Jane Edmanson introduces Costa to the President of the Friends of the Melton Botanic Gardens
Jane brought Costa out to Melton, a Melbourne suburb on the fringe
of the western volcanic plain, to visit a garden that's very close to
her heart - the Melton Botanic Garden.
Excerpt from the
Gardening Australia Fact Sheet: A New Botanic Garden
Presenter: Costa and Jane, 24/05/2014
SERIES 25 Episode 10
Jane and Costa visit Melbourne's west
Jane
has brought Costa out to Melton, a Melbourne suburb on the fringe of
the western volcanic plain, to visit a garden that's very close to her
heart - the Melton Botanic Garden.
She points out some of the
lovely plants on display there - like the eremophilas or Emu bushes.
"Look - see the spots on the flowers," she says. "You know the emu has
such a part to play in these bushes. They eat the seeds, passes through
their system and that's how the seeds germinate." Costa asks about a
small eucalypt. "That's the Eucalyptus woodwardii (Lemon-flowered mallee or Woodward's blackbutt) and they have really big yellow flowers. Quite spectacular," says Jane.
Jane's
been involved with the development of the garden for a number of years -
and they asked her to be the garden's patron. "I'm really thrilled,"
she says. "It's made up of people who are so passionate about their
gardens - locals, local people from Melton - they wanted a Botanic
Gardens and they've got it and it's due to their work. It's incredible.
There was nothing here 10 years ago. It was a desolate sort of area and
they've put all their passion into it and that's why I'm so excited
you're here because, you know, this will really excite you."
Jane
introduces Costa to the President of the Friends of the Melton Botanic
Gardens, John Bentley - undercover, as it's started to rain in the
ordinarily very dry area. "I'm happy to say, I'm developing my
reputation as a rain bringer," says Costa. "It's coming down!"
"We
thank you very much for doing that because we've hardly had any
rainfall for the last three months," says John. "On average, we get
about 450 millimetres of rainfall and a good year is 500 millimetres.
We've focused on having dryland species with the rainfall that Melton
gets. We can't afford to irrigate the area, so we're doing hand watering
until plants establish themselves and then they just have to survive."
Choosing Plants
Jane
adds, "It's impressive because you've got people really close by who've
got new houses, new gardens - they can come here and get really good
ideas of what suits the Melton area."
"That was also part of the
reason for the choice of trees," says John. "With blocks shrinking in
size, many of the trees here are suitable to plant in small gardens, so a
lot of these dryland eucalypts don't get too tall."
Despite the
dryland planting, the park is by a waterway. "We originally had about
ten sites suggested to us," says John. "Out of that, we chose this site
because it has a lake, it has Ryans Creek running through it, it had
established trees, it had a concrete path and other really good natural
aspects about it. We've got 250-year-old River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and Yellow Boxes and Red Boxes, so there was a great infrastructure."
"We've
got 25 hectares here. It's going to take a long time to develop that.
That might take us 20, 30, 50 years, so a lot of our members know that
they won't live to see it to fruition. But they're planting seeds now
for the future and that, we feel, is really exciting," says John. "We've
got a great range of volunteers and we have a fantastic team. We do
have a tagline that we use, 'Growing Plants, Growing People.' "
One
of those volunteers shows Costa around. David Pye, with his wife
Barbara, has propagated most of the garden's new plants. "Many of the
eucalypts in this garden are quite small-growing and suited to home
gardens. For example, this plant here, Eucalyptus albida (White-leaved Mallee) only grows to about three metres," says David.
Costa
admires the grey-white juvenile foliage and asks David how to keep it
coming, rather than developing into the green mature leaves. "Just prune
the tree back," says David. "Cut it as hard as you like."
"Now
the good thing about these small trees is you can get a few of them in
your garden, but will this grow in a pot?" Costa asks David.
"Oh, certainly will. Big enough pot, it should do really well," David says.
Dryland Shrubs
David
explains the prevalence of Eremophilas in the garden. "They're dryland
shrubs that thrive in Melton and the western suburbs of Melbourne.
There's a huge number of them. They're very colourful - many of them can
be easily propagated and they really do suit gardens in general. This
one's known as Eremophila subteretifolia. It's a low-spreading
groundcover. It'll spread to a couple of metres wide, it flowers most of
the year. A lot of the Eremophilas flower after rain rather than being
seasonal, they'll flower freely at all sorts of times of the year. This
is Eremophila glabra 'Kalbarri Carpet' - one you'll often see in nurseries."
"It's combining beautifully with the plant next to it," says Costa. "What's that one?"
"That plant is a Western Australian plant, Gastrolobium sericeum - often seen on the market as Brachysema sericeum."
Costa
asks if pruning, maintenance and getting trodden on is a problem with
the many groundcovers. "Not with the Kalbarri Carpet," says David. "You
can prune that really hard. If a dog or child jumps in and makes a mess
of it, you can tidy it up quite nicely.
After chasing funding,
creating a design, consulting with the local community and finalising a
concept plan, the first plants were put in the ground in 2011 and the
Friends of the Melton Botanic Gardens - like David and John - haven't
looked back.
It's a truly local effort that promises decades of pleasure.
Read the
original article and watch the video
There's a lot more to growing beautiful flowers than you might think and gardeners are very passionate about their turf. Why not get involved? Its a great way of learning about gardening and meeting new friends.
A
wick works through capillary action – the same force you observe when
you dip a piece of tissue paper partially into a glass of water and
watch the water climb the paper. Wicking occurs in many materials;
cotton, wool, geo-textile, soil, gravel and even wood to some degree.
Every material has different wicking properties which you can test by
placing that material into a glass of water and watching the water
“climb” up. When one end of the wick is saturated and the other end is
dry, it creates a moisture gradient, which drives the wick until the
gradient no longer exists or you run out of water. With the earth box,
one of the more popular examples in North America, the soil is suspended
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pulling
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moister through the wick into the soil.
No
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will struggle to support plant life.
Most
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media, a layer in between the soil and the water reservoir, as their
wick. This is an easy and cheap way of supporting the soil on top of the
reservoir. Gravel is the most common medium, but there are a number of
materials that do the trick. Here’s a good 
