The days are beginning to warm, and there are plenty of signs of life throughout the gardens. The visitation to the playground has gone through the roof as we have had some nicer days, it’s nice to see the place filled with people again, and the treetops are humming with wildlife.
It is a great time to be working and walking in the garden, with new growth evident everywhere, but everything seems to be moving a little slow. I bet with all this rain things will really pick up mid-spring.
We have still got some cutting back to do with some grasses, and then we’ll get stuck into hedging from mid-spring. So far, the hedges are going great guns – there will be a bit of hedging work to do, but the Photinias when they get that red tinge about them are magnificent.
All the trees are also breaking out, so our arborist crew is keeping an eye on all the new growth. While the process seems to be a bit slower this year, there’s certainly a lot of new buds around. All of the Gardens’ new beds have established well, they’ll be kicking along quite nicely through spring.
Around the place, winter blooms still are holding on. Our Hellebores are still lasting through to the start of spring, and the Catalogue Garden Collection - near the front gates - is featuring some great Japanese Quinces right now, while the Echiums are just about to pop. Interestingly, the Catalogue Garden is so named as it features a range of plant species that were on offer for households to plant or were in the nursery trade in the late 19thcentury, with plants selected from the publication Plants Listed in Nursery Catalogues available in Victoria 1855-1889.
While they are still on show, be sure you check out our native plants. Our acacias are looking magnificent at the moment, but lapping Lake Guyatt is where you will see a real show. The Australian Climate Change Garden is also bursting, with a lot to look at, and of course our new Bill Cane Collection.
If you are paying a visit in the next few weeks, make sure you’re holding your noses – we are about to put out a bit of blood and bone down around the place, undertaking some weed control, and trying to lay some more mulch through early spring. We have been working on the turf, with more to be done – particularly on the TifTuf turf at the Garden for Life.
On top of all that, the Bureau is talking about another wet spring, so I’m sure we’ll also be doing a lot of mowing!!!
Excitingly, the Bill Cane Collection opening happened mid-September, where we hosted quite a few people, including Bill’s family - which was incredibly special. The plants are still quite small, but there is a heap of colour through there – most of the plants seem to have taken pretty well.
Right alongside Bill’s Collection, we are hoping to revamp some of the Sensory Garden beds, either this spring or maybe during the summer. Impressively, the Friends of the Sale Botanic Gardens actually propagated some of the lavender going back a bit, so we definitely don’t want to lose it completely, but we would like to put in some new stuff – like gardenias, with their beautiful fragrance contributing to the Sensory Gardens’ purpose of stimulating the five senses for horticultural therapy.
It’s always a great day working with the Friends, who have already had their first day in the gardens early this month doing some workaround the Garden for Life. We have plans to plant up the herb garden with the Friends sometime this spring.
Whilst the Care for the Rare collection is taking a little time to settle, we continue to work with the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens to improve the species diversity and overall look of the garden. The continued wet weather has counted against us with this rare collection – let’s hope some warm spring weather kicks in soon!
TJ – our trainee – is now up every here or four weeks and proving himself an enthusiastic worker with a thirst to learn. He has found his feet and is starting to get an idea for the quality we’d like up here.
On a more personal note, I’m excited to attend the Influence and Action: Botanic Gardens as Agents of Change Conference in Melbourne in late September – particularly for the education and engagement components. The conference is aiming to address accelerated biodiversity loss, increased urbanisation, population growth and climate change. I can’t wait to see what ideas and impact I can bring back for our own patch of the world.