Free activities at Botanic Gardens to celebrate Friends’ quarter century

THE volunteer-operated Friends of Bendigo Botanic Gardens (FBBG) is celebrating twenty-five years since its establishment this month with a series of free public events at the White Hills grounds.

Activities include guided walks tomorrow and Saturday 18 October from 10.30am, a two-hour plant propagation and succulent workshop from 2pm tomorrow, and an opportunity to meet and find out about FBBG’s illustrators collective on Saturday 18 October between 10am and midday.

The group was initially formed in the year 2000 after growing concerns regarding the poor state of the Gardens.

Since then The Friends have contributed well over $88,000 towards their upkeep, mostly through plant sales, guided walks, contributions from its illustrators group and book sales.

They meet weekly each Tuesday morning and are rostered on for sales each Saturday morning.

New FBBG president Mandy Scott said there’s several divisions contained within the Friends.

“There’s an inside team (for example) – they’re older members who can’t get down and do the weeding,” she said.

“They do plant propagation and then grow the plants on and we sell them at the Samuel Gadd Centre on a Tuesday and a Saturday morning.

“Then there’s the outside team, which I run – we help the employed gardeners.

“We do a lot of the weeding, cutting back and all of that sort of stuff, laying out mulch, things like that.

“Obviously this saves the council from employing another team member, which saves them a lot of money.

“That means they can then put it back into other things such as extending the garden and updating plants.”

FFBG is always looking for new members to join its current band of 76.

“Anyone, any age can join and we’ll soon find something for them to do,” Ms Scott said.

Sign up on the Friends of Bendigo Botanic Gardens website.