Liv Anura is two towers at 60 Skyring Terrace in Newstead, twenty three levels and twenty five, with planting built into the terraces and stepped up the facade rather than sitting in a bed at the bottom. Abseil Pro prunes and maintains all of it on rope, quarterly.
It is a build to rent building, so there is no committee and no strata cycle. One operator runs the whole thing and the planting is part of what they are letting. That moves the standard. Overgrown is not something to raise at the next meeting, it is a leasing problem this month.
At a glance
Location
Newstead, Brisbane
Services
Facade and planter vegetation management
Access
Rope access, and off the terrace edges
Frequency
Quarterly
Photos
On site
The gardens
Pruning a garden nobody can stand in
The planting is set into the terraces and stepped up the facade, so most of it cannot be reached from a ladder or a platform. Left for a season the growth runs out past the planter edge, over the slab and down across the level below. By then it is not a trim, it is a recovery, and the plant usually looks worse afterwards.
On every round
Prune back everything growing out past the planter edge, across the glass or over the slab below
Pull weeds and cut out growth that has run into the neighbouring planting
Take roots out of basins, drains, tile gaps and soffits before they get into the waterproofing
Bag green waste at the planter and lower it, rather than dropping anything down the face
Flag what a prune will not fix, whether that is irrigation, drainage or dead stock
How a round runs
Rounds land quarterly. The terraces and the facade planting are worked in the same visit, level by level, so the building is disrupted once a quarter rather than every few weeks.
Photos go up the same day, so there is a dated record of what was cut and what was found, level by level.
How we get to it
Rope from above, boots on the terraces
Some of this is reached by walking out onto a terrace and working the planters from the edge, clipped in. The rest is rigged from above and worked on rope, because the planting sits between levels where there is nothing to stand on.
Getting to the planting
A technician has to stop partway down, get in to the planter, work it with both hands and then keep going. That is slower than a straight drop, and it is why this work is priced by the hour rather than by the drop.
Gear is carried up and stored where the building asks, and access doors are locked behind the crew every time.
How we leave it
Tools tethered, and green waste bagged at the planter rather than dropped
Bags kept out of the way during the round and taken off site at the end of it
Exclusion zones and signage set up under a live drop and packed away after it
Keys and passes back to the building before anyone leaves
Terraces swept and left clear, so residents get them back the way they found them
Photos uploaded the same day, so the record exists whether or not anyone asks for it
Challenges
What makes this one awkward
The planting is the point of the building, which cuts both ways. It has to look deliberate from the street and from every apartment above it, and it cannot be cut back hard just to make the maintenance easier.
Residents are living against it. Terraces are shared amenity and apartments open straight onto the planting, so the crew is working over and beside people at home on a weekday.
Everything below is terrace, glass and footpath. Nothing comes off the building, so every cut is bagged where it is made and lowered on a line.
Outcome
What the building gets
Planting that reads as landscaping rather than neglect, on levels nobody can otherwise reach. Four visits a year keeps it inside a prune instead of letting it build up to a recovery.
The rest is what gets noticed on the way past. A build to rent tower is leased on how it looks, and the greenery running up the facade is the first thing anyone sees from Skyring Terrace.
