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VOLUNTEERS-GROOVY GARDENING TEAM
What would we do without them. Betty, Flo and Joyce have been coming
for three years now rescuing the History of the Land Garden from weed chaos.
Once a week on Thursdays they come, in the cooler months, to tend and mend
the garden. And plant things. They love the garden and bring their friends.
It is very satisfying when they come to a night event, like the anniversary,
to share a martini and enjoy the crowd enjoying the garden.
Meanwhile Debra Harding and Clare Hart were tending their special garden
at the Women's Shelter.
GROOVY GARDENING TEAM
The first meeting of the Groovy Gardening Team was marked by a seminar
on Western region native grasslands. Over forty young (and not quite so
young) people attended to hear talks given by members of the Keilor Plains
Group (Society For Growing Australian Native Plants), The Western Indigenous
Species Protection Association, Victoria University and of course the Living
Museum.
Subjects included: 'Identifying native grasses', 'Weeds and weeding',
'Sites of significance' and 'Threats to the grasslands'. A barbecue lunch
was provided, both vegetarian and kangaroo (cooked separately), and refreshments
were taken in the History of the Land Gardens. Enough enthusiasm was generated
for a hands-on practical exercise in plant identification, weeding the transitional
grasslands section of the History of the Land Gardens. This grassland is
similar to ones on the escarpments of Keilor and Tullamarine, wallaby grass
with some kangaroo grass, silky blue grass predominating.
As our grassland has been planted, the seminar then turned to considering
regeneration opportunities in Melbourne's west. High on our list were places
like Jack's Magazine grassy wetlands, the Afton Street military land in
West Essendon, the threatened (by development) Baldwin Avenue grasslands
in Keilor and everyone's home backyards.
Several 'Groovy Gardeners' collected seed from the Museum garden and
have begun a seed bank - they bring up plants in their own garden but bring
back a proportion of them for replanting in Pipemakers Park. Since the seminar,
several attendees have continued their interest, visiting grassland sites
and reporting 'new' sites back to us. The Museum library has proved invaluable
in their studies.
The seminar wound up late in the night. Gardeners and guests sat around
a fire as a guitar and cello improvised wind songs, evoking swaying stalks,
on a hill, in a valley, beside a river called Maribyrnong.
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