SEE THE BOMBERS FLOURISH

Essendon Football Club receives a makeover from long-time fan Wes Fleming and the Fleming’s team.

If you are a true Melburnian born and bred, you are going to have a footy team, an AFL team, and you are most likely going to be passionate about that team … so it is with the Fleming family!

The Fleming family has a long and passionate relationship with the Essendon Football Club — which extends to third generation owner of the business and managing director, Wes Fleming. This is why Fleming’s Landscapes’ work on the Essendon Football Club’s new digs at Tullamarine has not only been a great professional opportunity but also a passion project from the outset.

Wes was personally involved in the landscape design, plant selection and construction of the project, even grabbing a shovel himself at times. Such is his commitment to the success of the gardens at the club’s new training facility.

The project started in 2015, establishing two key stages; the boundary planting along a raised ridge, which borders the main football oval, and the carpark. Establishing the carpark was an important starting point, with Wes aiming to create a much-needed canopy cover — gifting the club advanced trees to ensure mature trees and shade cover as soon as possible.

Approximately 40 advanced trees were planted at this time, including Acer (Maples), Quercus (Oak), Cedrus, Zelkova trees, as well as hardy and maintenance friendly plants such as Phormium tenax All Black, in addition to a new plant Fleming’s Nursery released, a Casuarina glauca called Greenwave. Seven years on, these plants are well established in the tough site conditions, forming a sea of green that serves as an impressive backdrop to the main football oval.

In 2016, the High Performance Centre of the Essendon Football Club, known as “The Hangar”, was further shaped by the talented Fleming’s team, led by Wes himself. The team focused on creating mass garden beds planted densely with feature trees and shrubs, designed to help soften the large mass of the facility. These gardens provide much needed greenspace for the staff and players.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, further works at the site have seen the team from Fleming’s complete an impressive “ceremonial” garden and extensive landscaping at the entrance of the club, along with side and rear landscape gardens.

In the ceremonial garden, the addition of a firepit for smoke rituals pays homage to First Nations Australians. This inclusion serves as an acknowledgement of the lands upon which the Essendon teams play, as well as paying tribute to the many great Indigenous Australian AFL players that have donned the black and red sash.

An impressive multitier concrete staircase runs through the ceremonial garden, leading to the entrance of the club. Super-sized boulders from Fleming’s quarry partners in Yea are spread throughout the surrounding garden beds, while a life-sized bronze statue of Michael Long stands at the top of the stairs to welcome visitors.

Filling out the garden beds in an abundant display are super-advanced Xanthorrhoea glauca, mass plantings of grasses and native ground covers, along with key feature trees such as the Quercus coccinea Bomber. The Bomber is a Fleming’s tree, selected by Wes personally, and is named after the club due to its black and red autumn foliage.

Wes has taken great pride in the design and installation of the club gardens and has loved seeing it become more established over the past seven years. “This garden just gets better and better,” he enthuses. “I have enjoyed turning this bare-bones site, without a tree as far as you could see, into the well-established thriving environment it is today.

“We had a lot of challenges to overcome over the years. We needed to work closely with Melbourne Airport to ensure our planting had minimal impact on the flight zone — necessitating many project meetings with the Airport to agree on plant selections. We also had to deal with the intense winds well known in the area. Establishing advanced trees in high wind zones is a specialist job in itself.

“We had to deal with the complexity of no topsoil and rock-hard sub soil, all of which needed to be addressed before we planted a single plant,” Wes recalls.

“This project was developed in conjunction with our design team, Flow Design Studio, and built by our Fleming’s Landscapes construction team. Fleming’s Nursery, our production nursery, supplied the plants. It has been a team project run true to the Fleming’s brand.”

Understanding the importance of a well-designed landscape on everyone’s mental and physical wellbeing, Wes felt it was imperative to create “A safe place for the players. A place with a strong identity and as many trees as we were allowed to ensure canopy and greenspace, which helps reduce anxiety, stress and pressure.”

With a solid landscape behind them, Wes and the Fleming’s team look forward to future projects on the grounds of the Essendon Football Club in the coming years. Go Bombers!

PROJECT PARTICULARS

Client Essendon Football Club

Location Tullamarine, Melbourne

Landscape Design Flow Design Studio

Construction Fleming’s Landscapes

Plant Supply Fleming’s Nurseries

Project Management Fleming’s Nurseriesa