MIFGS Welcome Garden

Its a place that celebrates nature, the rock, the soil and the rich history connecting people and place, as it’s here we find our sense of green and calm. You can wander, rest and pick the richness of the land and its biodiversity.
Natives, such as lime, figs and palms, once shrewdly managed by Indigenous Australians mingle comfortably alongside the orderly repetition of vegetables, vines and fruit trees of the current era of agriculture, post European enculturation. A distillation of our Australia’s productive lands: scenes both beautiful, and with prodigal agricultural returns.

Nature, rock, soil and plants: ‘the bush’ occupies a special corner in the minds of every Australian. It is everything, from herb-laden windowsill, to busy chook pen, or that ramshackle paling fence – it is the people: the farmers and their banged-up utes – it is the landscape: from towering Ash forest to parched plains studded by Merino and Redgum. Equally, it is rhythms of management once exacted by the true custodians of this land: Indigenous Australians. Colonnades of trees were designed, straddled by rich pasturage to reign kangaroo movement and populations. Dams were dug. Abundant flowery plains were seeded and harvested. Groves of soft ferns, bracken, cycads, lime, figs and palms were nurtured to provide year-round nourishment. A recognition of the delicacy of ecological balances ensured productivity in perpetuity.
Mere vestiges of these practices exist today, mainly in narratives shared through generations. What then, can we glean from the first people’s careful management of this sometimes prosperous, sometimes cruel lands we occupy? Where can we apply their knowledge? Perhaps the answers lay here: amidst the veggies, vines and fruit trees. Or on your own herb-laden windowsill, up by the chook pen, or along that ramshackle paling fence…’

