Shared spaces offer some great options for well thought through planting.
This week our team have been reworking a couple of these zones, including apartment shared walkways and school gardens.
These areas are often considered tricky for the following reasons:
- they are generally high foot-traffic zones
- shared spaces, by their nature, need to appeal to a broad range of tastes and preferences
- they generally need to have low maintenance care requirements
- these spaces are often exposed to extreme elements such as full sun or shade conditions
- the soil conditions may not be ideal
But as you will see from our pics taken this week, these spaces don't need be boring.
A combination of native planting, and other hardy options will create a visually interesting space that can handle the conditions and thrive.
To get you started, here are our top plants for creating great visual impact in busy shared spaces....
- Lomandra Tanika Grass
- Clivia (semi shade with mass flowering in season)
- NZ Renga Renga (native mass planting with soft green leaf texture)
- Muehlenbeckia Complexia
- Ponga Tree (Silver Fern)
- Nikau Palm for contrast height and structure
By their very nature, these plants will spread to fill spaces so there are alway plenty more being produced that can be thinned and transplanted to fill additional garden zones. Win win!