Looking up at the grand old elm

GROW to learn about elm trees as part of the Friends of Ballarat Botanical Gardens’ Heritage Festival programming.

Displays of botanical art, free tours, a talk, and children’s activities, all with a focus on the significant and grand species, will be on offer, led by FBBG volunteer members.

“Over 30 years ago, a group was set up to help protect and preserve the Elm in Victoria,” FBBG member Wendy Taylor said.

“Called the Friends of the Elms, it raised funds to help combat the Dutch elm disease reaching Australia from the northern hemisphere.

“It was centred in Ballarat but disbanded in recent years as the threat of the Dutch elm disease declined.”

There are 20 elms in the Ulmaceae family in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, all listed on the City of Ballarat’s Garden Explorer website.

“People can look up the list and then use the aerial map to find these amazing trees in the gardens,” Ms Taylor said.

“As well, the Ballarat Significant Tree Register lists 17 outstanding elms. Some are in private gardens but three, apart from those in the gardens, are well worth a visit.”

There is an ulmus hollandica at the Eastern Oval, an ulmus minor variegata at Australian Catholic University’s Aquinas Campus on Mair Street, and an ulmus glabra camperdownii at 315 Eureka Street, Ballarat East.

“This Elm on Eureka Street… was one of two planted in 1910, so it is well over 100 years old,” Ms Taylor said. “Many people stop and take photos.”

Also on offer is Elms up close and personal, an exhibition presented by the FBBG Botanical Art Group and showcasing illustrations of significant trees throughout May in the gardens’ Statuary Pavilion.

Eight trees, including wedding, mad hair, Dutch, Cornish, and frosty elms, will be part of a tour in the gardens on Saturday, 27 May at 2pm hosted by FBBG Guides, and the next morning, on Sunday, 28 May, Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens will lead a free tour of their elms at 10.30am.

BotaniKIDS activities and experiments will be led at the Gatekeepers Cottage on Saturday, 27 May from 12pm to 1.30pm, and A Wide World of the Elm talk by tree expert and co-author of Elms of Australia, John Hawker, will run in the Robert Clark Centre at 2pm on Sunday, 28 May.