Nature Play

Bee-Friendly Spaces

administratorUncategorized

We just hit ‘send’ on a wonderful project – a bee friendly space. It’s not our first, and thankfully with the growing awareness of the threat posed by bee extinction, it certainly won’t be our last. Designing bee-friendly spaces are the type of projects that we absolutely love here at Orterra because it’s a chance to collaborate with incredible people such as apiarists as we work towards thriving bee populations across Australia. Bees are essential – full stop! Bees are critically important, no doubt about it. We know that from a biodiversity and ecological perspective that bees play a vital […]

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Bringing all 7 Senses to life through Design

administratorUncategorized

What are the 7 senses? Outdoor spaces are those where all of the senses are heightened. How could they not be? There could be beautifully scented blooms, the sound of wind moving through trees, the cool of a shaded garden, the taste of a herb or a vine-ripened cherry tomato as well as the feel of grass underfoot. There’s the five senses in one paragraph! However, it’s a misconception that we only have five senses. Just like the seven deadly sins and their corresponding heavenly virtues, we have seven senses to take advantage of in our landscape design. All seven […]

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Play Matters – The Impact of Landscapes on Play

debbieEducation, Nature Play

The garden at Coombe in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, once the home of Dame Nellie Melba, is 7+ acres of incredible gardens, including a hedge with a tunnel to a secret garden, where reportedly Dame Nellie’s grandchild loved to play. Wouldn’t that be an incredible childhood memory? Studies over generations have shown the benefits that play of all forms brings to children. We know that outdoor play in particular supports physical activity, a love of nature, language development, creativity, problem solving skills and negotiation. It supports imagination, self-expression and impulse-control. You just have to quietly observe a group of kindergarten children […]

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The Year That was 2022

debbieAbout Orterra, Education, Environment, Garden Design, Infrastructure, Residential

It’s been a year- this has been a challenging year hear at Orterra. We have had some amazing highs and some lows. We have been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. I know we generally like to give your great content consistently however, we have been very busy creating some amazing designs over the last few months for our clients and as we don’t like to provide you with terrible content hence we have let this slide a bit. But don’t worry we have been planning and there are some great things in the pipeline for next year. […]

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How to Start a Loose Parts Play Area At Your School?

debbieEducation, Nature Play

Do you want to bring in loose parts play to your school but are unsure about how to do it? What do you need? Where do you go to get items for children to play with? What about the mess? Do they need more supervision? Today, we are going to break this down into a few steps you can take and ways to get everyone on board. For loose parts play to be successful in a school, all staff need to understand what it is and how it works. Some teachers know a lot about loose parts play, others may […]

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Why Is Nature Play Important?

debbieEducation, Nature Play, Uncategorized
Children Walking through Woods

Through the combination of natural environments and unstructured play, a child’s development can be enhanced. How? Unstructured play affects the way in which a child’s brain develops. What is unstructured play? While there is no dictionary definition it is commonly defined as “an unsupervised activity which children partake without adult interference”. The play is run, directed, and changed by the children playing without adult interference. It can take a simple form or something much more complex which can last for days. Unstructured play can have so many positive outcomes for our children. There is an increase in the development of […]

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