Reading The Terrain

The landscape is always giving you information.

Before changing a garden, look at what is already happening.

Water leaves patterns.

Roots reveal where soil is open and where it is restricted.

Spontaneous plants respond to disturbance, moisture, fertility, bare ground and competition.

Organic matter accumulates in some places and disappears quickly in others.

Shade, slope, geology, previous land use and management all leave their mark.

No single clue tells the whole story.

The useful part comes from reading the patterns together.

Start With Your Ground

Perth gardens can begin from radically different starting conditions. Some sit over deep sand with almost no nutrient-holding capacity. Others inherit compacted clay, gravel, lateritic material or shallow soil over rock.

A useful amendment should respond to that starting condition.

These foundation blends are built around some of the soil conditions we encounter most often, with further customisation available where the landscape requires it.

Blends Built Around The Ground

Different soils create different constraints. These blends provide a starting point for

rebuilding the conditions that water, roots, organic matter and soil biology depend on.

Sand Foundation Blend

Clay Structure Blend

Rock & Gravel Foundation Blend

Soil-Building Blend

Living Potting Mix

We don't start with a product.

We start with the system.

Adding compost because soil looks poor, lime because pH is low, fertiliser because leaves are yellow, or microbes because biology sounds beneficial can miss the underlying problem.

Soil exists as a connected chemical, physical and biological environment.

Before changing it, we try to understand it.

OBSERVE

MEASURE

INTERPRET

BUILD

What We Read

A garden rarely has one problem, and no condition exists in isolation. We read the garden across six

connected layers, looking for relationships between the soil, water, chemistry, biology, plants and the wider landscape.

Soil Structure

Water

Minerals & Chemistry

Biology

Plants

Landscape

From Observation to Amendment

A blend should have a reason for being there.

Once the conditions of a garden are understood, amendments can be selected for a purpose, not simply added because they are considered “good for soil.”

A garden may need greater mineral diversity, improved structure, more stable organic matter, increased biological habitat, better water movement, or a combination of these.

The Redox Garden builds amendment strategies around the conditions observed, using materials for the functions they can perform within the system.

Inside A Redox Blend

MINERAL FRACTION

CARBON FRACTION

BIOLOGICAL FRACTION

STRUCTURAL FRACTION

ORGANIC FRACTION

SITE-SPECIFIC FRACTION

Garden Assessments

Every Garden Tells a Story.

Soil structure, water movement, roots, weeds, organic matter and plant health all leave clues. We read them together to understand the system beneath the garden.

Choose the level of investigation that suits your garden.
Garden Walkthrough

Garden Walkthrough

Explore Assessment
Living-System Assessment

Living-System Assessment

Explore Assessment
Redox Garden Blueprint

Redox Garden Blueprint

Explore Assessment