Amenity horticulture and the use of Australian native plants in arid zone environments

Horticulture is at the edge of a new era. With water becoming our scarcest commodity, its adequate supply, and the justification and priority of its usage are becoming key issues. Thus much greater attention is being focused, world over, upon the various aspects of sustainable urban horticulture and amenity planting. It is in this context that Australian native plants have, in addition to their own floral and vegetative attributes, a number of other beneficial contributions to make. Australia is like no other place in the world. It is an island continent: long isolated from other streams of evolution; an ancient land of great subtlety, enigma, splendour and diversity and what is most significant to peoples like us, is its floral heritage which is beyond the dreams of most international horticulturalists. This includes plants that have adapted over aeons to such major changes in location and climatic conditions, as has occurred to this continent; which on a number of occasions during its life history, has drifted up to the equator and back. These "clever plants" include phreatophyes, specialised ephemerals, stilt plants, resurrection plants, Crassulaceous Acid Metabolism (CAM) plants, C-3 and C-4 plants, succulents and those with any or many number of anatomical adaptations such as phyllodes, cladodes, sunken stomata, thickened cuticles, and epidermal appendages such as hairs and scales - designed to cut down transpiration and thus water usage. In planning and design for the contribution plants can make towards health and happiness of humankind in the 21st century, it behoves us to expand our palette so as to take advantage of the assets produced by these adaptations.