Pamela Jellie (NMC Representative)
Chair:
Pamela Jellie
Vice-Chair:
Vacant
Treasurer:
Kathy Wright
Minute Secretary:
Susan Reidy
Secretary:
Vacant
Web Secretary:
Bronwen Merrett
Committee:
John Dwyer (NMC Chair)
Bonnie Gelman
Anthea Hill
Anthony Menhennitt
Anne Vale
Bishopscourt: Third Wednesday of every month
The Australian Garden History Society maintains this garden at 120 Clarendon Street, East Melbourne and welcomes new volunteers. For further information contact helenpage@bigpond.com
Abbotsford Convent Gardens: First Wednesday of every month
Garden volunteers meet on the first Wednesday and the third Saturday of every month except in January. Starting time is 9.30 am, morning tea is provided, BYO lunch and gardening gloves. Assistance in the garden is most welcome. Contact: Pamela Jellie email pdjellie@hotmail.com.
The Nina Crone Award is granted annually to encourage students in the writing of Australian garden history. The award comprises a prize of $1,000 and a certificate – and the prospect of publication in the Society’s journal, Australian Garden History.
No award has been made for 2009.
Wednesday 10 February 2010, 6.00 p.m.
Maranoa Gardens, Balwyn. Melway 46 F7: enter gardens via Beckett Park at Parring Road.
Paul Birch, a gardener at the Maranoa Gardens, will introduce the group to this rare example of a public garden dedicated to Australian plants. By judicious use of landscaping and shadecloth, the garden contains different vegetation types that would normally not be found in the same area. There is a temperate woodland/heathland area, an arid rockery, a dry sclerophyll forest environment and a fernery.
Established as a private garden composed entirely of Australasian flora by JM Watson in 1901 the gardens were given over to public ownership on Watson’s death. They were opened to the public in 1926. The open space of the adjacent Beckett Park protects the vistas from the Maranoa Gardens.
This is a free event – BYO friends, family and picnic. Contact Anthony Menhennitt 9744 2467 or hmenhennitt@hotmail.com.
Proposed transfer of Yarra Park from the City of Melbourne to the Melbourne Cricket Ground Trustees
The following letter of concern has been sent to the Premier, the Hon John Brumby by the Victorian Branch of the AGHS.
Dear Mr. Brumby
The Australian Garden History Society Victorian Branch is deeply concerned at the proposal to remove Yarra Park from the care and control of the City of Melbourne and give it to the MCG Trustees.
Yarra Park is of great historical and landscape significance. It is part of the civic legacy the Victorian community has received from Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, which has been preserved for the people of subsequent governments. Melbourne’s parks and gardens are key components of what makes Melbourne an attractive city.
Yarra Park should not be seen merely as a car park for the MCG. The parking of cars in Yarra Park should be phased out rather than consolidated by handing over our park to the MCG. There is already available excellent public transport to and from the MCG, and patrons should be expected to use it.
Too much of the fine parkland around Melbourne has already been lost to bricks and mortar by the construction of sporting arenas. What remains should be conserved for the community now and for future generations. To sacrifice more historic parkland to support the MCG cannot be justified.
We support those who oppose the transfer to the MCG Trustees, and ask that the proposal be abandoned.
Garden Cuttings – Articles for The Age by Nina Crone.
The AGHS has supported the production of this book, in which the articles Nina wrote for The Age between 1982 and 1997 under the pseudonym ‘Alison Dalrymple’ are republished.
Most of the articles were written while Nina was Principal of Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School, the time in her life when she began to appreciate the beauties and joys of plants and gardens world-wide. Her visits to the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens, just across the road from the school, and her visits to national and international gardens, were an outlet from her busy professional life, and became the basis from which her later editorship of Australian Garden History took inspiration.
See attached flyer and order form.
Copies available from Melbourne Girls Grammar School, 86 Anderson St, South Yarra, 3141, fax 9866 1119.
Profits go to Melbourne Girls Grammar School, to set up a ‘Nina Crone Prize for Excellence in History’.
These beautiful cards, still available at a reduced price: sets of six for $5.00
