Now before I begin let’s get one thing straight here – I am not AAI (Anti Artificial Intellegence).
In fact some of my closest friends use AI.
One of them is even in the early stages of developing his own Garden Design phone App and seeking my horticultural and garden design input as we speak, which I am happily providing – he is an old mate from way back after-all. And if I’m completely honest, I did use Google a bit to research and locate scholarly sources when I was studying horticulture and garden design. But that was before that hideous spine-tingling ChatGPT beast emerged from Dr Frankenstein’s lab (more commonly referred to as Stanford University) – so back then it was only the Google-eyed AI monster I was familiar with.
And I’m no Luddite either.
As a Generation X-er I grew up with computers and I even had the very first Nintendo Console as a kid in the late 80s. Although incredibly dated now of course, at the time the original Mario Bros and Zelda games were absolutely mind-blowing in the same way AI is today. The million-dollar prices collectors are now paying for unopened copies of these same games I once owned is also mind-blowing. Suffice to say, I’m slightly annoyed that my mother didn’t have the prophetic foresight to buy two copies of each and hide one unopened in the top cupboard for the next thirty-odd years!
Even now I’m well into my forties and I still play video games, albeit far less frequently than I did back then due to the obvious constraints on my time now, but computers and game consoles have always been a part of my life. And, unlike my own kids who just take them for granted, I actually have deep wonder and appreciation for how far this technology has actually come because I was around when it was all starting! I can now sit down and play an ultra-realistic PlayStation 5 game today and be in absolute awe at the immersive detail of these intricate virtual worlds and the ultra-human-like AI ‘Non-Player Characters (NPC’s)’ that can be interacted with.
Indeed, it was these types of games that inspired me to learn and incorporate 3D rendering software into my Garden Designs in the first place. In playing these games I could see the potential for creating super realistic 3D representations of clients’ gardens which would allow them to visualise what their future outdoor spaces might actually look like in reality by giving them a ‘virtual’ sneak peak of their designs before committing to construction.
Often, as I would play a visually stunning game like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Ghost of Tsushima I would spend more time just exploring the digital landscape admiring all the plants and trees the game developers had so masterfully included that it usually took me three times longer than other players to complete the actual game tasks as I would stop and inspect every flower, shrub and blade of grass as I navigated through these amazing life-like computer-generated worlds. Ironically, another game I recently played entitled Detroit: Become Human actually has you playing as an AI Android in the dystopian future and the entire plot is – to cut a long story short – about the impending inevitable war between Robots and Humans for world domination! Even the beautiful garden details in that game had me distracted half the time again though.
Of course I would always prefer to wander through a real garden admiring real plants, that goes without saying, but the potential for use of IT software in garden and landscape design quickly became abundantly clear to me after experiencing these digital worlds. And it also goes without saying that I’m not the only one who has identified this opportunity. As I mentioned earlier, I have a friend currently developing a Garden Design App and there are already many others available in the App stores. There are also many exclusively online companies (operating domestically and internationally) also using software to provide designs (including 3D renders) all across Australia entirely remotely without even visiting the properties they are designing.
In fact, I have even been called out to visit and consult Canberra residents who have already paid handsome sums of money to such companies to have their gardens remotely designed from afar, who, it must be said, were somewhat underwhelmed by what they ended up receiving for their ‘hard-earned’. The problem wasn’t so much on the IT side of the ledger though, because the actual designs and 3D renders themselves were ok, as these companies are obviously resourced well with staff who know their way around a computer, whether they’re sitting in an office in Australia or abroad. The issue these clients had was that they ended up with designs that had absolutely no appreciation for the specific horticultural requirements Canberra’s unique climate and soil conditions require, because these companies aren’t quite so well resourced with horticulturists who have such specific local knowledge and expertise.
So what these clients actually ended up receiving was a pretty-looking design full of random generic plants that they couldn’t make head nor tail of, hence why they needed to call me out to try and explain this overwhelming and indecipherable garden design to them. Unfortunately, given that they didn’t even receive a plant list or written report, all I could really tell them was that most of the plants looked like tropical plants that might grow in far north Queensland but wouldn’t survive a single day in Canberra unless they permanently housed them in a greenhouse! So in the end they had to commission me to redesign their entire garden with plants that were not only suited to Canberra’s conditions but appropriate for the clients specific property – because even Canberra friendly plants can still turn their noses up if they’re planted in the wrong site location (i.e. the wrong aspect in terms of north, south, east, west and sun/wind/radiant heat exposure or the wrong geology/topography in terms of planting in unameliorated heavy clay soil in a boggy low part of the garden for instance).
And if you think online remote garden designers neglect to consider local conditions I haven’t even started on AI!
However, this blog is beginning to overstay its welcome for your scrolling thumb so i’ll be quick.
Take a photo of your garden and dump it into ChatGPT or some other Garden Design AI generator or App (no offence mate) but unless you spend hours inputting detailed and highly specific instructions which only a local horticulturist could ask anyway then good luck getting anything remotely thoughtful or considered in terms of plants that will actually grow, let alone thrive, in your Canberra garden! Even the landscaping redesigns they spit out often make no aesthetic or functional sense whatsoever. What’s more, actually talking with a trained horticulturist or landscape designer on site in the real world is an irreplaceable process in terms of bouncing ideas and thinking outside the square of what all the options might be for your space.
Of course, perhaps it is still early days for the AI juggernaut.
Maybe in another decade or so the robots may actually be able to fly themselves out to your garden and walk around with you talking specifically and knowledgeably about your site and its unique aspect and conditions. And maybe they’ll also be able to follow up with a design that lists suitable plants and situates them in viable locations with planting and care instructions whilst also putting all the paths, garden-beds, decks, retaining walls, paving etc in the best configuration after considering how your particular household would actually like to use your outdoor space or what privacy issues need to be addressed and what borrowed landscapes could be incorporated and so on and so forth.
And maybe as they beep and buzz with you through your garden they’ll even be able to recount interesting stories about how when they were ten-years-old in 1989 they had epic sleep-overs with their friends in the warm cosy basement of their house in Canada where they stayed up all night trying to beat Super-Mario 3 on their Nintendo Entertainment System as inches and inches of snow fell and covered their driveway, which they would have to shovel off when the sun eventually emerged to earn some pocket money to put towards their next computer generated game.
Who knows, maybe one day the robots will even be able to create great art, author gripping fiction, pen profound poetry or, dare I say it, write engaging garden blog articles that humans would actually like to read when they’re not just wanting quick and easy re-constituted information because they’re too busy and stressed at work “being accountable” for the suspicious answers AI has offered in response to their boss’s soon-to-be-obsolete questions to actually sit down and do so.
Maybe…