Michael Green

Journalist, producer and oral historian

Backyard ponds

In Greener Homes on

Living ponds or pools are good for your garden

WITH the cost of electricity and water rising, conventional swimming pools are becoming more resource-sapping than refreshing.

But landscape designer Phillip Johnson believes there are several smart ways to keep water bodies in our gardens – from natural pools to seasonal ponds and billabongs – if only we think a little differently.

“If you have water in your front or backyard, you’re bringing back habitat and biodiversity. And it helps cool down that space as well,” he says.

The first thing to do, he argues, is to think of stormwater as a valuable resource. Because of climate change, south-east Australia is expected to receive less rainfall overall, but more severe storms.

“Every property and road has been designed to drain water as fast as possible, and that contaminated water gets into our creeks and rivers,” Mr Johnson says. “If you can slow the stormwater, catch it and clean it, whatever leaves your place will be in much better condition.”

To help do that, he designs dry creek beds or swales running from rainwater tank overflows or downpipes. “When it rains, the dry creek bed comes alive and feeds into a billabong, water feature, or natural pool, which works as a reservoir for flood mitigation,” he says.

“In a natural system, billabongs exist on the edge of a creek. When it floods, it fills up this little wetland to the side. They’re really rich in biodiversity and create great habitats for frogs.”

Unlike conventional pools, Mr Johnson’s natural pools don’t rely on chlorine or salt to keep the water clean, but rather, use biological filters to aerate the water. An energy-efficient pump moves the water through a “regeneration” zone. “We learn from nature, where water often passes through river gravels and plants that absorb nutrients,” he explains.

Installing natural pools, and converting existing ones, has become a significant part of his business, but he maintains that you don’t have to spend big bucks or install a complex system. “You can do this yourself, but you’ve got to do your research.”

At her house in Northcote, permaculturalist Kat Lavers took the straightforward approach. She simply dug a hole and dropped in an old bathtub with the plughole blocked.

“We filled it with water from our tank and put rocks in there to create niches and different microclimates for plants that need a shallower depth,” she says.

“We also collected water from a nearby freshwater dam, which contained lots of critters like small shellfish, freshwater snails and maybe even dragonfly larvae. It added a diversity of life into our pond – and that means mosquito larvae don’t breed in large numbers.”

The plants in the pond also help inhibit mosquitoes by aerating the water and reducing the nutrient level. You can grow edible plants there, such as land cress and some kinds of mint. Water chestnuts will thrive in a boggy spot at the edge of a pond.

“The most obvious benefit of having a pond is beauty, but it goes beyond that,” Ms Lavers says. “It provides a reliable water source for lots of critters – some of them slugs and snails, but also really helpful ones like dragonflies, hoverflies, honeybees and lots of creatures that help to minimise the work you need to do in the vegie garden.”

Overshadowing

In Architecture and building, Environment, The Age on

Solar initiatives in built-up areas may be left struggling to see the light of day

THE eco-friendly Australian cities of the future will combine dense housing with savvy, energy-smart design. Or will they? Is there a conflict looming between the twin green goals of urban densification and widespread harvesting of the sun’s rays?

More and more people are installing solar panels and solar hot water systems, growing their own vegies and adapting their houses for passive solar gain. But as they do so, they may find their desire for direct sunlight overshadowed by bigger buildings next door.

Professor Kim Dovey, chair of architecture and urban design at the University of Melbourne, says the right to sunlight is a growing issue.

“Since the 1990s, there’s been a strong push for higher densities, often based on green arguments, such as getting more people living closer to train stations and so on. But at the same time, the solar access issue has been forgotten,” he says.

He says planning rules treat sunlight as a matter of amenity, not sustainability.

“To me, the deeper issue is that the ownership of a block of land seems to imply some kind of right to access the solar energy that comes with it,” Professor Dovey says. “And we also have a public imperative for distributed energy systems – the idea that we should generate electricity everywhere, not only in one place.”

Currently, although every level of government offers subsidies or incentives for solar panels and hot water units, there’s been no equivalent attempt to safeguard those investments against overshadowing.

Similarly, the Victorian planning controls don’t shield householders’ access to direct sunlight in the winter, the time of year when it’s needed most for passive heating.

Despite this criticism, the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development maintains that its regulations adequately protect existing north-facing windows and backyards.

Under the rules, shadow diagrams are drawn at the spring equinox, not the winter solstice – which means they don’t take account of the six months when the sun is lowest in the sky.

Seamus Haugh, a spokesperson for the department, says the current practice represents “a sensible balance”.

“In Melbourne, [using] the winter solstice would unreasonably restrict redevelopment opportunities and would significantly impact on homeowner rights to modernise existing housing,” he says.

A review of the state planning scheme is underway, and is scheduled to report its preliminary findings to the minister at the end of November.

Angela Meinke, manager of planning and building at the City of Melbourne, acknowledges that sustainability isn’t a key consideration under the rules, as they stand. “The planning scheme doesn’t address the impact you could have on green initiatives on neighbouring properties,” she says.

“The challenge we have in planning is to weigh up the rights of property owners to develop and the rights of neighbours not to be affected by development. We try to strike a balance.”

But as the risks of climate change and energy scarcity grow more pressing, it is becoming increasingly apparent that householders everywhere must adopt low-consumption, low-impact lifestyles. The notion of “balance” may need to favour sunlight over development – especially where the plans in question are only for larger houses, not more dwellings.

Professor Dovey contends that the government must “take some responsibility for a sustainable future” by planning actively, rather than prolonging the market-led approach of recent decades.

“In the middle of winter it’s very hard to avoid the blocking of sun, so there have to be compromises. I think that will mean that in any given area, the height limits ought to be reasonably flat,” he says.

“You could have a law that says properties cannot differ by more than a couple of storeys from one property to another. And that would improve the city, because it won’t be pockmarked with large towers.”

In the case of solar photovoltaic panels, Stephen Ingrouille, from Going Solar, believes overshadowing concerns can usually be solved by careful planning or by negotiation between landowners.

“You could get people to set back a little, or bevel the corners of buildings,” he suggests. “Potentially you can move solar panels to another spot, but who pays for that? What is reasonable?”

He notes that in the UK, residents have defended their solar access under the common law doctrine of Ancient lights, which gives owners of long-standing buildings a right to maintain their established level of illumination. In Australia, the courts have heard very few cases about solar access for sustainability.

As a general rule, Mr Ingrouille advises would-be customers to consider the likelihood of “overdevelopment” on the property immediately to their north. “Be mindful that might happen and try to plan for it,” he says.

There goes the sun

IN the mid-1990s, the Walsh family extended their Kensington home. With the help of their next door neighbour at the time – an architect – they designed a living area with glass doors and high windows to capture the sun.

“In winter time, it’s like a sun room in here,” says Wally Walsh. “We’ve got a grape vine to provide shade in summer, but in winter it loses all its leaves, the sun streams in and you don’t need to heat the room.”

The architect has since moved on, and the family’s new neighbours have extended twice. The most recent addition was a second storey, erected earlier this year.

The length of the block runs east to west, so the home’s northern windows look out onto the house next door. But where once they saw sky, the family now see rows of cream weatherboards.

“I came home one evening and the frame was up and I thought: ‘My God’,” Mr Walsh says. “I contacted the Melbourne City Council immediately, who told me that we had no grounds to appeal other than on the basis of heritage.”

Angela Meinke, the council’s planning and building manager, confirmed that in this case, heritage concerns were the only matter the council could consider in determining its planning permit.

The building surveyor, however, was required to assess the shadows cast on their existing north-facing windows. Unfortunately for the Walsh family, the demands of the regulations aren’t stringent enough to safeguard their winter sun.

By Mr Walsh’s reckoning, the rules favour development over energy-efficient design. “It’s going to be colder and darker in here. We’ll need to have the heating and lights on more often,” he says.

“They’re doing what they’re entitled to do, apparently. But it’s sad. You’re supposed to design your house so you get sunshine in winter and shade in the summer, aren’t you? For us, ultimately, it was a waste of time.”

Read this article at The Age online

Climate change in Victoria

In Greener Homes on

Climate change heralds an uncomfortable future for Victorians

It’s easy to think of climate change as a far-flung concern, well away from our daily lives. But what are the predictions for Melbourne and Victoria? How will they affect our cities and houses?

Dr Penny Whetton, principle research scientist at CSIRO, says we can expect the average temperature to be 1 degree warmer by 2030, compared to the start of this century. It could get much hotter as the decades go on.

“If we continue the growing trend in global emissions, we’re looking at between two and four degrees warmer by 2070. And then warmer again later in the century,” she says.

Among the most uncomfortable consequences will be heatwaves. “If you think about the severe hot spell in Melbourne in February 2009,” Dr Whetton says, “that type of weather is going to become more frequent.”

Under a high emissions scenario, days over 40 degrees could be three to six times more common by 2070.

Such extremes not only damage infrastructure, such as electricity and rail networks, but also human health. The heatwave preceding the Black Saturday bushfires caused 374 deaths in Melbourne. To limit the consequences, we’ll need to design our buildings for low-energy summertime cooling, not only winter warmth.

Temperature rise is just one part of the change. On rainfall, Dr Whetton says most of the science suggests we can expect less. “But as temperatures increase, when conditions are right for a thunderstorm or a downpour, the atmosphere holds more moisture,” she says.

“We’re looking at longer dry spells and less rainfall, but when rain comes, we’ll have heavier downpours. That’s the pattern for Victoria and most of southern Australia as well.”

Drier conditions overall will make farming more difficult and probably lead to higher prices for fresh fruit and vegies. Bigger storms will cause more flash floods, unless we upgrade our drains and culverts.

Then there’s sea level rise: the predictions for the end of the century vary from about 30 centimetres to around one metre.

“The increase in sea level is due both to oceans becoming warmer and expanding, and to ice on land melting,” Dr Whetton says. “The largest ice sheets that concern us are in parts of Antarctica and Greenland. We don’t know a lot about how rapidly the ice can melt, but sea level rise is likely to continue for many hundreds of years.”

Under its Future Coasts program, the Victorian government is planning for a rise of “not less than 0.8 metres by 2100”. That’ll mean protecting beaches and properties against erosion and storm tides, as well as restricting new development in low-lying places.

But Dr Whetton says we still don’t know what the biggest impacts on cities will be. “We might feel it most through the impact on the hinterland – the climate change predictions are quite a worry for food production in the Murray-Darling basin,” she says.

“It’s likely we will find ways to adapt to a 1- or 2-degree warming, although we don’t know for sure. A 3- or 4-degree warming is going to be significantly more challenging. If we want to avoid the bigger climate change, then it’s not about adaptation. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.”

Bugs in the garden

In Greener Homes on

Let insects be your constant gardeners

ANTLIONS, the larvae of lacewings, have insatiable appetites. Luckily, for vegie growers, they’re on our side.

“They look like tiny balls of fluff,” says insect expert Jane Davenport, author of The Garden Guardians, “but they’re really like little crocodiles dashing around the garden, eating aphids and sapsuckers. They suck the juice out of the aphids and stick them on their back, so they smell like the aphids and ants give them a free pass.

“There are all these symbiotic relationships in the vegie patch. Once you’ve got your bug-eyes on and you realise what’s happening, it’s fascinating. ”

She says gardeners have a choice between being a “cure-all” or a “curator”: the former need all manner of pesticides to keep their patch in check, while the later employ bugs to protect their produce.

“If you’re the kind of gardener who uses chemicals, you’re giving yourself lots of work. Good bugs will do it for you for free,” she says. “And there are already so many toxins in our cities, why would you want to add them into your garden as well?

There is, however, the small matter of enticing the bugs into your beds. Ms Davenport suggests establishing “an insectary” – a dedicated area where you let the critters have their way – as well as a variety of flowers, so something is blooming all year round.

“For example, ladybirds need something to eat, that’s the thing that attracts them,” she says. “Once you’ve attracted them you want to keep them – they’ll eat pollen if there are no pests.”

Karen Sutherland, from Edible Eden Design, also prescribes petals as a cure.

“Plant flowering herbs and lots of flowers with different shapes – they’ll bring all sorts of beneficial insects to your garden,” she says.

If you’re beginning a vegie patch in an area where there are no established gardens nearby, you can kick-start colonies of good bugs by ordering them in the mail. Another useful hint is to compost your old mulch during the cooler months, and let the chill eliminate the pests.

But what can you do if your leafy greens look grim?

First, find out what you’re up against. “If your plant has a lot of bugs on it, check whether your neighbours and other gardeners have the same problem. If so, then it’s something normal – it’s not because the plant is unhealthy,” Ms Sutherland says.

In springtime, aphids gather to gorge on new growth. “You have to be patient,” she says. “As an interim measure you can squirt the plants with a hose to knock them off.

“I find that if I wait and don’t do anything, ladybirds and praying mantises start appearing and eating the aphids.”

For a more active response, she suggests searching the web for organic pest control tips. You can easily homebrew your own sprays. For white oil spray – to control aphids, scale, mealybug, mites and more – mix four parts vegetable oil and one part detergent, and dilute 1:50 with water.

Above all, spend time in your garden. Ms Sutherland says the diversity of insect life affords infinite exploration, especially for kids. “Praying mantises are hatching at the moment in Melbourne, so if you look very closely in your garden, you might find tiny ones, only one-centimetre long.”

Read this article at The Age online

We need to talk, Mr Mayor

In Social justice, The Age on

AS I stood in the city square on Friday morning, I locked arms with a quiet IT student and a man who has a doctorate in law.

None of us had done anything like this before. Contrary to Mayor Robert Doyle’s assertions, we were neither professional protestors, nor the usual suspects.

By chance, we had landed in an obscure corner of the human chain, inside a marquee, facing the back of the square, well away from onlookers.

Even the other protesters seemed to have forgotten our corner – for an hour or so, the IT student had no one else to link arms with. As the chant rang out for us to “hold the line”, I asked him how he felt. “Vulnerable,” he replied, with a light smile. The police who surrounded us shared our mirth.

And so, for the first few hours, the big showdown felt more like farce. I had a lot of time to consider my position. Why, exactly, was I there? Should I stay?

Earlier this year, I wrote a long article about homelessness for The Big Issue. Often, while I worked on the piece, I felt deeply shaken.

One day I met a woman who, through illness and ill fortune, faced eviction from her modest unit. She was a good woman, but could no longer pay her rent – the shortfall grew bigger week by week. She sat with me in her darkened lounge and sobbed.

Earlier that same morning, I’d read in the newspaper that Gina Rinehart’s wealth had doubled in twelve months, to $10.3 billion. Hers is wealth born of inheritance, extracted from our finite resources, and funnelled into scare campaigns against taxes.

And so, before the Occupy movement began in Melbourne, I followed its progress in New York. I was excited that Occupy Wall Street had made equality once more a matter of daily public debate.

I visited the city square on several of Occupy Melbourne’s six days, but I didn’t camp. I felt frustrated by the slogans and rhetoric, and by the unwieldy facilitation process for the public forums.

My optimism dissipated, but even so, there was something about the movement that challenged me. Everyone was welcome to participate. If I thought the process wasn’t working, or that the comments were more emotionally charged than deeply considered, then it was up to me to do better. If I didn’t stand up, it wasn’t fair to criticise.

On Friday morning, the police pressed more tightly around us as the hours wore on. When they tore the marquee from over our heads, the atmosphere of farce gave way to an air of panic.

I asked the computer student on my left why he was there. He told me he was a duel citizen of Australia and America and he’d been inspired by Occupy Wall Street. “For me,” he said, “this is about the separation of corporations and the state.” Over the previous days, he’d spoken with other protestors about the importance of curtailing corporate donations and influence on politics.

On my right was Dr Samuel Alexander, an academic who writes about simple living and limits to economic growth. He had just penned a 4000-word article, inspired by the protest, in which he outlined proposals for tighter media ownership laws, more progressive taxes and heavy investment in renewable energy infrastructure, among other things.

I’d also heard about another possible demand – for a Robin Hood tax on international currency transactions. For a movement comprising citizens in more than 1500 cities around the world, that proposal strikes me as elegant.

Nonetheless, as I stood in the line, I did not have a clear list of reforms in mind. But I had read about our current ways: about cascading financial crises in the US and Europe, about climate change, and about other environmental tipping points.

At Occupy Melbourne, hundreds of people cast off their apathy and sought to engage with one another on these matters, peacefully and publicly.

As I stood in the line, I was certain that these matters deserve debate, whenever and wherever possible. That is why I stayed in the square on Friday morning, and locked arms with other thinking people, as the riot squad bore down upon us.

Read this article at The Age online