Our Sustainable Gardens

Garden News August 2006

Our first planting day was a great success.  The second planting day will be in about 5 weeks.  I thought you might like an overview of what is happening so that you can take a look at the gardens.

The Italian Garden, which is between the Italian room and the Electra Street fence, has an Olive Grove near the fence which, when it grows, will provide a sense of enclosure to this garden.  The hedge along the edge of the asphalt is Rosemary, and the other informal plantings are of Italian lavender.  In the centre of this garden we are creating four raised garden beds for herbs and perhaps vegies, and there will be a mosaic bird bath centrepiece.  The building is to have a verandah along this side, and entrance to the garden will be via the verandah or the Stepping Stone Path on the opposite side.

The Stepping Stone Path is made of segments from the old Eucalypt which sadly died earlier this year.  The shrubs on either side of the path will eventually create an enclosed and hopefully even ‘tunnel-like’ feeling as you walk along the path, to contrast with the openness of the low plantings in the next garden: the Indigenous Grassland Garden.  It will be planted in September.  There will be a dry creek bed running through it with mock bridges on the paths.  The hollowed out area where the rocks are, will have more rocks for casual seating.

Between the Library and the Hall is the Reflective Shade Garden, with a grove of Casuarinas mirroring those near the corner of the Bluestone building.  Casual seating underneath these trees as they grow, and edging shrubs of Dodonea and Goodenia, will create a quiet reflective place.  We hope to install long, snaky mosaic seat in this area which will look towards the paved performance area behind the library.

The fourth garden, the Bird Sanctuary, is made up of two garden beds, on the playground side of the two buildings.  It has a selection of the Gould League’s ’10 best bird attracting plants’, most of which are also indigenous: small Eucalypts, Grevilleas, Banksias, Correas, Lomandras and Kangaroo grass.  These plants will create an upper, middle and lower foliage storey: ideal for attracting birds to an area.  The Grevilleas have flowers buds on them so should soon provide some interest.

The gardens are not fully planted, but I know everyone is excited to see that we are (finally) planting!  I hope they will provide a resource which will be used by classes.

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