MORE TREES IN LANDSCAPES PLEASE

Fleming’s Landscapes ensures Australia’s streets and parks are increasing canopy cover.

In the early 2000s Wes Fleming received one too many calls from urban property developers concerned about trees not coping in new developments. Knowing a great deal about growing and planting trees, as he’s been doing it since he was 11 years old, Wes knew something had to change in the urban landscaping market. “The problem was that there were too many touch points for a tree, then when it dies or struggles to thrive, people turn to the nursery to ask why,” Wes states.

“The way things typically operated at that time was with an avalanche of consultants all having an influence on that tree. So, a landscape architect (often with little real horticultural training) specified a tree on a plan, a developer would then source the tree from a nursery, a contractor was engaged to dig a hole, often another contractor engaged to plant the tree, another contractor installed the irrigation, and another would be sourced to maintain the tree for a few months.

“This system was ludicrous when you think about it. I decided things had to change,” he exclaims.

Wes could clearly see the future of residential communities was going to be in sad shape in terms of street trees and quality canopy cover if something didn’t change. That’s when he developed Habittude by Fleming’s.

“Habittude’s ethos was ‘creating perfect urban habitats’. It was a division of our advanced tree nursery and was designed to be a one-stop-shop for street trees for the developer. We fully guaranteed the trees, ensuring any tree we worked on was a thriving success. We supplied trees, installed them and maintained them.

“Over time we also offered landscape architectural services, and developers starting asking us for more holistic landscaping services, until we realised we were larger than the advanced tree nursery — and all the other nurseries put together. That was when we established Fleming’s Landscapes as a stand-alone operation.

“Our landscape architecture services also grew into a stand-alone business, which we called FLOW Design Studio, and operates completely independently of the landscape arm but aims to ensure we design with plants in mind first and foremost,” Wes notes.

Fleming’s Landscapes has since grown into a fully serviced landscape contracting business building all manner of landscapes from sales office gardens, arboretums, street tree schemes and neighbourhoods to local parks, council parks, parking lots, urban open space locations, transmission/drainage or creek corridors, domestic gardens, and much more.

“The concept is simple,” says Wes. “The right tree, the right plants, in the right location.

“Basically, if it is outside and it can be planted, we can landscape it. We have even designed and constructed a beer garden in Launching Place, Victoria, that was awarded the best pub garden by 3AW Pub of the Year in 2024,” he notes with pride.