IPPS Melbourne Field Trip - 19 May 2009

By Hayden Foulds
Following a successful IPPS conference in Hobart with the Australian region, around 20 of us from New Zealand wound down from the conference with a post-convention tour to a few nurseries around Melbourne. With Phillip Smith leading the way, we set off from Melbourne and headed east towards the Dandenong Ranges. Along the way, we picked up our guide for the day, David Franklin who is the Scotts Regional Sales Manager for Victoria.

The Dandenongs is a major area for nursery production in Victoria with hundreds of nurseries, both open ground and container, located up there. Its climate is much cooler and wetter than Melbourne itself and the soil is very good for the open ground nurseries. Perhaps the most well known horticulturist from this area is Anthony Tesselaar who is well known as probably the best marketer of plants in the world today.

The spectacular Russell Falls in the Mt Field National Park was the first stop of the day and probably the most impressive one as well. A short walk through lush native bush, almost reminiscent of New Zealand soon brought us to the spectacular falls which cascade down over two levels. The photos don't do justice to this one.

Our first visit was to Proteaflora which is widely regarded as one of Australia's leading nurseries it has won Nursery of the Year three times in a row and is now a member of the Hall of Fame so can't win again. Visiting this place you can see why it is so, I know we have many great nurseries in New Zealand, but Proteaflora would be a step above everyone else. Put this as a must visit on your next trip to Australia.

Proteaflora specialises in plants from the Proteaceae family with around half of production going to cut flower producers and the other half to garden retailers around Australia. Some are also exported. The nursery also has a breeding and selection program that has seen several new varieties introduced onto the Australian market.

The Matthews family owns and operates the nursery, and Andrew Matthews showed us around. Before we could start though, we had to dip our shoes in a foot bath to prevent the transmission of root diseases which members of the proteaceae family are very susceptible to.

As we toured the nursery from the stock plant area, through propagation and production to dispatch, it was obvious that a lot of effort goes into producing a top quality plant and I don't think we saw one bad plant throughout the nursery. It was also very tidy, not a weed or dirty pot in sight.

From Proteaflora, we moved onto Larkman Nurseries where Clive Larkman met us and showed us around his propagation nursery. Clive specialises in liner propagation with around 2500 varieties under production including natives, exotics with a speciality in Lavenders. A range of herbs and perennials in 10cm pots are also being produced and at the time of our visit, the nursery was also being expanded to cater for their production.

Clive also showed us around his stock beds which contained many interesting and unusual plants, some yet to be introduced commercially. Some of those present also took advantage of the neighbours strawberry field for a pre-lunch snack.

After lunch, we visited Coolwyn Nurseries at Monbulk, where Leo Koelewyn showed us part of the nursery whose father established the business in 1954 as an immigrant from Holland. Coolwyn specialises in conifers including Christmas trees but also produces evergreen Magnolias and Michelias, Camellias, Buxus and Topiary lines.

While at Coolwyn, there was much discussion on the effects of the fire and extreme temperature conditions that much of Victoria had experienced the past summer. At Coolwyn, they lost several thousand plants just due to being unable to get enough water on in the extreme temperatures, in fact getting any water on proved to be a major challenge. Other plants were also affected and had to be cut back. There are many nurseries now evaluating what they grow according to what can withstand the temperature extremes in summer and the big dry.

Leo took us into one of the propagation houses where he show evergreen magnolia cuttings under fog, which came on several times while we were in there. We also observed the well laid out nursery beds and the tidy dispatch and potting area.

Following the nursery visits, we headed further into the Dandenongs to observe the damage and subsequent recovery from the devastating bushfires that had occurred earlier in the year. In only three or so months, the regeneration of the bush was amazing with many eucalyptus covered in fresh green shoots and the bracken fern sprouting on the forest floor. But perhaps the most amazing sight was all the tree ferns with fresh green fronds sprouting from the tops. Just shows that they are more resilient to such destruction than we all though. Further on, we stopped at a rest area planted with exotics that the fire had gone right over the top leaving them all untouched, yet the bush all around was moderately damaged.

Thanks to Phillip Smith for organising an excellent day, a great day to cap off a great pre-conference tour and joint conference with the Australian region.