Nature’s Way Breeding

Our head breeder, Todd Layt calls his preferred breeding method ‘nature’s way.’ He will trial thousands of seedlings in incredibly difficult environments, such as persisting wet feet with root rot, extreme frost, drought, humidity, and so forth.

This is similar for instance to how plants are selected naturally on a riverbank; thousands of seeds find their way to a specific position but only a single tree survives because of subtle genetic strengths.

Cultivars have unfortunately been left out of the biodiversity conversation, because there is a general perception they are not as valuable for wildlife as seed-grown plants. While this may be true of some cultivated varieties, particularly inbred crossbreeds, and plants with inaccessible or missing pollinator resources, it’s not true for most Ozbreed varieties.

As well as survivability, plants are bred for specific landscape functions. Australians are increasingly living in dense urban spaces, so breeding for tight spaces has been a priority. Maintenance budgets are getting harder to justify, so plants are being bred to require less care. Australian wildflowers are desirable but short-lived, so longer-lived varieties are being bred for better reliability.

A cultivar is simply a plant that the market deems worthy of replicating, and the term does not reflect the breeding methods or ecological value of the plant. Specifiers can feel confident browsing this catalogue that there is much value for our native Australian wildlife here.

Mixed planting instead of mass planting

Single species mass planted beds have dominated commercial landscapes for decades. However, there is significant change happening within the industry as demand for more biodiverse landscapes increases.

We foresee specifiers aiming to create cohesive mixed planting beds containing plants of different canopy layers that work synergistically for amenity and wildlife. This will be much more complex than designing simple spaces containing a single specimen planted en masse. We would like to simplify the process to encourage specifiers to include more diversity in their planting designs.

Within this catalogue, you will find a series of plant palettes containing dependable Australian native varieties that have similar tolerances, complementary functions, and can be maintained on the same schedule.

For example, a significant consideration is the maintenance of mixed planting schemes, and that’s why we’ve come up with the MEBI (Machine Efficient Biodiverse Installations) concept. All plants in this palette can reliably be pruned just above the ground, making them more dependable with unreliable maintenance efforts.

Strappy plants and shrubs can be pruned with a hedge trimmer, while thicker woody stems can be pruned with a hand saw or chainsaw. Mowers and brushcutters can also be used for softer growth on groundcovers. (see our planting palettes for our MEBI palette)