New water ways

By Tania Martin
OLINDA’S award winning landscaper Phil Johnson is leading the way in promoting water saving gardens.
His company, Greenmark Landscapes, recently took out the Savewater Garden Management award over one of Melbourne’s oldest gardens – the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Mr Johnson says winning awards comes second to showing people that they can save water and still have a beautiful garden.
“It’s not about winning for us – it is about getting the message out there that you can have a great garden and still save water,” he said.
Greenmark Landscapes is leading the way in designing gardens that recycle and save water.
The company’s display garden, which is at Mr Johnson’s home, can capture and store more than 703 kilolitres of rain and stormwater a year – that’s 5200 bath tubs of water.
The concept is so simple and starts with a man-made billabong which collects water to irrigate drought tolerant plants.
It also acts as a natural swimming pool and provides water to the site’s home office.
The water saving doesn’t stop there because the garden even has stormwater drains which redirect driveway run-off water into the billabong and a small creek redirects run-off water from the heated outdoor shower.
This amazing garden has led Greenmark Landscapes to taking out the 2007 Savewater award.
Mr Johnson said it was amazing to win the award especially when he had such stiff competition from the Royal Botanic Gardens.
“It was mind blowing – we were just over the moon to win,” he said.
He said winning the award proves that his philosophy that people can save water in their garden is starting to be recognised.
“It’s just a matter of thinking of a clever way of doing it,” he said. “We hope we are creating a revolution in the way people think about their garden – to show them that there is a simple way that you can use your driveway run-off to make your garden beautiful.”
To visit the garden, phone 9752 1541.