19 0417 294 778 A Touch of Grass Garden Care GARDEN CLEANUPS / REJUVENATION & MAKEOVERS A SPECIALTY We offer an experienced, professional and reliable service Call Jeremy on ... Est. Gold Coast since 2001 Let us create your new and rejuvenated garden where you can sit back, relax and enjoy your tranquil surroundings ... Specialising Garden Makeovers & Rejuvenation * Garden Care * Plant Selection * Soft Landscaping Gold Coast Regional Botanic Gardens, Rosser Park, 232 Ashmore Rd, Benowa. Visit www.friendsgcrbg.org.au or www.facebook.com/friendsgcrbg Gardening by Kate Heffernan Honorary Life Member Friends of GCRBG, Botanic Garden Consultant Jardin des Plantes – a botanic garden with an essential message Paris is always a city that delights garden lovers with its historic parks and treelined avenues alongside the Seine. My recent visit showed a city shining in its preparation for the Olympic Games with brilliant floral displays and well-tended trees and lawns. Never one to miss a botanic garden, I walked along the riverside path passing the University Sorbonne on the way to Jardin des Plantes to the very old and magnificent, scientific plant collection. Original plantings date back to 1635, now with well over 20,000 species planted across the 28-hectare site which also includes 4 magnificent glasshouses, the Natural Science Galleries of Evolution and Geology, and other strictly scientific buildings. The garden layout is principally formal with selected plant collections based on useful plants including medicinal, aromatic, crop, vegetable, and ecological beds. Avenues of mature trees provide shade and structure, and rambling flowering shrub beds and a rose garden add to the beauty. A tunnel under a pathway leads to a magical landscape ‘Jardin des plantes de montagne’ – a garden of over 2000 mountain plants that includes species from the hot, dry mountains of Mediterranean climates to cool, sometimes wet, or snow-covered alpine areas. Set among a landscape of rocks, peat bogs, and meandering creeks, the garden is breathtaking. Plants, many not well known by me are all labelled with botanical names, but regrettably (for me), the full descriptions are in French. The warm early summer sun has brought crowds and like me, they all seem mesmerized by this unique, cleverly curated, and historic landscape. I’m taken by a Pistachio tree, Pistacia vera, planted in 1702 and classed as an ‘Arbre historique’. Its aged trunk is carefully (and lovingly) supported by braced props. Its origins are Persian, either from seed collected in now modern-day Iran or Afghanistan where it grows in fierce summer heat and very low winter temperatures. Pistachio was mentioned in the early manuscripts of 1st C Roman naturalist and scientist Pliny the Elder, and the care of this 322-year-old specimen is inspiring. It’s impossible to capture the essence of Jardin des Plantes in words. I imagine it will be a place of relaxation and rejuvenation for athletes and visitors during the Olympics. A visit does exactly what their motto suggests. There are just plants, paths, seats for the weary, an ice cream and drinks booth, and many information signs. Jardin des Plantes conveys an essential message : no human life without flora.
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