Architecture (with distinction) in 2012, completing a dissertation that explored how tertiary streetscapes could serve as a new park typology through soil manipulation and self-perpetuating vegetation communities. Alistair has exhibited at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show five times, winning gold in 2023 for ‘Karrakin’, a garden co-designed with Elliot Summers of Stratis Landscape Architecture and bronze in 2025 for ‘Back to Nature’ a garden he designed in partnership with Michael Rochelle, Carla Perry. His work has been published in academic journals and extensively in Landscape Architecture Australia. He currently teaches horticulture and landscape design at Melbourne Polytechnic.

Organized by

Sustainable Gardening Australia

Sustainable Gardening Australia

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Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA) is a not-for-profit non-government organiation dedicated to achieving a healthy biodiverse planet.

Its driving purpose is to:

  • Encourage, educate and enable home and professional gardeners to adopt sustainable gardening practices to protect or enhance the natural environment;
  • Provide information, education and undertake research about the natural environment;
  • Reconnect people to the natural world through gardening; and
  • Ensure an understanding of the impacts that gardening decisions about chemical and resource use have on the natural environment well beyond their neighbourhood.

Terms

Cancellations & Refunds

If the organiser cancels the class:

You are entitled to a full refund.

If you can't attend the class:

Terms & Conditions

SGA’s Booking Conditions

  • Bookings are considered final once payment is made and no refunds will be given for non-attendance.
  • If there are insufficient numbers for an event it may be cancelled or postponed by SGA. If this is the case, you will be notified and given the option of either a full refund or a transfer to a different SGA event of equivalent value.
  • Please arrive 10 minutes before the scheduled starting time for registration and seating

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