Barrie Gallacher: The garden layout seems clearly to have followed the design by the architects, Reed & Barnes, and the aerial photographs of the early 20th century clearly show that there were four radial, quadrant type beds around the circle. And it seems that this really dates from the 1880s, so that part of the design we’re quite happy with. The disposition of the type of plants in those has certainly changed dramatically. One of the 1900s postcards, for example, show what look like to be shrub roses in the centre, and yet the later aerial photographs of the 20th century are quite different.
What we’re trying to do is to go back to plants that were available in the 1880s through researching catalogues of plants that were available from nurseries in those times and also going through some of the rare plant nurseries in Victoria who currently exist and just seeing what’s available.
There are always challenges, and, to the southern side of the forecourt we have a very large Moreton Bay fig, which with its dense canopy and extensive roots underneath the soil, creates a real problem. So we feel that we can plant very little underneath that. Similarly, there are two Araucarias or one is a Bunya Bunya pine and one is a Norfolk Island pine, that also date from approximately 1880, and we have similar problems of what we can do around the roots of those. On the southern side the planting bed is going to be perhaps a little restricted by these existing trees.
One of the problems with landscaping, and heritage gardens in particular, is that it’s impossible to keep the gardens at the size that they were initially either planted, or envisaged. So that you have this dynamic with the plants changing size. And you might also find that some of them grow too big too quickly - for example, the Moreton Bay fig already mentioned - which tend to shade out other plants, so there has to be a change in the planting, individual plants, not the planting style so much, but the plants themselves have to be changed.
What we’ve done in some of our plant selections is try and avoid plants that have a high water requirement. So, we’ve given preference to either drought-tolerant species or those that use less water. Now, this would be extremely important if we were planting a garden with Melbourne’s current water restrictions. However, because part of the project involves the use of underground tanks to capture the rainwater off the roof of the Exhibition Building, this is less of an issue.
Fraser Brown: The asphalt surfaces will look pretty much like an asphalt driveway. People will probably be quite surprised how it will look, I mean it’s black asphalt! When there’s so many pre-conceived ideas about what an 1880s garden would look like – gravel and rustic bits and pieces – this wasn’t actually like that. It was for high pedestrian traffic use.