AUSTRALIAN NATIVE HARDWOODS

Appearance of Eucalypts (native hardwoods)

Consumers once sought hardwoods with a uniform tone and texture. It's an instinctive approach. A need to civilise - to tame nature before allowing her into our homes. By definition, this taming process fights the normal order of things. It runs counter to the natural selection of appearance in eucalypts. A native hardwood, cut bark to bark, will reveal a range of tones from dark centre to pale sapwood - the latest heart being more mellow than the core. Sometimes the colour spectrum is a well-mannered gradient. At other times it has an intensity - infiltrated by ruby or dark brown streaks; or narrow filaments of blues, greys and greens which appear after drying.

We have all grown up in houses and schools where the floors did display a quartersawn uniformity and narrow range of tonal change. This tame, tailored look can exist - but it's a contrived look. Boards are selected and graded for uniformity. Not only is it artifice and meddling, but it involves waste. It must have had appeal in a different age. Timber was cheap and there always seemed to be a lot of trees. Transport was the difficult and costly ingredient in timber supply back then.

Grading to select still involves waste. It isn't the complete waste that it used to be, as hardwood mills have developed good downstream recovery of timber in flooring and parquetry. It seems to me that grading to select is an unnecessary arrogance. Unnecessary because, to timber lovers, it will always fail to appease or to satisfy. It doesn't typify eucalypts. It doesn't give a true picture of the species selected. It won't deliver any of the interest of a tree cut bark to bark. Not a feather of feature, hobnail, insect tracks, wisps of kino or the necessary tribal markings of a eucalypt. An arrogance because it involves waste and because it panders to an urban boardroom version of best. It just seems silly.

If you hadn't already guessed by now - we don't keep domesticated timbers at the Timberzoo. The Timberzoo has wild, untamed timbers from the urban-industrial forest. Come in and see our recycled and Natural Feature Grade timbers. A safari to Timberzoo won't ever be a wasted journey.

Tonal variation in Spotted Gum