Treasury Gardens

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Treasury Gardens during winter Melbourne Treasury Gardens.jpg
Treasury Gardens during winter
Treasury Gardens is a popular destination for lunch Treasury gardens 2.jpg
Treasury Gardens is a popular destination for lunch
President John F. Kennedy Memorial at the Treasury Gardens Treasury Gardens JFK Memorial.jpg
President John F. Kennedy Memorial at the Treasury Gardens
A tame possum in the Treasury Gardens Brushtail possum stroked.jpg
A tame possum in the Treasury Gardens

The Treasury Gardens consist of 5.8 hectares (14 acres) on the south-eastern side of the Melbourne central business district, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The gardens are bounded by Wellington Parade, Spring Street, Treasury Place, and by the Fitzroy Gardens across Lansdowne street to the west. They form part of a network of city gardens including Fitzroy Gardens, Carlton Gardens, Flagstaff Gardens and Kings Domain. The gardens are listed on the Victorian Heritage Register for their historical, archaeological, social, "aesthetic and scientific (horticultural) importance for its outstanding nineteenth century design, path layout and planting". [1]

Contents

Description

The Gardens are a short walk from Victoria’s Parliament House and are overlooked by the Old Treasury Building and State Offices. They create a landscaped setting for office workers to enjoy during lunch with large areas of lawn and walking paths lined with mature trees. Due to their central location in the city, they are a popular spot as the starting or ending point for political rallies, demonstrations and festivals. The gardens are also enjoyed by business people and tourists staying at the Hilton Hotel on Wellington Parade, who are able to wander through on their way to the business district.[ citation needed ]

The Victorian heritage listing says "Fitzroy is unique in comparison for its scale and uninterrupted landscape. There are some horticultural similarities between Fitzroy and the Treasury Garden, attributed to the initial work of Clement Hodgkinson, however Fitzroy Gardens is unique due to the layering of history and mosaic of different landscaping styles. The avenues of mature elms and Moreton Bay fig are some of the best tree lined avenues in Victoria". [1]

Mature tree species include Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla), deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara), English elm (Ulmus procera), white poplar (Populus alba), Dutch elm (Ulmus x hollandica), Dutch elm (small-leaved form), Port Jackson fig (Ficus rubiginosa), Platanus × acerifolia , pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), Agonis flexuosa , Phoenix canariensis , Washingtonia robusta , Butia capitata , Chamaerops humilis , river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), Brachychiton x roseus , and grevillea (Grevillea hilliana). Along the embankment of Treasury Place there are hydrangeas, ivy and flax. The gardens are highly populated with native common brushtail possums that are popular with visitors at night. Other nocturnal native animals include grey-headed flying foxes and insect eating bats. Pacific black ducks, red wattle birds, and silver gulls also are frequently seen.

The gardens contain an ornamental pond and a number of memorials:[ citation needed ]

Timeline

[ citation needed ]

Events

The Share the Spirit Festival, created by Songlines Aboriginal Music in 2003, is held on Australia Day (26 January) each year. It features a wide variety of music by Indigenous Australian musicians, and is supported by the City of Melbourne, the Department of Justice, Creative Victoria, and other partners. [2]

Related Research Articles

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<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Vegeta Elm cultivar

Ulmus × hollandica 'Vegeta', sometimes known as the Huntingdon Elm, is an old English hybrid cultivar raised at Brampton, near Huntingdon, by nurserymen Wood & Ingram in 1746, allegedly from seed collected at nearby Hinchingbrooke Park. In Augustine Henry's day, in the later 19th century, the elms in Hinchingbrooke Park were U. nitens. Richens, noting that wych elm is rare in Huntingdonshire, normally flowering four to six weeks later than field elm, pointed out that unusually favourable circumstances would have had to coincide to produce such seed: "It is possible that, some time in the eighteenth century, the threefold requirements of synchronous flowering of the two species, a south-west wind", "and a mild spring permitting the ripening of the samaras, were met."

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Stricta Elm cultivar

The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Stricta', known as Cornish elm, was commonly found in South West England, Brittany, and south-west Ireland, until the arrival of Dutch elm disease in the late 1960s. The origin of Cornish elm in England remains a matter of contention. It is commonly assumed to have been introduced from Brittany. It is also considered possible that the tree may have survived the ice ages on lands to the south of Cornwall long since lost to the sea. Henry thought it "probably native in the south of Ireland". Dr Max Coleman of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, arguing in his 2002 paper on British elms that there was no clear distinction between species and subspecies, suggested that known or suspected clones of Ulmus minor, once cultivated and named, should be treated as cultivars, preferred the designation U. minor 'Stricta' to Ulmus minor var. stricta. The DNA of 'Stricta' has been investigated and the cultivar is now known to be a clone.

<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Wredei Hybrid elm cultivar

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<i>Ulmus glabra</i> Lutescens Elm cultivar

The Wych Elm cultivar Ulmus glabra 'Lutescens', commonly known as the Golden Wych Elm, arose as a sport of a wych found in the York area in the early 19th century by W. Pontey of Pontey's nursery, Kirkheaton, Huddersfield, who propagated and distributed it. The original tree he named the Gallows Elm for its proximity to a gallows near York. Loudon in The Gardener's Magazine (1839) identified it as a form of Ulmus montana, adding 'Lutescens' by analogy with Corstorphine sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus 'Lutescens'.

<i>Ulmus</i> Purpurea Elm cultivar

The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Purpurea', the purple-leaved elm, was listed and described as Ulmus Stricta Purpurea, the 'Upright Purpled-leaved Elm', by John Frederick Wood, F.H.S., in The Midland Florist and Suburban Horticulturist (1851), as Ulmus purpureaHort. by Wesmael (1863), and as Ulmus campestris var. purpurea, syn. Ulmus purpureaHort. by Petzold and Kirchner in Arboretum Muscaviense (1864). Koch's description followed (1872), the various descriptions appearing to tally. Henry (1913) noted that the Ulmus campestris var. purpureaPetz. & Kirchn. grown at Kew as U. montana var. purpurea was "probably of hybrid origin", Ulmus montana being used at the time both for wych elm cultivars and for some of the U. × hollandica group. His description of Kew's U. montana var. purpurea matches that of the commonly-planted 'Purpurea' of the 20th century. His discussion of it (1913) under U. campestris, however, his name for English Elm, may be the reason why 'Purpurea' is sometimes erroneously called U. procera 'Purpurea' (as in USA and Sweden.

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Argenteo-Variegata Elm cultivar

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Argenteo-Variegata' or simply 'Variegata', known in Australasia and North America as Silver Elm or Tartan Elm, is said to have been cultivated in France from 1772. Green noted that variegated forms of Field Elm "arise frequently, and several clones may have been known under this name". Dumont de Courset (1802) listed an U. campestris var. glabra variegata, Loudon (1838) an U. nitens var. variegata, and Wesmael (1863) an U. campestris var. nuda microphylla variegata.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elms in Australia</span>

The cultivation of elms in Australia began in the first half of the 19th century, when British settlers imported species from their former homelands. Owing to the demise of elms in the northern hemisphere as a result of the Dutch elm disease pandemic, the mature trees in Australia's parks and gardens are now regarded as amongst the most significant in the world.

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Cook Park is a heritage-listed 4-hectare (10-acre) urban park at 24-26 Summer Street, Orange, City of Orange, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built by Alfred Patterson from 1873 to 1950. It is also known as Orange Botanic Garden. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 24 August 2018. The park's main entrance is from the corner of Summer Street and Clinton Street.

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Viminalis Elm cultivar

The field elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis' (:'willow-like'), occasionally referred to as the twiggy field elm, was raised by Masters in 1817, and listed in 1831 as U. campestris viminalis, without description. Loudon added a general description in 1838, and the Cambridge University Herbarium acquired a leaf specimen of the tree in 1866. Moss, writing in 1912, said that the Ulmus campestris viminalis from Cambridge University Herbarium was the only elm he thought agreed with the original Plot's elm as illustrated by Dr. Plot in 1677 from specimens growing in an avenue and coppice at Hanwell near Banbury. Elwes and Henry (1913) also considered Loudon's Ulmus campestris viminalis to be Dr Plot's elm. Its 19th-century name, U. campestris var. viminalis, led the cultivar to be classified for a time as a variety of English Elm. On the Continent, 'Viminalis' was the Ulmus antarcticaHort., 'zierliche Ulme' [:'dainty elm'] of Kirchner's Arboretum Muscaviense (1864).

References

  1. 1 2 "Treasury Gardens, Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) Number H1887, Heritage Overlay HO917". Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. Retrieved 28 March 2011.
  2. "Share the Spirit Festival". Songlines Aboriginal Music. Retrieved 22 April 2021.

37°48′51″S144°58′34″E / 37.814158°S 144.976194°E / -37.814158; 144.976194