Mount Annan Botanic Garden is totally unlike any botanic garden
I’ve visited. Sited in a suburban area at least a few kilometers
from the nearest public transport, it is spread out across a
sprawling 440 hectares (almost 1100 acres) and is designed for
people to have a drive through experience. According to Caz
McCallum, Assistant Director of the Botanic Garden Trust, the
garden was intentionally spread out for the original director,
as a strategy to discourage the city from reclaiming pieces of
the land. As a result, the four main theme gardens alternate
with tracts of meadow, bush and arboreta. I spent the morning
meeting with Dan Bishop, Manager of Horticulture, Helen Byfield-
Fleming, Coordinator of the MacArthur Center for Sustainable
Living and Allen Powell, Community Education Officer and Caz
MacCallum. According to Dan, “Mount Annan has never had a
permaculture garden. We do sustainable gardening instead.
Sustainable is different than organics, but we do use chemicals…
sometimes chemicals are part of c