Passive solar pergola

Completed in conjunction with Paul Miragliotta this is the passive solar pergola.

The brief was to replace an old dilapidated pergola with one that actually served to shade the house in the summer. We looked at some designs and ended up combining two. 

One with what we are calling 'hash tag' notched joins and another for a passive solar awning with sun angle and shade specifications for Melbourne.   

                      

 We did most of the work in my garage and basically prefabbed the whole structure. We used Cypress macrocarpa which was salvaged from old windbreaks and milled in Gippsland.

We had to call in the experts for some of the more complicated work...

...then we assembled the pergola on site, like an old wooden puzzle.

 
 

                                            The slats are angled to the winter sun such that light can hit the windows during the cooler months, warming the back room. In the summer the slats block most of the direct light to the windows, while still creating a pleasant dappled light.

More recently we have added the hand made trellis screen pictured. Furthermore we replaced the step and bike ramp and paved the area under the pergola using broken pieces of concrete recycled from a front yard up the road! 

Box Hill Job

In late 2013 I completed this design for some clients in Box Hill, after a consultation process. 

Paying particular attention to the back yard, they wanted to have play space for their children, some garden beds for growing veggies and some as lower maintenance gardens, back yard chickens, and some fruit trees, while maintaining a small section of lawn, surrounding the old Japanese maple.

In order to make way for the orchard we had to bring in the big machines, which we used to pull and and remove 40 odd cubic metres of concrete, a bunch of scrub and to re-arrange a bit of dirt too...

 To end up with a clean slate ready for re-building

:( this gall wasp ridden lemon tree eventually went too! ):

We installed these retaining walls using recycled railway sleepers and gravel (no concrete).

 Then started work on the VEG style chicken coop and orchard system

 Then we added some edging and sheet mulched over the top of fertilized, mineralised and de-compacted soil. The paths were underlayed with crushed rock road base. 

 ...and finished with the native and perennial gardens, evergreen olives and citrus, sand pit, grey water and irrigation systems, and a shed with water tank.

Winter planting of fruit trees to follow...

Agroforestry Pruning

More recently I have been pruning some trees at Dalpura, an Agroforestry property in the Otways. 

We have been lifting these eucalypts in order to create longer sections of stem for future harvesting.
We build piles of the prunings to add organic matter to every second row, which are being preserved as both habitat and as felling rows for when it comes time to harvest the trees.

Some trees are 'thinned' or removed to make way for the straighter and more vigorous trees. I addition the felled trees re-shoot from the base and after a time the best shoot is selected as a new stem, a process known as coppicing.

The result is a multi-generational and diverse forest which has both medium and long term yields.

Some of the smaller stems harvested will be inoculated with mushroom spawn for Shitake production, while the rest is harvested as firewood. Eventually the remaining and most vigorous trees will be harvested for varying grades of timber.

2013 creatons INCLUDING WICKING BEDS

I have been working on a few new projects both in my local suburb of Ivanhoe and further-a-field.

 This terraced 'wicking bed' system is surrounded by a possum proof structure and is attached to a fox proof chicken coup.

'Wicking beds' are like giant self watering pots which have a range of benefits, particularly in our water poor climate.

Also, the paving in the back garden of the same house in Ivanhoe is made up of recycled concrete, broken up at another clients place and relaid here as 'crazy paving'. 

 

Further more the soil is being improved utilising a rainwater harvesting and infiltration system, sheet mulching, worm castings, and compost.

With some help, I have been restoring and relaying some of the rock work at St.Michael's Church (cnr Collins St and Russell St).



Furthermore I will be adding plants and maintaining the garden for the next foreseeable future. 

 

Over the bridge in Newport I implemented another VEG design, with raised beds, chook house, and chook run/orchard. 

 The berries in the front will benefit from a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.