Melbourne dealing with green amenity versus endless growth

As ruinously indebted Victoria eagerly “plans” for Melbourne to reach the size of London, native-flora activists do their humble thing to keep things green and nice, writes Stephen Saunders.

WE AUSTRALIANS adore our unique native flora, don’t we? Sort of. When we’re not bulldozing it nationally, for more beefs and more houses.

When we’re not killing it on moonless nights to enhance the view. When we’re not nuking “dangerous” ukes to put in exotics instead.

When we’re not brainwashing the kids about “boundless” lands of “golden” soils. With falling “autumn leaves” (generally they don’t, on native trees).

When Bunnings gives some native plant a fancy name and puts it in a pot for us.

The uniqueness of the native flora is no exaggeration. Think 21,000 vascular plant species, a high proportion endemic. Just in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR), a world biodiversity hotspot, there are about 8,000 quirky native species.

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The SWAFR lasted longer than most of Australia’s bush treasures but was nearly all razed for cropping, between about 1910 and 1960.

By contrast, the fertile grassy yam plains that once stretched from Melbourne’s Yarra to the South Australian border were gone, almost from the moment 19th-century European settlers first eyed them off. Ditto the Big Scrub (Gondwana rain forest) around Lismore NSW.

Ironically, Australia’s most heavily populated southeast corner is still a green(ish) haven, even today. In a string of national parks, from huge Wollemi, to Morton, Deua, Wadbilliga, Nadgee and Kosciuszko, you can still get lost in rugged landscapes with spectacular assemblies of native flora.

Even these parks are compromised by feral flora and fauna. And few Australians ever hike them. Perhaps they should be liberated more for 4WDs — preferably EVs for “saving the planet”. Or opened more to glamping, for the cash-rich and time-poor.

Native-flora conference

The Australian Native Plants Society (Australia) is the umbrella group for eight vigorous APS societies in states and territories.

Their October 2024 Biennial Conference happened at The Round, Nunawading, Melbourne. Twenty-eight presentations were offered over three days, with excursions on the other two days.

Plaudits to APS Victoria for a great show, for policy wonks, botany buffs and horticulturalists alike.

This event would have graced any major city in the world. The community contributions of Victoria’s native-flora experts and activists ought to be better known.

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Inspiring presentations

Dr Greg Moore worked the first-day crowd with his ‘Urban Forests’ presentation. Tree-canopy and nature-reserve distribution is highly unequal across Melbourne. Improving this is an uphill battle, against hit-and-miss council and horticultural practices; poor knowledge of suitable native cultivars; climate change; and urban sprawl.

Dr Mary Cole also made a vivid impression, with her ‘Mycorrhizae and Soil Biota for Soil Health’. Her battle is trying to knock sense into Eurocentric agricultural (ploughing, fertilising) practices, toxic for long-term soil/food values, with soil losses exceeding replacements.

Unless our land husbandry miraculously showed much more receptivity to uniquely Australian soil webs and biota, the landscape could never be the mega carbon “sink” touted by government.

Nadine Gaskell spearheads the Gardens for Wildlife concept, originating in eastern Melbourne’s City of Knox.

She took us through their house-by-house approach to native garden “elements” and plantings, which has made the project successful and now a statewide initiative.

Dr Megan Hirst and Russell Larke, as well as Matthew Henderson, gave presentations on ‘Raising Rarity’.

This identifies rare but attractive Victorian plants for trial by botanic gardens, schools, local councils and ultimately commercial nurseries. As Matthew says, “Rare doesn’t mean hard to grow”.

Dr Annie Naimo of Birdlife Australia explained how to make backyard native gardens attractive to native birds. Spiky shrubs deter “noisy miners” and favour smaller woodland birds.

Longtime Grampians observer Neil Marriott reviewed the ‘Conservation and Cultivation of Rare Grampians Endemics’.

Less than 1 per cent of Victoria’s land area, this refuge hosts about 30 per cent of its native plant species, including 70-80 endemics.

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Adjacent to the Grampians (Gariwerd) is the Wildlife Art Museum of Australia (WAMA). Jill Burness recounted its transformation from a weedy 16-hectare site into an unusual visitor attraction — native botanical garden plus wetland plus $10 million environmental art gallery.

Other valiant Victorians on native-habitat rescue missions include Eureka Prize winner Dr Noushka Reiter (‘Saving our Rare Orchids’) and Adrian Marshall (‘Saving and Restoring our Remnant Grasslands’).

Native-flora excursions

From the six conference excursions offered, I chose the far east and far west of Melbourne.

The Dandenong Ranges trip comprised three contrasting locales. First, tall wet mountain-ash forest at Grants Picnic Ground. The Hardy Gully Walk being closed by rain damage, we made do with a shorter out-and-back.

Karwarra Native Botanic Gardens derives from 1960s enthusiasms and labours, of the Mount Dandenong Horticultural Society. The local council, which now operates this facility, had offered volunteers 2 hectares of weed heaven to work on.

Today’s facility takes in 1,400 native species, found to work well in an elevated cool climate with good soils.

Highlights are Plant Trust collections of waratahs and boronia; a walkway of aromatic shrubs in the Rutaceae; and some interesting heath and pea-flowers.

After lunch, the new Chelsea Australian Garden at Olinda.

With $6 million in federal-state funding, a top-up from the People and Parks Foundation, the livewire Phillip Johnson has rewritten large his winning (UK) Chelsea Flower Show installation from 2013.

Phillip (who also gave the Conference’s AJ Swaby Address) was on location, to explain the hard yards and outreach philosophy behind this new garden.

There are plants from 400 variegated Australian species. The rare and endangered include “rock stars” such as Wollemi Pine, also gems like Tumut Grevillea, which ANPS Canberra helped rescue from oblivion.

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The garden promotes sustainable design, with a bushfire protection system, solar panels, recycled materials, and webcam. The central billabong features a waterfall and a steel waratah sculpture.

In the drier west of Melbourne, flanked by ugly housing and an industrial avenue, the Melton Botanic Garden couldn’t be more different.

Alongside thematic plantings of Indigenous and exotic species, it nurtures a eucalypt (mallee) collection from southern Western Australia mainly, but also South Australia.

There are few east-coast reserves where you can appreciate these remarkable mallee variations. Quirked by (dryland) evolution, with weird and colourful fruits (gum nuts) unlike most other plant species on Earth.

Like Karwarra, Melton hosts a native-plant nursery. Time enough to spec a grey-leaved WA Eremophila for our Canberra front garden, where they cope surprisingly well.

Instead of decamping via Melton Railway Station, inertia sat me on the return bus back east.

Big mistake — I’d forgotten the 25 kilometres of Situation Normal. Afternoon M8/M1 crawl, both sides of the CBD.

This ordeal brought on unbidden thoughts. The (unyielding) elite and governmental consensus is that Melbourne must be pumped, from its overstretched 5m to a “vibrant” 8m and even more.

For all the ingenuity of Melbourne’s native-garden innovators, the city’s overall proportions of tree canopy and green amenity can only go backwards.

Stephen Saunders is a former public servant, consultant and 'Canberra Times' reviewer. He is on the Sustainable Population Australia Executive Committee.