A key portion of Bacchus Marsh‘s famous ‘Avenue of Honour’ is under direct threat if VicRoads proceeds with a plan to add a round-a-bout at the intersection of Woolpack and Bacchus Marsh Roads.

The historic boulevard, which commemorates the town’s war dead, was planted in 1918 and consists of 312 trees and 3.3 kilometres of road. Between 10 and 12 trees will be removed under the proposal.

The trees are Dutch elms (Ulmus ×hollandica), grafted onto either U. procera or U. glabra. Not all of those 312 trees commemorate war dead, but there is a dedicated section which consists of the 1918 plantings. There are some older trees at the town end from a series of plantings in 1880, and a younger section of trees planted in the 1960′s for a road realignment.

The Bacchus Marsh ‘Avenue of Honour’ is one of the oldest and most magnificent in Australia, being the catalyst for similar avenues that emerged in many towns and cities after World War 1.

What’s proposed?

The State Government of Victoria, through VicRoads, has been granted stimulus funding from the Commonwealth Government to re-align the Western Highway around Arthur’s Cutting, which is a particularly steep and dangerous section of road.

According to The Age, the works will also include extending Woolpack Road north to the Western Highway, which will enable motorists to bypass half of the Avenue of Honour from the eastern (or Melbourne) end. The works will include the creation of a four-lane road, and a round-a-bout in the middle of the Avenue, which will see the removal of at least 12 trees and the addition of lighting. The round-a-bout will be of sufficient size to enable B-Double trucks to enter.

The National Trust is particularly concerned about the plans, as is the Shire council. The Trust says that the Avenue is of national significance because of its over-arching canopy, intactness, the curvature in the road and the historical and cultural significance of the plantings. Owing to Dutch Elm Disease, which has decimated European elm plantings, Australia remains as a disease-free refuge, and therefore hosts some of the finest remaining plantings in the world. (You can read the Trust’s full statement here).

The Victorian Heritage Council does not list the Avenue of Honour on the Victorian Heritage Register, but it is listed by the National Trust and the Shire of Moorabool is keen to have it listed on the Register of the National Estate. In 2004, the Shire of Moorabool drafted an extensive Strategic Management Plan for the Avenue, which provides a wealth of information. The full report can be downloaded here.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been considerable secrecy surrounding this project, perhaps because the State Government is aware of the outcry that could materialise? The Avenue of Honour is much-cherished by the people of Bacchus Marsh, and Victoria. The National Trust have complained that neither themselves nor the Returned and Services League (RSL) were consulted about the proposal until November 2009, whereby it was presented as a fait accomplis.

Work is to commence this month, but still there are no maps and illustrations available on the project website. (As an aside, it seems ironic that there are no plans available for this project as part of the Victorian Transport Plan. Is secrecy part of the plan, too?)

The Minister for Planning has the power to ‘call in’ the project, but instead Mr. Madden has exempted it from various planning and environmental checks (source). Part of his justification for exemption is that the project is urgent, and acknowledges that “third parties will not have formal submissions to the planning authority”.

Saving the Avenue of Honour

The experience of driving the length of the Avenue of Honour is unparalleled. On both sides of the road are market gardens and orchards, which can be seen between the tree trunks. Above, the sky is concealed by a deep canopy of leaves. In Autumn, the Avenue is especially magic as the golden colour of the leaves develops. I have taken several international visitors to the Avenue of Honour, and all have been impressed.

In my view, the desecration of a war memorial is a disgrace. But worse still, the prevention of public participation in the planning process is outrageous in a democracy.

I believe that the Western Highway realignment should progress. That section of highway is dangerous and difficult to navigate. However, the widening and extension of Woolpack Road should be put on hold immediatelty until such time as an opportunity for full public consultation is provided, a heritage assessment performed, and an alternative road plan generated.

It has taken 92 years for the Avenue of Honour to become what it is. I certainly hope this plan is abandoned, because any damage that’s done now will take another 92 years to repair. And if that’s the case, most of us won’t be here to appreciate it.

Whenever I travel around Australia or abroad, I like to visit local gardens. For a visitor, a garden can say a lot about a community. The community’s past and present economic fortunes, climate, and appreciation for their city or town are all represented in the gardens they create and maintain.

So I can only conclude that the people of Mount Gambier in South Australia have an easy-going nature and a great sense of humour, because it was there that I recently visited the most peculiar garden I have ever seen in my life: The Umpherston Sinkhole.

Yes, even its name is odd.

But the name is very fitting for a garden that made me laugh at its sheer absurdity and fall in love with its beauty and novelty.

What is the Umpherston Sinkhole?

The Umpherston Sinkhole is named after James Umpherston, who established the garden in 1884. Umpherston purchased a farm property in Mount Gambier in 1864 which contained a large sinkhole (or cave remnant).

Thousands of years ago, the sinkhole had been a cave that had formed because parts of the Mount Gambier limestone had been dissolved. When the top of the cave chamber eventually collapsed, a large open pit (called a sinkhole) was formed. The Mount Gambier district has hundreds of such caves and sinkholes; there are even some in the city centre!

Umpherston used the sinkhole on his property as the basis for his garden, which he named “The Caves”.

Being retired, Umpherson wanted to create for the people of Mount Gambier “a pleasant resort in the heat of summer”. So he set to work clearing the existing vegetation off his property and from within the sinkhole. He carved a path in the side of the rock and erected a set of wooden steps so people could comfortably enter his sunken garden, which he planted with all sorts of ferns, shrubs and flowers.

The garden was an immediate success and became quite famous. People from Mount Gambier and surrounding districts would frequently come and visit. The sinkhole originally had a lake within, and Umpherston even organised boat rides for interested people.

James Umpherston died in 1900, and his garden fell into disrepair in the following years. In 1949, the South Australian Woods and Forests Department purchased the property and established sawmills nearby. As the water table dropped as a result of agricultural activity, the lake disappeared.

By 1976, the garden was nothing more than a ruin and a rubbish dump. It was at this time that staff from the Woods and Forests Department decided to restore Umpherston’s legacy.  Slowly, they removed the rubbish and cleared the weeds. Umpherston’s terraces were still there, and so the staff restored them and planted hydrangeas and other species along each row.

Once again, the garden was a hit with the people of Mount Gambier. In 1994, the South Australian Forestry Corporation (as the Woods and Forests Department had become known) handed the garden over to the City of Mount Gambier, and in 1995, the garden was added to the South Australian Heritage Register.

Visiting the Sinkhole

Visiting the sinkhole is a unique experience. A long ramp provides the initial entry point, which is followed by a set of enclosed steps. It is from here that the first real view of the Umpherston Sinkhole can be seen – and what a view! Being barely a third the way into the sinkhole, it provides a great overview of the entire garden, which beckons below. The sinkhole is round, and from here one can see the various terraces in the garden.

One then descends to the sinkhole floor, where hydrangeas and tree-ferns greet the visitor. The sinkhole ‘walls’ are garnished with a ‘wallpaper’ of hanging ivy, which partially conceals the jagged rocks that surround the garden. Whilst there’s no longer a lake, there is a fountain that operates periodically.

Wandering the terraces offered many different vantage points to appreciate the garden. Children also seemed to enjoy running across the terraces, and it made an excellent location for them to enjoy a game of ‘hide-and-seek’.

After Sunset

As dusk approached, I noticed more and more locals arriving with bags of bread or fruit, and torches as the garden became illuminated. Initially curious, I soon realised what it was all for. Each night, several dozen possums emerge from the shrubs and rock crevices and each night, the locals take food for the possums in the garden.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time hunting for possums with torches, and watching them eat the food provided. Of course, having been so well fed, the possums had become quite particular about what they would and wouldn’t eat!

Umpherston’s Legacy

One one level, this really is the most ridiculous garden I have ever seen. Viewing it with 21st-century eyes, one can only be surprised at this horticultural folly and quite reasonably ask ‘How could anyone ‘destroy’ such a natural wonder, and turn it into this garish pleasure garden?”.

But this isn’t a 21st-century garden. It’s a 19th-century garden, created in a period before conservation laws existed. And perhaps we should be grateful that such laws didn’t exist, or we’d have been deprived of such a wonderful public space.

As a person with horticultural qualifications, I readily acknowledge that this garden lacks botanical interest. There’s nothing particularly special or eye-catching about the common mop-top hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla cv.), tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica) and ivy (Hedera helix) that dominate the plantings in this garden. But seeing them used in such a creative manner and in such a unique context makes this a most desirable garden to visit.

So what does this garden say about Mount Gambier? This garden showed, above all else, that it is cherished by the people of South Australia’s second-largest city.

Watching parents take their small children along (as their parents had done for them) was a delight, especially given how much the children enjoyed the garden. Teenagers were appreciating the garden too, as were some elderly residents that came out just to see the possums. Tourists from Asia and Europe were astounded at the novelty of the garden and were taking plenty of digital photos to show their relatives back home.

There are few places that will bring all of the diverse sections of a community together, but the Umpherston Sinkhole does just that.

Surely, as James Umpherston looks down from above, he’d be delighted to see that his garden is still enthralling the people of Mount Gambier, 120 years after its creation. As he’s hoped, it is a most special place indeed.

Getting there: The Umpherston Sinkhole is located on the Jubilee Highway East in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Entry is free, and the garden is open from 6am to 1am daily.

I was browsing through my photo album today when I discovered an old photo that I’d shot on film back in 1999.

The photograph was of a topiarised specimen of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, which I Christened the “Happy Conifer“.

The shrub grew in the the front garden of a house in Vermont South. Seeing it again, a smile immediately came to my face, not just because of its appearance, but because of the story that lay behind the Happy Conifer’s creation.

^{The Happy Conifer in Danielle Court, Vermont South. Photographed by the author in 1999.}

As you can see from the photograph, the conifer had been clipped into a lovely big face, complete with bristling big eyebrows. Standing on the corner of two streets, it almost appeared to have a personality of its own.

Despite its jovial appearance, it is the story behind this topiary’s creation that I find most interesting. For the Happy Conifer was in fact a happy accident of sorts.

The owner of this property (whom I don’t know personally) appeared to be very keen on growing conifers. In fact, his entire garden consisted of hundreds of different species, all beautifully trimmed into neat shapes. Sometimes I would see the owner trimming his plants, standing atop a trestle that he’d especially erected for the purpose.

Clearly, I was not the only person who’d noticed his dedication to horticultural art, because someone with a more devious motive made a decision to do some topiary of their own.

The Happy Conifer is Born.

One Sunday morning when I was passing by, I noticed there’d been a sudden change in the landscape.

Maybe it was drunken Saturday-night prank? Maybe it was just a dare or an act of coniferous jealousy? Whatever it was, I quickly noticed that someone had passed-by under the cover of darkness and hacked a giant face into the conifer. Appreciating the effort that went into this garden, I felt somewhat sorry for that poor man who spent all the time clipping his plants. Yet at the same time, I have to admit to being somewhat amused because it really did look funny.

I was expecting that the gardener would probably let the face ‘grow out’ and write it off as a nasty act of vandalism. But instead, it seems he may have been amused too because rather than disappearing, the face underwent some ‘plastic surgery’ over the next few years. Slowly it was transformed from a few crude shapes into a piece of sculpture!

Obviously, I was not the only resident curious to watch the transformation. Another local resident went to the trouble of submitting a photo to the Burke’s Backyard magazine in 1998. Norma Shaw’s image, reproduced below, clearly shows the Happy Conifer during its transitive years.

^{A photograph of the Happy Conifer by Norma Shaw,which appeared in Burke’s Backyard magazine in 1998.}

After many many years of amusing Vermont South residents, the Happy Conifer met its demise not too long ago, in a storm. It has since been removed. Having myself moved away from the area, I have no idea whether the same people still live in that house in Danielle Court,  Vermont South.

Nevertheless, having brought a smile to my face, I thought it only reasonable to spread the joy to others; the sort of joy that only a shrub with a face can provide.

Today is National Tree Day, a community event designed to co-ordinate tree-planting programmes across Australia and raise awareness of the important role trees have in our environment.

In celebration of this event and as part of the Melbourne Design Festival (who sponsored the Melbourne Open House), the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre have commissioned famous French artist/botanist Patrick Blanc to create a Mur Végétale or “wall of plants” in Melbourne.

Patrick Blanc’s “Le Mur Végétale” at Melbourne Central.

Measuring a massive 40 square metres, this amazing vertical garden features a range of ferns and tropical species including African Violets (Saintpaulia) and bromeliads. The garden is mounted on the wall beside the historic Coop’s Shot Tower building under the huge glass dome at Melbourne Central.

Whilst Le Mur Végétale would be able to utilise some of the natural light in the shopping centre for photosynthesis, supplementary lighting has been provided to permit better plant growth and to highlight the artwork.

Living plants clean the air at Melbourne Central.

I really enjoy art like this. It’s detailed, its unique, it’s attractive and it’s eye-catching.

As I walked past the work today, I noticed many shoppers were stopping to admire Blanc’s living artpiece, which surely must have taken months of planning and execution.

Shoppers enjoying “Le Mur Végétale” at Melbourne Central.

Blanc has become famous the world over for his elaborate vertical gardens. The botanist cum vertical landscape designer is probably best recognised for his living wall on the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, but has completed dozens of other projects internationally.

Le Mur Végétale is a three-part system consisting of a PVC layer, felt, and metal frame, providing a soil-free self-supporting system light enough to be hung on the wall and weighing less than 30 kilograms per square metre. Cuttings, seedlings and mature plants are then added to create the living vertical garden.

In a recent lecture given at the Federation Square and reported on the MIDF blog, Blanc explained that he’s first and foremost a botanist who approaches his work from a scientific perspective rather than an aesthetic one. The positioning of plants is as much about allowing each to receive an ideal amont of light with consideration given to the requirements of each species used, before any aesthetic considerations come into play.

Looking past “Le Mur Végétale” to the historic Coop’s Shot Tower (left)
and a young woman enjoys a rest beside the vertical garden.

Whilst these gardens technically have the capacity to continue growing in perpetuum, it is unclear whether the Melbourne Central installation will be a permanent fixture or not. The MIDF blog claims that the fixture will be permanent and I do hope they’re correct.

If true, there would certainly be a lot of ongoing work required to maintain this garden over an extended period, ensuring the survival and/or replacement of all the specimen plants periodically, and ensuring that the plants are fertilised sufficiently.

That said, Blanc’s artwork brings considerable environmental benefits. Aside from carbon assimilation, all of the water used in Le Mur Végétale is routinely recycled, having been sourced from the centre’s airconditioning units.

“Le Mur Végétale” is located adjacent to the historic Coop’s Shot Tower.

Regardless of the longevity of this particular work, it’s been great to see one of Blanc’s amazing vertical gardens here in Melbourne. It’s certainly added a unique talking point to the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre.

One of the delights of winter in Australia is the flowering of the wattle tree (Acacia). Whilst wattle pollen causes endless days of misery for certain hay fever sufferers*, the delightful yellow flowers of the wattle adds more than a touch of colour to a drab winter landscape and serves as a reminder that spring is on its way.

Acacia glandulicarpa.

This year I’ve been surprised to discover most species of Acacia blooming in mid-July. In fact, I even found one species of wattle flowering in early May! It does make me wonder if this is not a biological response to Climate Change, because such early flowering is very unusual.

Whatever the reason for the incorrect scheduling, it is nice to wander the suburbs and appreciate the diversity and colour of the many species of wattle flowering at present. Australia has 950 indigenous species of Acacia out of a total of 1200, the remainder being native to parts of Africa. It’s therefore no surprise to find a wide range of forms, flower colours, leaf shapes and growth habits amongst this diverse group of plants.

Most Australians are familiar with Acacia pycnantha or the “Golden Wattle” which is Australia’s official floral emblem, but I want to tell you about a few different species that I like.

The first is A. willdenowiana, or the “Grass Wattle”. The common name of this Western Australian species is derived from its form, which is that of a sprawling shrub.  Acacia willdenowiana seldom grows more than 60cm in height, but can spread to more than a metre and a half wide. Like many species of wattle, this one has no leaves. Rather it uses modified leaf-stalks (called phyllodes) to perform the normal functions of a leaf. Because of the sprawling habit of this species, the bright yellow ball flowers of this are nearly sitting on the ground. With its grass-like apparance and bright flowers, the Grass Wattle is quite a curiosity.

Acacia willdenowiana grows low to the ground.

Another species that I really like is A. longifolia, which grows up to 10 metres in height. Native to the eastern states, this species has long rod-shaped inflorescences of pale yellow flowers which almost smother the tree. The branches weep slightly to give the tree a pendulant appearance and the canopy is dense, making sure that the flower display can be seen from a far distance.

Acacia longifolia provides a vivid display.

Finally, I reckon A. flexifolia is worth a mention. I spotted this species in full bloom today and it looked amazing. This species is from central New South Wales, and grows to a height of 1.5 metres. It has upright stems which blow in the breeze. When covered in vivid yellow blooms this plant is very eye-catching. Unfortunately, I seldom see this species grown in gardens which is quite a shame.

Acacia flexifolia.

Of course an article about wattles shouldn’t go without mention of A. leprosa ‘Scarlet Blaze’, but I’ve already discussed that species’ unique red flowers in a previous blog post. Yes, wattles now come in red!

Acacia leprosa ‘Scarlet Blaze’ has unique red flowers.

As you’re walking to and from work or school in coming days, please take a moment to look at the wattle trees that are flowering in your neighbourhood. Pay special attention to the shape of the leaves and the colour and form of the flowers. If you do, you’ll no doubt be amazed at the sheer diversity that this species has. From small ground-covers to massive trees, this genus really has something for everyone.

______________

Useful Website: If you find wattles to be of interest, I highly recommend the World Wide Wattle website which is jam-packed with useful wattle info. The site has descriptions of every Australian Acacia species as well as photographs and links to other relevant plant databases.

*Fortunately, I don’t suffer from hay fever