La Trobe's Cottage is a National Trust treasure, now after 3 moves is located in the Domain Gardens, Melbourne. Charles Joseph La Trobe accepted the position of the Superintendent of the Port Philip district of New South Wales, Australia and was told that he would have to bring his own house and when he arrived here that he would have to buy his own land. He arrived in Melbourne in 1839, and in 1840 purchased 12.5 acres in what we now call the suburb of Jolimont which is now adjacent to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). He and his Swiss wife Sophie named the property Jolimont, after the place in Switzerland where they had their honeymoon. In 1963 the Cottage was moved to the Botanical Gardens Melbourne (where the Children's Garden is now) and then in 1998 it moved again across to the road to its present position.
As the prefabricated cottage was being assembled, La Trobe had a dining room added and it is one of the oldest buildings still standing in Melbourne. Once the house was constructed it was time to develop a garden and the very early garden was a highly ornamental reflecting their longing for home. It was full of exotic species such as hollyhocks, fruit trees, roses and a number of European trees. There was diamond and half-moon shaped garden bed, creepers growing up the veranda posts and a general air of control.
La Trobe was a talented skilful artist, very interested in the natural sciences and had a great love of botany and plants. We are very lucky that the Victorian State Library holds a collection of his letters to his family and friends and sketches by his cousin Edward La Trobe Bateman. We can see from Bateman's drawings that the garden became more romantic and wild. Over time, La Trobe grew to love Australian plants and even had some named after him and a genus created for him. For example: the Crimson Turkey Bush (Eremophila latrobei) and Latrobea tenella which is in the Fabacaeae family of Western Australia. We have been searching for some seed of this genus, but up till now, it seems that nobody grows it. However, with the Turkey bush, we have three thriving specimens sourced with help from the Australian Plant Society. They are really easy to grow; find a dry, sunny spot, don't ameliorate the soil (meaning enriching it with fertiliser and/or manure/compost) and your plant will thrive. We accidentally planted one in a rain shadow of a tree and it is thriving.
The Friends of La Trobe's Cottage is a group under the auspices of the C.J. La Trobe Society and we help the National Trust look after the property. The garden had fallen into dulls ville meaning that the suite of plants was not inspiring and lacked the wow factor. Through the hard work of the garden volunteers and with the help of City Wide - the contractor employed to look after the garden we are creating a garden that is more in line with La Trobe's love of plants.
Unfortunately, we don't have the 12.5 acres to play with, so we can't re-create the sweeping driveway past the grotto and rockery or even the vegetable patch. But what we are able to do is identify plants that were available to La Trobe and replant them. He mentions a Geranium hedge in 1847 in a letter to his daughter Agnes who was sent back to Switzerland to become refined (she was becoming a tom boy). Lots of organisations such as the Pelargonium Society in Geelong, the Friends of Burnley Gardens and the FOLTC volunteers have helped in either growing the geranium (Pelargonium inquinans) or planting the 40 specimens in the garden at our last working bee. We heard and don't know whether this is true, but apparently geraniums kept the snakes away! Using a sketch by La Trobe Bateman of the Kitchen Block, we have been able to source heritage apples from the National Trust property Ripponlea in Elsternwick, Melbourne. They propagated them and we planted them using the sketch of Bateman as a guide. There is a lot of artistic licence in his pictures and in this one the apples are growing in an S shape which we are trying to copy. We also know La Trobe loved roses, but he never mentions which ones. So we have planted 6 heritage roses, choosing ones that were available before 1854 and are still available today from the rose growers.
If you own a historic garden and want to use plants that were available in the time it was designed then you need to dig out your detective skills. Tracking down plants of yester year can be difficult because they were probably the original species and today they aren't grown. They have become rare! In their place are cultivars or hybrids. But does not despair there are things you can do.
• Firstly, pick a cut off date, no plants after that and in the case of La Trobe's garden it is 1854 as he returned to England that year.
• Look for letters, paintings and photographs of your garden and use them to try and identify the plants in it
• Talk to people who remember the garden
• In Australia you can use the NSW Historic House Trust - Colonial Plants Database http://www.hht.net.au/research/colonial_plants
• Hortus Camenensis Database http://www.hortuscamden.com/
• Or Plants Listed in Nursery Catalogues in Victoria 1855-1889 by the Garden Plant Conservation Association of Australia.
• Research plants name as many have had a name change. An example is Acacia acinaceae syn. Acacia labrobeii Syn is a signal there has been a name change.
• Look for letters, paintings and photographs of your garden and use them to try and identify the plants in it
• Talk to people who remember the garden
• In Australia you can use the NSW Historic House Trust - Colonial Plants Database http://www.hht.net.au/research/colonial_plants
• Hortus Camenensis Database http://www.hortuscamden.com/
• Or Plants Listed in Nursery Catalogues in Victoria 1855-1889 by the Garden Plant Conservation Association of Australia.
• Research plants name as many have had a name change. An example is Acacia acinaceae syn. Acacia labrobeii Syn is a signal there has been a name change.
Once you have identified the plants you want, the next step is sourcing them and that is the tricky bit. Our advice is to avoid the retail nurseries as they only sell the modern hybrids/cultivars. We recommend trying the various different garden societies such as the Salvia Society or Chrysanthemum Society. Through the Saliva Society's generosity we have been able to source Salvia patens and S. coccinea. It has taken us two years to find these plants. And when we do, we feel a great sense of satisfaction as these plants are going to contribute to the authenticity of the garden.
Another trick is to jump onto the Plant Census of your states/provinces botanic gardens. We have only just realised this should always be our first port of call. We were looking for Campanula persiciflora (Peach leaf campanula) and Euphorbia milii var. Splendens for ages. Nobody grew them and finally it dawned on us to check the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Plant Census. Well there their names were and thanks to the generosity of the RBG Nursery we now have these species in our garden.
Our last piece of advice is don't assume that just because you think plants are old they are actually are. We thought the good ol' Forget -me-knot (Myosotis sylvatica) was a dead certainty and we found out by checking the two above data bases they there weren't available within that time period. With time, patience and persistence, you will be able to create a garden that is unique and compliments the age of your house.
Sandra Pullman B.App.Sc. Hort. Hons
Advisor to ABC TV Gardening Australia and contributor to the Gardening Section of The Age, Vasili's Good Gardening magazine plus many other popular gardening magazines.
20 years practical experience.
To purchase a copy of my new ebook The Secrets of Growing Tomatoes Successfully, hop on my website: gardenpatch.com.au
To book a consultation visit my website: gardenpatch.com.au which contains my contact details or visit my blog sandisgardenpatch.blogspot.com for entertaining and informative articles on gardening.
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