Geelong Grammar School

38°4'2.60"S, 144°22'51.36"E | 10m ASL | 483mm Avg. Rainfall

In the late 1990’s we were approached by Christopher Wheeler who was on the ‘Sustainability Committee’ of what is perhaps Australia’s most famous school. We then had a meeting with the committee in the cricket pavilion’s dining hall and started a relationship that had us develop most of the school’s lands to its west.

We started with our team producing a topographic survey and then developing a CAD layout plan. Working very closely with the school’s highly regarded ‘Estate Manager’, David Oman, we then completed two phases of native hardwood plantation development—firstly a timberbelt to the north of the main campus and then ‘alley farming’ systems to the west.

The alley farming systems are composed of 3 rows of mixed species native hardwoods (which were selected to be used in the school’s woodworking centre) which are then divided by a 60m wide pasture/crop alley. By aligning these tree rows to be north-south it reshaped the paddocks and we filled the sides with triangular block tree plantings.

To the immediate south there are horse riding areas and resting paddocks and we divided these paddocks with an array of Mediterranean ‘tree crop’ species.

In the last few years, through our relationship with MALA landscape architects, we have again been engaged in working with the school on the development of their new sustainability plan.