Queen’s Wharf Brisbane

Queen’s Wharf is a $3.6 billion precinct in the Brisbane CBD. We won the interior landscaping tender in December 2023 and installed 1,614 plants and 595 pots through it.

The client

Queen’s Wharf Brisbane is led by The Star Entertainment Group. The precinct holds four hotels, around 2,000 apartments, more than fifty hospitality venues, a 1,500-seat ballroom and a casino, and is expected to see about 1.4 million visitors a year.

The brief

The planting had to do two jobs at once. It had to hold up aesthetically across spaces as different as a porte cochère and a private dining room, and it had to work structurally, dividing areas without building walls to do it. The clearest example is the hotel lobby, where the planting is what separates the lobby from the Japanese restaurant, Sokyo.

What the site made difficult

Three things shaped the installation.

• Wind. The porte cochère regularly sees winds over 50km/h. We planted it with wind-tolerant species, principally Trachelospermum jasminoides.
• Low light. In the darker zones we used Philodendron ‘Congo’ and Spathiphyllum, which hold condition without supplementary lighting.
• Access. Site access was limited, the program moved more than once, and we shared a loading zone with every other trade on site. That meant working in shorter windows than we would have chosen, and the installation still finished on time and on budget.

Pots and top dressing

The pots were chosen with as much care as the planting itself. Fifty different designs came from five suppliers, each one selected to survive high traffic in a building where everything is looked at closely, and some of the planters are hand-pressed concrete made to order. Black polished pebbles top-dress the casino areas, while pine bark mulch finishes the rest.

The result

The finished plantscape holds 1,614 plants in 595 designer pots. The largest single run of it is at the hotel entrance, where 569 plants form the division between the lobby and Sokyo.

Maintenance

Servicing runs weekly or fortnightly depending on the area, across seventeen floors. The work happens around the building rather than interrupting it, because a precinct like this never really closes.

Pest and disease management is organic wherever possible. Tropical stock is treated with white oil and eco oil before it comes to site, rather than after a problem appears. Where sub-irrigation is not practical, we use a wicking system built for the pot. Pruning and trimming are part of every visit.

Recognition

This installation won Gold at the 2025 International Plantscape Awards, presented at the Tropical Plant International Expo gala in Fort Lauderdale. The judges’ comments dealt with the logistics as much as the design, which is the part of this job that is hardest to see once it is finished.