Van Leeuwen Green creates gardens that don’t require excessive inputs to keep them looking good, making landscapes cleaner, greener and less expensive for our clients. We make every effort to ensure that creating a private garden doesn’t have negative environmental impacts for somewhere else. Ideally the materials that create landscapes should also come from sustainable sources.

For example, decking is a common feature of contemporary landscapes and a fantastic way to integrate house and garden. If the timber for decking comes from the wrong sources, however, the environmental costs can be high. For example Merbua, a common decking hardwood from south-east Asia, destroys rainforest habitat. At the same time, the energy cost and associated emissions in greenhouse gases of transporting Merbua to Australia makes imported timbers generally a poor choice for landscape construction. Instead, Van Leeuwen Green uses Australian-grown and harvested timbers such as Sugar Gum for decking and pergolas because they are local, renewable and last longer than imported timber.

Van Leeuwen Green is a pioneer of sustainability in the horticulture industry, especially in regard to water use in gardens. In 2009 we received the Victorian Landscape Award for the best Sustainable Landscape for Hendrik Van Leeuwen’s garden in Hughesdale. But the complexity of sustainability issues means that there’s always more to learn. In 2008 we became Environmentally Certified Landscape Industry Professionals (ECLIPs) through Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA). The ECLIPs program provides training for our staff in sustainability principles and practices, and all the latest facts, figures and methods as they come to hand. The ECLIPs program also allows us to design and construct gardens with sustainability principles in mind, through a voluntary, obligation-free survey when we consult or quote for your landscape.

If you are interested in sustainability, please feel free to read through the information we’ve developed in this section of our website, on food gardens and water. We’ll update these pages as we continue our research on materials and plants from sustainable sources.