Archive record · Species catalogue · 1990s · Arid and exposed climates
Long before "climate resilient planting" became a design movement, buyers were asking one blunt question: what survives drought, salt and frost together? This record rebuilds the specialist catalogue our team produced to answer it, a document that reads today like an early draft of the modern arid-project palette.
The premise
The catalogue collected only species with demonstrated tolerance across the three killer stresses, drawn from the team's own growing experience and its Australia-wide grower network. Each entry combined a working description with cultural requirements, so specifiers could judge fit rather than take tolerance on faith.
The palette it assembled
- Acacias for the hardest ground: A. jucunda, A. leptocarpa and dryland relatives.
- The Callistemon and Melaleuca engine room: 'Kings Park Special', 'Captain Cook', M. armillaris, M. incana, M. linariifolia 'Snowstorm', M. nesophila and both broad and fine leaf paperbark forms.
- Coastal specialists: Westringia fruticosa and 'Wynyabbie Gem', Myoporum species, Vitex rotundifolia, Phyla nodiflora.
- Structure and shade: Casuarina cunninghamiana, Cupaniopsis anacardioides, Caesalpinia ferrea, Ficus hillii, Tipuana tipu, eucalypt selections.
- Colour that copes: Dietes bicolor and grandiflora, Eremophila maculata forms, Erigeron karwinskianus, Gazania hybrids, Plumbago, Russellia equisetiformis, Tecomaria capensis.
- Workhorse understorey: Lomandra longifolia, Dianella caerulea, Liriope muscari, Brachyscome forms.
Why this record matters
Cross-check this thirty-year-old list against any current Gulf or Australian arid-project schedule and the overlap is striking. Tolerance knowledge compounds: the species that proved themselves in this catalogue anchored later coastal resort palettes, and its structure, tolerance first, aesthetics second, remains how we build planting lists for hard sites today. For the modern treatment of the same subject, watch the News journal, where our full article on drought, salt and frost tolerant planting publishes this August.
Browse the current arid range or continue in the Knowledge Archive.