After the fall: what a garden might look like at the end of the world

The climate crisis inspired garden, which is titled Coming Soon, features plants the designers have seen growing in abandoned gardens. It will open at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show on 31 March. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

Abandoned by humans, no longer inhabitable, a typical suburban Melbourne home sinks into a marshland – perhaps it was caused by flooding, or rising sea levels. A wild entanglement of vegetation creeps around and over the built structures, a forest of self-seeded garden escapers.

Or that’s the plan, anyway. At this stage, the exhibit is not so much a garden as a construction site from a builder’s anxiety dream. On 31 March, it will be ready for the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show in Carlton Gardens. The installation, titled Coming Soon, is a showcase garden by Akas Landscape Architecture and Nrth Landscapes, exploring a possible future for Melbourne’s suburban yards.