Balyang Consulting’s services include:

• Design – Landscape Master Plans, Planting Plans, Concept Plans,
• Heritage Landscape Consultancy – Landscape Assessments, Impact Statements & Conservation Management Plans,
• Ethnobotanical report on indigenous plants,
• Succession Plans for senescent trees and landscapes,
• Operational and Maintenance Plans,
• Management Strategies,
• Business and Marketing Plans (Landscape focused),
• Stakeholder management and Community Engagements,
• Project Management,
• Detailed Research,
• Site interpretation,
• Climate Change assessment and landscape impacts,

Balyang Consulting is a boutique multidisciplinary practice, with strategic relationships across many disciplines to offer you a complete service.

Director, Dr Jen Dearnaley, is a practicing Landscape Architect and has a deep knowledge of plants from her experience working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Jen also spent a year studying plants in historic landscapes at Hampton Court Palace (UK) where she undertook projects for Glyndebourne (historic Opera House) in East Sussex and Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex (historic home of the Bloomsbury set).

Jen has managed restorations and conservation of historic landscapes including Guilfoyle and Bunce public parks, botanic gardens and arboretums and worked closely with Heritage Victoria and other State Government authorities to protect and enhance these landscapes to ensure they continue for generations.

Designing contemporary landscapes where planting design and biodiversity are essential components is also a specialty of Balyang Consulting. Projects such as the Green Spine in Malop St Geelong sponsored by the Dept. of Transport exemplifies this diversity.

Balyang Consulting’s clients are mostly Government from state (DEWLP, DoT) to local councils and authorities (Corangamite Shire Council, Barwon Water) but includes some private clients as well as smaller historic settings (All Saints Church, Newtown)

Jen was the former host of the garden show on Pulse Fm and has authored a number of papers and co-authored books including Learning Country in Landscape Architecture.

Professional Affiliations / Qualifications

Qualifications

Dr Jen Dearnaley has a PhD in Ethnobotany and has a deep understanding of indigenous landscapes and the cultural relationships with plants that have existed for thousands of years. She has used this knowledge to facilitate the documentation of Indigenous Seasonal Calendars and assist landowners in understanding the cultural significance of the plants that they grow.

Jen also has a Masters of Landscape Architecture majoring in Indigenous Landscapes and Urban Design. She also holds a degree in Business with over 20 years of Project Managing large scale projects on time and on budget. Jen also lectured in Plants and Ecologies amongst other landscape disciplines at Deakin University in the Master’s Degree course for 4 years.

Professional Memberships include:

• Australian Institute Landscape Architecture (AILA)
• Royal Horticultural Society
• Australian Garden History Society
• BGANZ (Botanic Gardens Australia & New Zealand Inc)
• Society of Ethnobiology
• Society of Economic Botany

Awards

• Landscape Architecture Australia Award 2015
• The Most Outstanding Landscape Design Masterclass Student in the Master of Landscape Architecture Degree 2016 – GHD Woodhead Landscape Architecture Award
• The Most Outstanding Built Environment Professional Practice Student in the Master of Planning (Professional) or Landscape Architecture Degrees 2016 – AON Risk Solutions Award
• Excellence in the Visual and Written Presentation of a Landscape Proposition 2015 – Landscape Architecture Australia Student Prize
• The Most Outstanding Landscape Architecture Thesis Student in the Master of Landscape Architecture Degree 2015 – City of Greater Geelong Award
• Charleston Farm Design Project Winner 2010 – home of the Bloomsbury Group based in East Sussex; the project is part of The Centenary Project

Media

Australia’s Emerging Landscape Architecture Talent

Restoration of Yollinko Park wins Landscape Architecture Australia Student Prize

2015 Landscape Architecture Australia Student Prize: Deakin University

AILA announcement student prizes

GHD Woodhead Cultivates Excellence in Landscape Architecture

Expert helps develop gardens plan (p3)

Deakin graduates ready to take on climate change, 1 Oct 2019

Unique Research Connects Deakin To Country: (Print & Online), 3d Oct 2019

Australian Art & Design Education Resource 2016, 34th Edition p 27 – ‘The Restoration of Yollinko Park’

Interviewed on The Pulse Radio Station 94.7FM Part I – 11th March 2017; Part II – 8th April 2017 (prior to becoming host)