Victoria

Event Calendar

• Victoria Branch – Beaumaris Modern Walking Tour

  15 May @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm AEST

  About Led by Beaumaris Modern group founder, Fiona Austin, this walking tour takes in the Eastern pa...

• Vic Branch: Zoom lecture – Medieval gardens – fit for use or delight

  3 June @ 5:45 pm - 7:15 pm AEST

  Special online lecture by renowned UK Garden Historian, Caroline Holmes.  Mary in the Paradise Gard...

• 2025 Annual National Conference

  31 October - 2 November at The Barn

  Mount Gambier Conference 2025 Beyond the Garden Fence The 2025 AGHS conference will be held at The B...

Working Bees

Working bees are one way we support custodians of private historic gardens and demonstrate that we value their contribution and the assets they maintain.

Dates for 2025 are:

• Sunday 18 May            Turkeith, Birregurra
• Sunday 15 June            Belmont, Raglan

Please reply to Fran Faul by the Thursday before the date so the owners know catering numbers.  Also please indicate if you require transport or, if you have your own transport and are willing to drive others and require directions to the properties.

Please wear appropriate clothing and bring any garden tools you like to work with. Lunch and morning tea will be supplied.

Email Fran Faul (franfaul@gmail.com) for all enquires and details.

Oral History Update

The Branch conducts oral histories from time to time. These are added to the AGHS National Oral History Collection and lodged with the State Library of Victoria as historical records. We thank the people who gave up their time and recollections to provide a wealth of knowledge for garden historians and interested parties.

If you know of any prominent Victorians in the garden history world, including non-members, whom you think should have their history recorded, please contact the branch.

Historic Gardens in Victoria

Victoria contains many significant historic gardens and cultural landscape and recording them is an important part of our commitment.

The following garden histories are available under “Shop” on the website for free download or purchase:

• Goronga
• Umina
• Longacres
• Titanga
• Belmont
• Bishopscourt
• Buda
• Burnley Gardens
• Claremont
• Murndal
• Turkeith and Mooleric
• Wombat Park

Advocacy Update – AGHS Vic Branch April 2025

Wombat Park, Daylesford
Wombat Park was nominated by our branch to the Victorian Heritage Register several years ago.  Despite long delays, we are advised the assessment will proceed in the current financial year.

The Vic Branch made a submission to Hepburn Shire Council in June 2024 re the draft Daylesford and Hepburn Town Structure Plan as the Daylesford town boundary borders on Wombat Park. As a result, our branch was invited to become a stakeholder, but no further contact has been made since then.

 The Gong & Buninyong Botanic Gardens Masterplan, Buninyong
For some years our branch has been in support of the Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens in their quest for Ballarat City Council to reconsider its current proposal of the replacement of The Gong’s existing dam wall and trees with a concrete structure to manage flood risk with an alternative more sympathetic scheme of environmentally managed wetlands and so retain the existing wall and trees (and Cornish St as is).

In February our branch wrote to the CEO and Councillors again in support of the Friends, (copied to Heritage Victoria), for their alternative proposal. This was prior to the February Council meeting where a Notice of Motion was being put to the Council that the existing Gong Dam rehabilitation project be removed from the Buninyong Botanic Gardens Landscape Masterplan; that any implementation works related to the Gong dam wall in the masterplan cease; and that officers provide a report for presenting costed engineering options for reinforcing the structural integrity of the Gong wall while retaining the existing vegetation and retaining Cornish St as a 2-way street. After much debate, unfortunately the Motion was lost, and the current proposal will proceed. The appointed contractor will still have to obtain Heritage Victoria approval for the works, but as the Council has already consulted with Heritage Victoria as to their requirements, unfortunately this unlikely to be a hindrance to the works.

Heritage Victoria Carlton Gardens Planning Application.
This application was for the Implementation of the Tree Management and Replacement Strategy recommended in the Carlton Gardens Master Plan and Heritage Management Plan. This application was unusual in that it was for the approval for a plan, rather than actual works. It included an impressive history of the planting in the Gardens and proposed strategies for the replacement of failing avenue planting (Populus alba), specimen tree planting, reintroduction of garden bed planting, etc. In March our branch made a submission to Heritage Victoria, which commended the reintroduction of garden bed planting but queried the replacement species selection for the failing avenue planting on a number of grounds and the lack of a health assessment of the trees to be removed, only referring to an out-of-date one.

 Ballarat Botanic Gardens Draft Master Plan
The Ballarat Botanic Gardens Draft Master Plan, commissioned by the City of Ballarat was open for final public consultation on their website in late March/early April. The accompanying report indicates that significant public consultation had been undertaken prior, with the president of the Friends of Ballarat being included in the Project Team, amongst others. The report indicates that the heritage aspects of the Gardens, mainly in the Central Garden, have been well taken care of and this area is sympathetically blended with the North and South Gardens on the draft Plan, where previously they had been somewhat alienated due their differing uses. Heritage Victoria has been consulted about the Plan and was in accord with it except for a differing view about the proposed removal of the sound shell in the North Garden. It was noted that our patron, Tim Entwisle was part of the Project Team when CEO of the RBG Melbourne.

 OpenAustralia Foundation
Advocacy team note the difficulty of keeping abreast of planning proposals that may affect significant gardens and cultural landscapes in each local government area (LGA), requiring constant vigilance. PlanningAlerts is a free service run by the independent charity OpenAustralia Foundation.

We are grateful to all AGHS members not on the current committee who are active as stakeholders, in community and resident groups, in their individual LGAs and as previous submitters of applications to Heritage Victoria and other planning bodies.

Projects

Relationship development with Trust for Nature, TFN (Memorandum of Understanding signed June 2023)
A foundation event for this relationship at the Heathmont property ‘Uambi’ was held in July 2024. An AGHS representative spoke about the cultural history of the landscape followed by a TFN representative leading the group through the bushland reserve, highlighting ecological challenges, specimens and plant group relationships.

A similar event format is being planned for mid 2025 with TFN, at Harbury in Pakenham Upper. This property has a close relationship to nearby Goronga, for which AGHS has published both a written history and pictorial essay.

The research effort for these two properties will result in cultural landscape histories to be published in 2025. The plan is for both AGHS and TFN to mount these publications on their respective websites, in accordance with the mutual benefit provisions of the MOU.