Gardens of Celebration

'St Kilda Botanic Gardens trashed by Australia Day revellers' trumpeted the headline in the Bayside (Melbourne) Leader newspaper on 31 January.  The story, accompanied by a photograph of discarded rubbish, bottles, and (if my eyes don't deceive me) clothes, told the tale of some several thousand folk who gathered in St Kilda's historic botanic garden to celebrate our national day with a big noisy and fairly messy party.  Ball games, drinking, loud music and shenanigans inevitably ensued, and things apparently became quite ugly as the evening arrived.

Image from Bayside Leader newspaper - StKilda Botanic Gardens trashed on Australia Day

I only mention this as a marked contrast to the wonderful celebration of Australia Day in two outstanding private gardens on the Mornington Peninsula (SE of Melbourne) on the same day.  The Paul Bangay designed 'Bagnols', and garden designer Rick Eckersley's own 'Musk Creek Cottage' were the two gardens opened for a twilight celebration of our diverse garden culture.  

'Bagnols'

'Bagnols' near Shoreham demonstrated the familiar Bangay styling, with influences from the provinces of France - quite controlled forms of evergreen hedging and trees, defining spaces and presenting a fascinating interplay between mass and void, vertical and horizontal planes.  Nearby 'Musk Creek Cottage' was a different kettle of fish, where sinuous paths led the visitor to decks, across reed beds, around a dam, and through woodland.  Contemporary sculpture sat within mass-planted ground layers, and individual trees presented their own artful contributions.  

Folk relaxing at 'Musk Creek Cottage'

Visitors at both gardens enjoyed beautiful food, including all-too-tempting skewers of fresh strawberries alternated with marshmallows.... delicious, and almost a health food!  Paella artisans plied their trade, the obligatory sausages sizzled, local wineries plied their products, and the coffee cart ran hot.  Classical guitar music greeted visitors at 'Bagnols', while at 'Musk Creek Cottage', a three-piece jazz ensemble entertained the company, perfectly.

So - this is about respect for our gardens.  The unfortunate experience of the St Kilda Botanic Gardens was an example of a garden being used as a site for celebrations, but where the fact of it being one of Victoria's more significant historic botanic gardens was not in the equation.  It was simply a backdrop for 'celebratory' misbehaviour.  The visitors to the two Twilight Gardens on the Mornington Peninsula went there to enjoy our garden diversity, which is in itself a reflection of our varied cultures in Australia. These two gardens played their role as mediums for social connection and interaction, as ever they do.  But how often do good news stories such as this get the media's attention?  Sadly, a mound of rubbish usually wins out. What does this say about our nation?

Rubus vs. Your Correspondent

Here is the latest score card:
Rubus 2;  Your Correspondent 3.

At last!  I'm ahead, albeit by the slenderest of margins.  The game isn't over yet, though - it's a very long-term contest, with fortunes ebbing and changing month by month, and year by year.

Team Rubus has two key players in our garden - the pernicious Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), and its more agreeable accomplice the Loganberry (Rubus X loganobaccus).  The Blackberry, a ubiquitous weed of watercourse margins and bushland in south-eastern Australia is one of those wonderful examples of a plant enjoying its surroundings.  Well, more than enjoying them - as it turns out.

Introduced to Australia from Europe during the enthusiastic acclimatisation phase of our settlement in the mid-1800's, the Blackberry has become one of our more costly weeds to control.  The credit/blame for its introduction is usually ascribed to the famous botanist Dr Ferdinand Mueller - later Baron von Mueller - who we understand thought that it would be a fine thing to augment our natural flora and to provide sustenance for the wandering vagabond (I'm paraphrasing fairly heavily here).  In its favour, it does produce the most delicious fruit in late summer - which is eaten by birds and others, and the seed is further spread around the countryside.  Unfortunately (for the human), the canes and even the petioles bear unbelievably sharp thorns that can bring a grown man to tears.

Baron von Mueller possibly contemplating the successful acclimatisation of Blackberry in Victoria

One could actually buy Rubus fruticosus in nurseries in Victoria from 1855 until about 1873, when perhaps the more observant nurserymen might have noted that its novelty value was wearing thin, and its weed potential was on the rise.

Here in the home garden, your Correspondent wages a continuing campaign against the Blackberry to try to prevent it from taking over the shrubberies.  Generally dormant through winter (the plant, not me), it gets up and about through spring and becomes particularly brazen in summer - if there is any moisture about.  This year our summer has been very dry, which is not great for the garden in general, but is a blessing for putting a crimp in the jaunty step of the Blackberry.

Blackberry - the good bits.

Sensing that it was a little off its game, and emboldened by a new pair of man-sized leather gauntlets as protection, I have taken on the Blackberry thicket, and (I think) come out on top.  After trying various tactical approaches, my preferred play is just to grab the thorny canes, and heave them up out of the ground.  Yes, it is a little perilous, as the canes whip around and cause lacerations to any part of the body in their sweep, and yes, just spraying them out with your herbicide of choice would probably be more effective in the long run... but where is the fun in that?  Of course there are some roots left there in the ground, and they will shoot next year, and then we can face off again.

In the meantime, the thicket is gone, my scratches are healing, and I have uncovered some long forgotten things in the garden (eg. other plants).  While taking this battle up to the Blackberries, I have been fortified, quite regularly, by an enormous crop of juicy Loganberries from a suite of vines I planted a few years ago.  I bought them as raspberries, and had more or less given up on them - they had sulked for two summers - before springing into action this season.  

It became apparent that they weren't actually raspberries as they continued to grow large and ripen to almost black... Not raspberries, but Loganberries, then.
I now have learnt that the Loganberry is a variety bred either deliberately or by fortunate accident by a lawyer and horticulturist named J H Logan of Santa Cruz, California in 1883.  Its parents were believed to be the Rubus ursinus 'Aughinbaugh', and R. idaeus 'Red Antwerp'.  The Loganberries appear to enjoy our climate, including hot summers and fairly reliable frosts in winter.

Anyway, we have harvested bucket-loads of berries (no, they aren't technically a berry, thank you for pointing this out... they are aggregates of drupelets if you must know; true berries are single-ovaried, with the seed surrounded by flesh such as a grape), and the home team has eaten them by the handful.  I have even gone to the extent of netting them against the predations of our sharp-eyed birdlife (I can't for the life of me see how four little birds breached the net security and were flapping about inside the net... they seemed pleased to be released, which did rather suggest that it was misadventure rather than a well-planned raid).

So - in summary:  Blackberry thickets humbled, Loganberries producing magnificently.  I think, for once in many decades, that your Correspondent is every so slightly ahead in this game.

Hey, Pesto!

I'm going on the record here.  There is, in my view, no more pleasant aroma than that of a freshly-made batch of pesto.  No, I don't mean the benign concoctions that one finds in the jar at the local supermarket. No, no, no.  I mean the heavenly green composition that is the product of a bunch of fresh sweet basil, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of grated parmesan cheese, a good measure of toasted pine nuts and a light lubrication of good olive oil, all thrown into a blender to get acquainted.  Apply fresh pesto to anything, and it will be better.

(Ok, perhaps I should have excluded the pavlova, and perhaps also the fruitcake, and certainly the family cat from the list of things improved by pesto.  Please exercise some common sense here.)

I was reflecting on the wondrous pesto while driving back from Conifer Gardens nursery at Ferny Creek in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges yesterday, having gone there to select a good specimen of Pinus pinea (Stone Pine) for a ceremonial planting to be undertaken by the Governor-General in the ACT in March. 

Young specimen of Pinus pine

 They are a marvellous tree, the Stone Pine.  They are incredibly hardy in dry conditions (hence the 'Stone Pine' common name, a reference to the dry, stony ground where one often finds them growing around the Mediterranean perimeter and islands), and their mature umbrella-like canopy profile is curiously endearing.  They are also, of course, the source of the pine nuts that give pesto its particular allure.

Stone Pine (Pinus pinea), image borrowed from ForestNation (UK)

A quick check of our friend the worldwidewireless  (see the Gymnosperm Database www.conifers.org) tells me that they probably originated on the Iberian Peninsula (ie. Spain more-or-less), but they have been spread around the inhabited parts of southern Europe and northern Africa, and the associated trade routes and bits and pieces for perhaps half a million years.  They have been cultivated for their seeds for maybe 6000 years, or perhaps double that period. At various times, pine nuts have been a precious commodity, maybe used as currency.

Here in Victoria, they have been available for purchase at least since 1857 - the year they appeared in catalogues for both Rule's nursery in Richmond, and also Adcock's nursery in Geelong.  Mature specimens are to be found in groves here and there, generally in the drier parts of our landscape. I recall making a habit of stopping in the grove of Stone Pines on my walk home from junior school in Geelong, in order to graze on the small though delicious morsels that the cones provided. 

If one delves further into the references, sooner or later, one will find several references to the aphrodisiac qualities of the pine nut.  The Roman poet Ovid, and the Greek physician Galenos, for example, extol the pine nut's excellent virtues for increasing sexual potency.  The Roman celebrity Apicius recommended pine nuts, honey and almonds taken before bedtime for three consecutive evenings in order to ... erhem... improve things.  Later Arab texts are more specific: 20 almonds, 100 pine nuts, accompanied by a glassful of thick honey for three nights... and hey presto.  Which brings us back (almost)  nicely to pesto.

People, fires and gardens

Fascinating visit to two gardens open through Open Gardens Australia (www.opengarden.org.au) in the central highlands of Victoria yesterday - two days after the threat of a bushfire spreading across from the west through these very communities.  Resilient folk, our gardeners!

The garden named 'Sedum' at Hepburn Springs, in particular, was of great interest as it has been recently planned, planted and maintained as a case study of sensible garden-scaping in a fire-prone environment.  Along, no doubt, with many of the other visitors across the weekend, I was delighted to find very aesthetically pleasing plant combinations and an artful garden layout, rather than the barren carpark approach that all too often in Australia is our response to achieving some measure of protection from fire events.

Espaliered pears form a protective screen behind dense planting on the embankment at 'Sedum'

It was clear that the site was not an easy one in which to establish a garden - exhibiting a testing mix of heavy clay (now baked hard by the summer sun) and   exposed reefs of rock.  The garden slopes away into a gully, on an eastern aspect, with an outlook through the trunks and canopies of striking Manna Gums (Eucalyptus viminalis).  Again, while these trees are known to burn (as do all eucalypts), they are at a sensible distance from the house and therefore present an acceptable risk in balance with the beauty that they lend year-round.

The house overlooks the low planting of the surrounding garden

Planting was generally quite dense, to reduce the need for surface mulches (which are often flammable), path materials were stone, a creatively-paved area separated the house from the more flammable elements in garden beds, and as the garden's name suggests, Sedums and other fleshy selections such as Aeoniums and Cotyledons were abundant.  All of this had been achieved within 2.5 years!

Sensibly laid-out productive area of the garden

There was much to be learned from this garden - which to me represented a step forward in our horticultural response to living within environments that we know to be (sometimes disastrously) combustible.  The CFA (our state's primarily volunteer Country Fire Authority) in partnership with the owners has produced a very informative leaflet about the garden, its features and its story.  This can be read in conjunction with the CFA's more detailed general guide 'Landscaping for Bushfire' (see cfa.vic.gov.au).

Great to see the local CFA team in support also - with the sausages and burgers on the barbecue.   Your correspondent saw no option but to support the local lads and lasses, by reducing their stockpile by a measure or two.

This put a slight crimp in one's usually springy step at the second site 'Sailors Hill Garden', which was nevertheless charming, being a garden surrounding an old cottage with a most impressively robust English Oak as the centrepiece.  It was a marvellous oasis of cool green foliage - which in itself provides a measure of protection from the threat of flames and embers.  

The somewhat bucolic view towards Daylesford's Wombat Hill from under the canopy of the old English Oak at 'Sailor's Hill Garden'

The Summer Crisp

How quickly things have turned a crisp brown in the garden.  Certainly we had the decade of drought - supposedly the worst ever in our part of the world, and the plants looked like they were doing it tough... but somehow most of them seemed to harden up, and to endure.  Two wet summers ensued (the wettest on record!), and our gardens looked a million dollars.  I should qualify that - our home patch was a little  under the million-dollar-standard measure according to the internal assessment panel on which I hold a minority vote.

But the rain has tapered off, and now we are in the middle of perhaps a 'typical' hot, dry January.  There has been no significant rainfall in our part of the country for some weeks now - and we live in a part of Victoria that can usually rely on at least a couple of summer thunderstorms to keep the dust down.  The plants in our garden that had enjoyed the two years of plenty, and those of many friends, are looking like they have given up the fight.  Oh, I know that most of them will survive, and when the rains come sooner or later, they'll perk up a little just before closing up shop for the winter.  Just now they look like a scene from the epic film 'Giant'.  You know the one - James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson... all house, dust and meaningful scowls, and a little oil.  That's our garden right now... without the oil, I should point out.  If we had oil, then things might take on a new jauntiness.

That is the thing about gardens, particularly in southern Australia.  The passage from spring flush to summer crispness can be remarkably short, and the overall appearance of a garden can change markedly week by week.  But equally, given a few good falls, it can all turn around again, and the softening tinges of green growth can appear if not overnight, then certainly within a few days.  That characteristic underpins the inherent optimism of gardeners in our part of the world.  Thank goodness!

I'm looking forward to seeing the garden 'Sedum' over at Hepburn Springs this weekend (open with Open Gardens Australia www.opengarden.org.au) - a garden that has been deliberately planned and planted to reduce the threat of bushfire damage.  Given the past week that we've had in most of Australia, and with fires still burning in most states and territories, the garden of 'Sedum' might present some pertinent features from which to learn.

Gardening Santa

 Full points to Open Gardens Australia's Santa this season.  Confronted with the expectant faces of a melee of young folk, he reached into his sack, and handed over small presents to each... not the common assortment of cheap lollies from our Santa, but a thoughtful array of garden-related goods.  Hand tools scaled for use by small hands, packets of seeds, colourful garden gloves (oh, and a couple of small model Spitfire 'planes... for reasons that shouldn't need explanation).

The delight on the faces of the recipients was genuine, and I would be surprised if Santa's gifts have not already been usefully deployed in the home garden patch by most of those kids.  Santa, like many others among us, is well aware of the importance of providing opportunities for young people to get their hands into the dirt, to grow plants, and to simply enjoy being out in a garden.  If a colourful pair of gloves makes that experience more enticing, then all the better (though the same can't be said for washing up, but that's an entirely different matter...).

We know from research around the world about the value of young people being involved with garden activities - be it informally in the home garden, or in a more structured way through schools or other forms of organisation.  We understand better now (I hope) how these experiences can assist in the development of a stronger connection with nature, and custodianship of the local environment.  

In October late last year I was thrilled to present the opening address at the 'Jardins Sans Limites' (Gardens Without Limits) conference in Metz, France.  The theme was 'the value of gardens for young people', and we were treated to a wonderful selection of inspiring speakers, mostly from the northern hemisphere (Kate Hillier from the Ellerslie Flower Show in NZ was the other southern hemisphere traveller!).  Full credit to Pascal Garbe (Director of the Jardins Fruitiers de Laquenexy near Metz) and the Regional Council of Moselle - they really know how to put together an outstanding event.  

In introducing the topic and talking about the Australian experience, I found a plethora of examples of projects and programs focused on providing opportunities for children in gardens.  Of course, the Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden at RBG Melbourne is (not only in my view) one of the best examples of a garden (i.e. with plants!) specifically designed to encourage creative play.  This garden is highly regarded internationally by those who know it (and also very well-loved locally by its regular energetic patrons!).

Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Foundation in Australia continues to provide a structured program and template for schools to follow, linking growing produce with healthy eating... and of course many other schools and groups undertake similar activities on their own, usually with the ardent support of some enthusiastic volunteer parents.

Our own Open Gardens Australia seeks to encourage young people to be interested in gardens, by providing free entry to all under 18 years old.  To be honest, I haven't seen many 17 year-olds being taken around a garden and exhibiting the symptoms of horticultural excitement... but who knows?  Most of us when we think fondly of a place of our childhood will remember a particular place in a specific garden - complete with its sounds, smells, colours and textures.  

If we can assist by embedding that memory of a garden in everyone's minds, then we have done something of lasting value.  Well done, that Santa.