ACT Monaro Riverina

Australian Garden History Society

Welcome to the ACT Monaro Riverina Branch. Covering southern NSW and the ACT; each year we organise a number of events and garden visits and in winter we hold a series of talks on a wide range of topics.

Event Calendar

There are no upcoming events.

Advocacy

Replacement of Lombardy Poplars at the National Library of Australia forecourt

Considering community feedback, associated with the heritage values of the Lombardy Poplars in the forecourt of the NLA, following plans to replace the existing trees, the National Capital Authority reengaged with the ACT Government to replace the trees with the same species.

At issue was Lombardy Poplars being regulated plants in the ACT, declared as a pest plant and prohibited.

Read the correspondence received from the National Capital Authority.

Past Events

Talk, September 2021:  Our Garden Refuge in a Year of Calamities by Greg Johnson

Dr Greg Johnson, a Committee member of the ACT, Monaro, Riverina branch gave us a virtual tour of his beautiful garden in the Canberra suburb of Aranda after the branch’s AGM by ZOOM on 28 September 2021. While the house was built in 1968, Greg has tended his cool climate garden on the lower slopes of Galambari (Black Mountain) in Ngunnawal Country in the ACT for the last 25 years. His garden is sheltered amongst mature remnant Eucalyptus trees which provide shade in summer, but which also soak up precious water. Over the last two years, Greg has been documenting the effects of the calamitous events of 2020 (heat, smoke, hail) and their impacts on the garden, plants and garden visitors.  COVID had the happy upshot of allowing more time to observe the changes in the garden and to enjoy the sanctuary it provided.

Greg is a plant pathologist, photographer, Instagrammer, plant propagator and collector. His garden reflects his fascination with plants and showcases his artistic talents with interesting colour and texture combinations. The title of Greg’s talk was “Our Garden Refuge in a Year of Calamities” and showed the extreme weather conditions in which he and his wife garden and how their garden provided solace in a challenging year.

Duration: 28 minutes 30 seconds.

ACT Monaro Riverina Branch. Studies of Some Historic Gardens in the Region.

The first AGHS Conference in Canberra in 1985 included a visit to the historically significant and evocative Durham Hall garden near Braidwood, NSW. Two years later the recently established ACT Monaro Riverina Branch began, with the enthusiastic support of the property owners, to research and document the history of the garden and its plants. The outcome was a small booklet, Durham Hall Garden (1992).

Over the next twelve years five further booklets were published by the Branch:

A Gardener’s City: Canberra’s Garden Heritage

“The most remarkable landscape city in the world”, Canberra is a “Grand Garden” in every sense of the word, with millions of trees, gardens, lakes and public space. Yet less than a century ago, the chosen site for Australia’s National Capital was a windswept, degraded limestone plain. Foremost Australian landscape architects, historians, educators and writers tell the story of how the Garden City was created and pay tribute to the initiatives of both public and private gardeners as our camera takes you on a tour of one of the world’s most beautiful cities in full autumn colour.

Presented by noted garden writer and photographer Trisha Dixon.

Duration: 26 minutes.

Pialligo Redwood Forest

This video tells the history of the unusual Pialligo Redwood plantation in Canberra, recently stressed by drought and then by bushfire. Luckily the Sequoia trees are resilient and regrowth is already visible, ensuring the trees and their important heritage values will survive into the future.

Trevor Lipscombe, our narrator, is an ACT National Trust heritage walks organiser who recently led a hike through the forest with fellow Trust member Linda Roberts. AGHS video facilitators Bronwyn Blake (working in Pialligo) and Anne Claoue-Long (who lives nearby) both saw the smoke from the Redwood forest fire in early February 2020 and thought you’d like the story about this unique planting of rather unlucky trees which are trying their best to survive under the adverse circumstances of Australia’s hot dry climate.

Duration: 4 minutes.

Griffin's Green Hills

This video tells the story of the plantings on the western edge of Walter Burley Griffin’s city plan, the Green Hills, now known as Roman Cypress Hill, Dairy Farmers Hill and the Himalayan Cedars. Originally marked on plans as a forest and game reservation and later a continental arboretum, Griffin finally settled on the afforestation of the three bare hills with cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) and cedars (Cedrus atlantica), from 1918 to 1920.

Narrated by Trevor Lipscombe, ACT National Trust Heritage Walks organiser and filmed and directed by Anne Claoue-Long and Bronwyn Blake from the Australian Garden History Society, this short video reveals the connection of these three green hills which are driven past and visited by thousands of visitors every year.

Duration: 9 minutes.