Events

Landscapers, professional gardeners, designers and urban planners: learn about selecting plants for the future climate with Tessa Kum from Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

Climate change is occurring at a rate that far outstrips any species ability to adapt. Shorter lived plants can be easily managed and their species replaced as the climate changes beyond their tolerance levels, but for long-lived plants such as trees, this rate of change is a significant challenge.

We need to plan decades ahead so that the trees we plant today do not merely survive but thrive in an unprecedented climactic future. Tessa Kum will discuss landscape succession and the far future planning involved in the development of the Australian Drylands Walk at Melbourne Gardens.

This event is free for members of SGA’s Green Gardening Professionals program. You can become a GGP member here.

About Tessa Kum:

Tessa Kum provides specialised horticulture and landscape succession assistance to the Horticulture Team at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne Gardens, and administers for the Climate Change Alliance of Botanic Gardens.

She has contributed to such projects as the newly developed Australian Drylands Walk in Melbourne Gardens, the Living Collections Plan Melbourne Gardens, the development of the Climate Assessment Tool (https://cat.bgci.org), the Landscape Succession Toolkit (https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/initiatives/climate-change-alliance/tools-and-products/), and provides outreach and education on climate adaptation to botanic gardens, arboreta and interested institutions.