14 Stratton Street is a Newstead office building with planting banded across every level, and the growth hangs down over the glass rather than sitting behind it. We have pruned it every quarter since September 2022.

The gardens are the facade here. There is no bed at ground level to work from and no way to reach most of it from inside, so every round is worked on rope from the roof down, level by level, with the footpath managed underneath.

At a glance

Location

Newstead

Services

Rope access vegetation management

Access

Rope access from the roof, ground control on the footpath

Frequency

Quarterly since 2022

Photos

On site

The planted facade of 14 Stratton Street Newstead with growth cascading from planters on every level — Planters on every level, all of it hanging.

Looking up the glass and planted facade of 14 Stratton Street Newstead — Up the face from Stratton Street.

Trailing planting cascading down the glass facade of a Newstead office building — The cascade the building is known for.

Rope access lines rigged over the parapet edge of an office building with rope protectors — Rigged off the roof, protectors on the edge.

Rope access technician on rope beside a dense wall of trailing planting at 14 Stratton Street — In among it, on the rope.

Rope access technician pruning large leaved planting on a building facade — Working through the big leaf growth.

Looking down at a rope access technician working planting on a facade above the street — Straight down the drop.

Rope access technician descending past glass with a green waste bag — Down past the glass with a full bag.

Rope access technician working a facade planter seen from directly above — At the planter, street below.

Rope access technician working inside a curtain of hanging vine on a building facade — Inside the curtain of it.

Rope access technician bagging green waste at a facade balustrade — Bagging up at the balustrade.

A green waste bag lowered down a building facade above the street — Bags go down, not over.

Rope access technician gathering cuttings from a facade planter — Cuttings kept for the bare spots.

Green waste collected on a landing before removal from site — Everything off the building before we go.

Traffic cones and bunting set out on the footpath below rope access work — Footpath managed under every line.

The planted facade of 14 Stratton Street after a quarterly pruning round — How it sits after a round.

The gardens

Planting that hangs off the building

Every level carries planters along the Stratton Street elevation, plus a run on level five that sits against the neighbouring building. What grows in them, aptenia, pothos and a mix of trailing species, is meant to fall over the edge, so the job is never a hard cut back. It is keeping the fall even, keeping it off the glass and the soffits, and stopping it reaching the point where a level has to be stripped and replanted.

On every round

Prune every planted level so the growth still falls, without swallowing the glass beneath it

Pull roots out of basins, drains, tile gaps and soffits, which is where planting on a building does its real damage

Strip the dead foliage, then fill the gaps with cuttings taken from the fuller areas rather than buying stock in

Bag the green waste on the rope and hand it down, rather than dropping anything to the footpath

Inspect and report the waterproofing and the irrigation, because a planter that fails wets the floor below it

How a round runs

A standard round is two technicians for eighteen hours across a single day. It has been bigger when the growth got ahead of us, a two day round and an extra service in late 2025, and the cycle is booked out to 2027.

The same two or three technicians have worked this building for years, which matters more here than on most sites. Knowing which level was cut hard last time and which one was left to fill in is most of the job.

How we get to it

Off the roof, down the street elevation

Lines rig from the roof and the crew works down the Stratton Street face, stopping at every planted level. It is a working office with a busy footpath below, so the ground gets managed as carefully as the rope. Cones and bunting go out under every active line, and the drops are planned so the entry stays open.

The level five run

One run of planting on level five sits hard against the neighbouring building, with very little room between the two. That section gets worked separately and slowly, because there is nowhere to swing and nowhere to set a bag down.

Parking and access are arranged with the building before every round, and the crew signs in through the concierge the same way every time. Four years in, nobody needs telling where to go.

How we leave it

Tools on lanyards and waste bagged on the rope, never dropped

Bags handed down and taken off site rather than left stacked on a landing

Cones, bunting and signage packed away where the building has approved

Passes and keys handed back before anyone leaves

A progress report to the building at the end of each day, covering who was on site and what was actually cut

Photos uploaded the same day, so the record exists whether or not anyone asks for it

Challenges

What makes this one awkward

The planting has to look loose and still be under control, which is a harder brief than it sounds. Cut it too hard and the level looks bare for a season on a building whose whole character is the greenery. Leave it and it grows across the windows of the floor below.

The roots are the quiet problem. They get into basins, drains, tile joints and soffits, and by the time anything shows up inside, the repair is a building problem rather than a garden one. Pulling them out is the unglamorous part and it is the part that protects the asset.

And all of it happens over a footpath in a working precinct, on a building that cannot shut its front door for a day of pruning.

Outcome

What the building gets

A facade that still reads the way it was drawn, four years on, rather than one that was let go and then cut back to nothing. Gaps get filled with cuttings off the fuller levels, so the planting stays even without a replanting bill.

And a maintenance record going back to 2022, with a report and a set of photos after every round. When something starts to fail, whether that is irrigation, waterproofing or a plant that is simply not going to make it, it gets raised while it is still small.