MultiuseGardenProject

Dry Tropics Biodiversity Group Inc.

(inform, educate, enthuse, implement)

Display Gardens: to education and awareness main page

Mult-purpose Display Garden Projects - general overview top | to education and awareness main page

Projects include: Castle Hill Quarry, a potential regional plants botanic garden | school and general gardens |

Note May 2003, web page reinstalled on the web, have not had time to rework it yet.
Ideas here are valid and another window of opportunity for implementation will occur in due course. A project waiting to happen

There is a real need to do a lot more than just showcase our local plants.

We want people to realise that our local bush is a magnificent example of a pretty good and currently intact ecosystem, further many of these plants are potentially very useful, eg probably half our 2000 local species would look good in gardens.

But we do not know much about our local species, and need to know much more. Growing local species is a bit experimental. Arguably much of what we learn about each plant species likes and dislikes comes from growing them in different garden environments. Sure it's not complete ecosystem knowledge, but no-one is making any practical attempt to get that for most species, we can really contribute.

Promoting local plants for use in private gardens is a slow but sure way to elevate respect for our local bush, and we learn much about species characteristics.

Public Local Plant Gardens rationale

There are a handful of local highly professional but unpaid enthusiasts who really do know a lot, their knowledge comes from a great deal of informal study. At this point of time the dissemination of already collected information to others is the main bottleneck. Only then can this knowledge be remembered, used and extended. Always this must be done with full and repeated acknowledgment for information that has been collected at great personal cost.

Our unpaid effort means that time is at a premium. Putting all this club based effort into planting a demonstration garden on private land is unjustified, when the work is not as available to the public, and can be sold and decimated long before fruition. What we build must be planned to remain for 100 years.

We need guarantees of permanency. The point is our installations are to be here for the long term. They will have terrific value that needs to be appreciated, respected and taken into consideration, otherwise we'd rather not even start. Abandon it half way through and much of the benefits are wasted. It is a package that does not work when part is removed.

Doug Silke, 8 April 1999.

Purpose:

Showcase local plant species. It is only fashion, habit and lack of knowledge that has left all these species in the bush. We have a huge range of great plants.
We often think that our man made environment is clever and all conquering, but we need to understand that we are really just a tiny part of a far more complex ecosystem. Sustainability is the buzz word. We want to bring a little of the complexity of the bush ecosystem into the suburbs, and into the heart of Townsvillians.
Gradually engendering a love/respect for our wild environment by the public is part of understanding ecosystems and is probably my main aim, others may have a different slant. There is a real depth of genetic evolutionary history here that far precedes our indigenous history.
This is an overall concept that is totally compatible with business… In fact our project concept has business like multiple purposes to extract maximum advantage.
Eg. Many gardens are being installed and maintained now all around town using exotic "tried and tested" species.
Eg. There is evidence that the long term overall cost (capital and maintenance all rolled into a return on investment analysis) of even simple lawn maintenance is the same as that of installing a bush garden.
Eg. It is totally compatible to promote and harvest seed and cuttings from these gardens to provide more and cheaper local plants.
Eg. Tourists want to see a microcosm of our Region.
Eg. The general public want to enjoy nice surroundings.
Eg. Schools and other educational institutions want an easy way to study some of the environmental complexities of our local species.
Eg. We do need to learn more about our species and how they grow, to use species better around Townsville, eg as street trees, for cultivation by the nursery trade, and to better understand their natural ecosystem complexities.
Eg. Pouring water onto many local plants is not required, even to improve their appearance.

School gardens top | to education and awareness main page

We can contribute greatly towards the education of our upcoming generation in local plants by assisting with the provision of plots planted out to represent local ecosystems. There is a real need in Townsville primary and secondary schools to learn more about ecosystems. Different ecosystems are best represented by "Plant Communities" or "Vegetation Types". Natural ecosystems are much simpler to study, since they have evolved over a very long period of time to be all operating in equilibrium.

Schools will value these plantings. They are less likely to be cut out than in some other places. School groundsmen will highly value these plantings.

We have a propagation group growing quite a number of these plants. A project like this will boost interest at propagation group.

Especially for schools, where they have a gardener and money for materials, and we can get across the concept of "local plants" to young people, this synergy is potentially really good.

Mundingburra Primary School is very proud of their non-local rainforest planting, done by Society for Growing Australian Plants (SGAP), although as ecosystems go it is a bit of a mixture of species.

Supervise to ensure plants go in the correct place according to the plan, and to oversee planting work generally, provide lists of plants.
Provide somewhat comprehensive information about those plants, information relating butterfly plants, bird plants, bush tucker plants, and vegetation type where found locally.
Propose finding companies or schools that want a "Townsville species (perhaps a few others) garden" have a gardener and resources to provide a suitable area, and gravel for mulch, woodchip for mulch. But where the group does not have the resources to procure the correct plants, or to design the layout.
Emphasise that we want to build gardens that will last 20-100 years, pull it down or compromise it’s design seriously and we will be upset… our resources are finite, it may be much better not to start.

top | to education and awareness main page