The Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens were planning their annual Taylor and Sangster Lecture for 2024 when president Frank Page considered the possibility of growing that event into a full-blown celebration of the wintry gardens.

The Friends have always marveled at the unique beauty of Wombat Hill, even in the worst days of cold, fog and rain. Time to celebrate and share the unlikely joys of a challenging season.

Frank orchestrated a partnership with the Daylesford and District Horticultural Society, Historical Society, Agricultural Society and U3A to fill the weekend of August 3 and 4 with informative talks and walks, great conviviality and even a competitive opportunity for the local community and visitors alike.

Thanks go to the organising committee – Frank Page, Denise Robinson, Patrice O’Shea, John Binnion, Don Harvey, Gary Lawrence and Annie Duncan. Between them they produced four fascinating talks, a walking tour of the significant trees on Wombat Hill, an exhibition at the Daylesford Museum, a magical winter dinner in the Town Hall, two lavish teas and an inaugural Winter Flower Show.

Speakers were Janet O’Hehir, honorary curator of the Camperdown Botanic Gardens, Helen Botham and Helen Page, both active horticulturalists and garden historians – Helen Botham especially connected with Governor La Trobe and his gardening and Helen Page, former president of the Garden History Society.

Local tree enthusiast John Beetham led a walk around the gardens highlighting the remarkable collection of very important trees that our bracing climate and deep volcanic soil have preserved over the past century and which we also have a profound duty to preserve.

Peter Leigh spoke at the dinner on Hellebores – Winter Wonders in the Garden. Peter breeds beautiful hellebores in Ashbourne and has made significant donations of plant material to Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens over many years.

The huge collection of these extraordinary and diverse blooms currently lighting up the gardens was part of the motivation to time the event in what could be seen as horticultural downtime. Any visitors to the gardens over the weekend will realise that this is far from true.

The dinner, pictured above, itself was a celebration of the warmth of good food and good company in a stunning setting created by Denise Robinson and her team of indefatigable helpers.

The abundance of colour, fragrance and form that the winter garden actually provides was clearly evident at the Flower Show where 171 entries vied for rosettes and sashes in the great tradition of friendly competition between home gardeners.

Also on show at the Alf Headland Conservatory was the work of two local artists. Miriam Porter’s installation of her sculptures of local birds and huge, wonderful conifer seeds was an extraordinary show of her considerable talent.

Marcia DeVincentis shared her exquisite and quite arresting botanical paintings. Their colour and detail just underlined the potential and richness of the season.

The exhibition at the Museum was another fascinating exploration of the depth of the collection held by the Daylesford and District Historical Society and a wonderfully nostalgic experience for those of us who already appreciate or have just discovered Daylesford and Wombat Hill and its remarkable heritage.

This excellent show will be open to the public each weekend this month. So many individuals put so much work into making the weekend the triumph it was, and we thank them most sincerely.

Grants were received from Hepburn Shire and Community Bank Daylesford District. BigginScott provided the huge and eye-catching signage outside the gardens, a game changer in advertising. And they organised the presentation of the botanical artwork in the Conservatory.

But the prime mover, guiding hand and vision for what was a heroic collaboration of community groups and a significant showcase of our district was Frank Page, and many thanks must go to him for his extraordinarily hard work and perseverance.

Words & images: Contributed

Coomoora’s Patrice O’Shea recently received an Order of Australia Medal in the General Division for services to the environment and secondary education in the King’s Birthday Honours list.

Patrice has been secretary of the Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens since 2010 and was a teacher at Ballarat Grammar from 1982 to 2009.

Patrice said the award was “affirming” but was keen to add that many people were just as worthy. “But it is a lovely thing that people have gone to considerable effort to make it happen and it is pretty affirming to know that.”

“I think the vast majority of people in education work bloody hard and why do you single out one person, but having said that it was a profession that I certainly enjoyed enormously.

“I enjoyed where I worked, the kids I taught, the stuff I taught. It is hard work, there is no doubt about that, but the vast majority of people who do it are worthy of recognition.”

Patrice said she entered teaching because she enjoyed being a student. “I enjoyed stuff, understanding things, working things out, finding out about things, so it was something I enjoyed personally and seemed an OK thing to do as a career.

“But also, given the age, there was a tendency on the part of girls to either go into nursing or teaching.”

Patrice, who attended Catholic schools, said she had good teachers who made a difference in her life.

“All of my education was with nuns, and there is sort of the luck of the draw at any school, but I had remarkable women teaching me.

“You would hope good teachers make a difference – that’s the plan, what’s supposed to happen and you would hope if you were in the (teaching) game you would be one of them, you would give it your best shot anyway.”

Patrice said she had retired some years ago so the full implications of the digital age in teaching were not something she had experienced but she believed personal engagement was the critical element for teachers.

“During Covid teachers did work from home and my observations are that it near killed them. Really it is one of the jobs where you just have to be there. A bit like a GP.

“Telehealth is a wonderful thing but in the end you really have to be in the room with the person in my view.”

Patrice and her family lived in Daylesford, just below Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, from 1976 to 1990, and they were “sort of like a big backyard”.

“Like many people I do enjoy gardens, trees in particular, plants and people so the Friends of the Gardens is really a terrific focus for all of those interests. That is what made the Friends such a good thing for me and for others too. It is a community organisation but also a community in itself.”

Patrice said she believed people were increasingly realising the importance of the gardens and how precious they are to the region.

“They are so wild and romantic in so many ways and so pleasant to be in, in so many other ways. Even when the weather is terrible there are pleasures to be had up there, as long as you are appropriately clothed.”

Patrice said the Friends of the Gardens were holding a first, a community Winter in the Gardens Festival, with the intriguing subtitle of “mists, magic and mystery”.

“It’s the first weekend of August, all orchestrated by one of the Friends, Frank Page, and we are having a series of talks, a dinner on the Saturday night to which people are cordially invited, tours of the gardens, the Daylesford Museum is putting on an exhibition and there’s even a winter flower show in the conservatory.

“It’s a wonderful community event with the Friends of the Gardens, the Daylesford Horticultural Society, the Agricultural Society, the Historical Society and U3A involved.

“It’s all free, except for the dinner, and we will be enjoying the gardens at a time of the year which is not what you see in the glossy magazines. It is a fantastic thing.”

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Eve Lamb