Indigenous garden starts to grow at Rushall Park

A new Indigenous garden has been planted in Rushall Park thanks to the combined efforts of students from Fitzroy High School and residents of the retirement village.

Twenty Year 9 students at Fitzroy High School recently joined villagers to plant 23 Indigenous trees, shrubs and wild flowers as part of an intergenerational program between the school and village.

The eight residents involved are community activist Cyrus McFarlane, artist Lou Anderson, environmentalist Razia Ross, teachers John and Helen Besley, musician Neil Barden, businessman Peter Hemingway and community worker Alan Nichols.

The Indigenous garden design has been steered by Rushall Park head gardener Marika Pedrolini.

Among the plants chosen are poa, rhodanthe, billardiera, clematis, indigofera, correa alba, eremephila, wahlenbergia and goodenia. The new garden is within the Rushall Crescent fence line near Keep Avenue.

Alan Nichols, said the garden initiative had evolved from discussions in March when the students and village residents met to devise and share environment projects.

“There were two goals for this project: for the retirement village, this is our 150^th anniversary, and the garden adds the theme of ‘Planning the future’ to the historical theme of ‘Celebrating the past,” Mr Nichols said.

“For the High school, the theme is being involved in the Futuremakers project of the Education Department, with a focus on sustainability,” he added.

Fitzroy High School teacher Erin Schroeder said the students have developed various environment projects through the year including a cafeteria food waste project, a 100-page cook book, a railway litter collection, plastic recycling, sanitary recycling and a clothes swap.