Stride Landscape Design

Councils generally want both an arborist's report and a landscape plan with a development application, and getting two separate consultants to agree about the same trees costs time nobody budgeted for. Here they come off the one desk. Vicki Stride runs Stride Landscape Design as a registered consulting arborist, with a Diploma of Arboriculture at AQF Level 5, TRAQ and VALID tree risk qualifications, a Diploma of Landscape Design, trade certificates in horticulture, landscape construction and irrigation, and a Bachelor and Master of Education behind all of it. The tree advice and the design decisions get made by the same person, working off the same site notes.

On the arboricultural side we prepare preliminary arboricultural reports for the early stage of a project, and the full Arboricultural Impact Assessment once there are plans worth assessing. Tree protection plans set out what has to be in place around the trees you are keeping, root mapping reports establish what is actually under the ground before an excavator gets anywhere near it, and tree risk assessment is carried out to the TRAQ and VALID methods.

Once a consent has conditions attached to it, project arborist supervision is what keeps a site honest: attending at the stages the consent nominates, checking the protection measures are up and still being maintained, and signing off on what has been done. Project arborist consultancy sits alongside that for the builders and owners who would sooner ring and ask before doing something near a tree than explain it to a council afterwards.

The design work runs beside all of it, drawn in Vectorworks so a plan can be overlaid on the architectural or stormwater set. A full landscape design package takes in pre and post design meetings, a design philosophy, a concept plan, a planting plan, landscape and planting guidelines, hardscape material selection and irrigation plans, and the planting plan works through species selection, soil suitability, sun and shade, mature dimensions, colour, and whether a tree is deciduous or evergreen. We can carry it through with project management and plant supply, so the species specified are the species that actually go into the ground. Landscape plans for development applications can be completed for any local government area in Australia.

Behind the work sits membership of Arboriculture Australia, the International Society of Arboriculture, TREENET, the Australian Institute of Horticulture, the Landscape Design Institute, the Nursery and Garden Industry NSW and ACT, the Australian Plants Society NSW and the Australian Garden History Society, with Institute of Australian Consulting Arborists membership in progress. Tell us what the council has asked you for, or what you want the garden to become, and we will tell you which report or plan the situation actually calls for. If all you want is an opinion, book an hourly consultation instead and we will come out, do the pH and soil testing, measure the garden areas and hand draw the sketches while we are on site.