By Jed Lanyon
Mount Evelyn’s Yarra View Nursery has helped landscape designer Bayley LuuTomes win a bronze medal at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.
Mr LuuTomes’ show garden titled, Yarra View Nursery – Under the Golden Elm received over 13,000 plants from the Yarra View Nursery, while ten of their employees worked to help put the garden together.
General manager for Yarra View Nursery Scott Buckland was excited to have been involved with the project.
“We’ve been involved in the garden show for a number of years as a small supplier of plants to some of the gardens,” he said.
“We supplied 13,000 plants in the garden itself. It’s quite a large garden probably the biggest show garden at the exhibition this year. And we’ve supplied every plant that has gone into that garden.
“We’ve supplied plants to a couple of the other gardens… But the one with Bayley it’s a partnership between us and himself.
The garden design includes a hive that surrounds the large elm tree and it’s been designed in a way so that it’s a quiet meeting place underneath the tree.
There’s a meandering path that weaves through the garden to get to the entrance of the hive, and you discover a quiet and tranquil place underneath the tree.
While the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show will only run from 27-31 March, locals will soon have the opportunity to view Mr LuuTomes award winning garden design at the Yarra View Nursery in August.
“Most show gardens are dismantled and everything basically goes in the bin, but with our garden most of the plants will go back to the nursery and hopefully we can recover them and on-sell them,” Mr Buckland said.
“The hive itself will also be coming back and Bayley will be coming out later in the year to reconstruct the hive in our nursery so that the public can continue to enjoy the hive.”
Mr Buckland spoke about the importance of Yarra View Nursery, a social enterprise that employs 85 people with disability.
“The key for us is to provide critical employment and training opportunities to people with disability.”
“Yarra View Nursery is just one of many social enterprises in Victoria, and one of many that are providing the opportunity to those who may otherwise not be able to work,” Mr Buckland said.
