A stint in the Goldfields convinced Sandra Fussell that
indigenous plants were the way to introduce variety into the garden, rather than imported species.
AVID Donnybrook Gardening Club member Sandra Fussell is something of a local expert when it comes to indigenous species.
Sandra and her husband retired to Donnybrook in 1999 and Sandra proceeded to revegetate the block with native species.
But this was hardly the beginning of her gardening career. Sandra has been getting her hands dirty all her life.
She has been member of the local gardening club for three years.
“I remember as a child observing the adults growing things as they now show us how to do on gardening programs,” she said.
“Prior to Donnybrook it was always classical gardens — roses and agapanthus and ferns — my husband loved those before he passed away.”
Sandra was strongly influenced by her grandmother’s style of gardening. “I realised after reading Edna Walling that she had the same purpose, the classical style.
“All of the things I’ve done in my planning have been with that memory of her style of gardening,” she said.
After living in Kalgoorlie for some time, Sandra saw the need for dry land plantings.
“And then I found indigenous plants, and their beauty and versatility.
“We researched local plants and set up a design on my new land in Donnybrook, to give me a three-dimensional view of a larger variety of plants wherever I looked on the block,” she said.
Sandra grew native local plants to rehabilitate her block, which (other than the big trees) was bare because of sheep and cattle grazing. “Consequently, all the under-storey was kept down by the kangaroos when it wasn’t fenced,” she said.
“Now I can look at the kangaroos from a distance.”
The retired art and design teacher planned her garden carefully, planting it in “rooms” to go with the soil.
“The soil ranges from lateritic gravels to white sand at the bottom of the hills,” she said. “Up the top here, in the clay, I can grow roses and fruit trees, and down the bottom coastal plants.”
Sandra’s garden rooms have created various enclosed spaces.
“As you walk around the block you’re always finding new and interesting growth flowers and seeds to surprise you. It makes living on a native vegetative block always a delight.”
When she’s not gardening at home, Sandra is busy with some fairly interesting volunteer work.
One day a week she works for the Department of Environment and Conservation’s (DEC) herbarium at Bunbury, collecting and archiving native South West plant species in collaboration with the State Herbarium in Perth.
“You go right from Augusta, up to Alice Road near Perth and out to Darkan,” she said.
The job involves walking into the bush to find quadrants, areas where DEC surveys plant species and checks them over a period of time.
Sandra also collects species that have not been collected before.
She does more volunteer work at the Leschenault Community Nursery, ordering plants and seed harvesting.
“Customers such as governments, shires, community groups and schools, private landholders and town gardeners order local indigenous species, which we plant from seed,” she explained.
“We collect the seeds and have them ready for the first rains in June before planting.”
Some of the seeds Sandra harvests come from the species growing on her own block.
“I plant the indigenous species to harvest the seeds and cuttings. If I’m pruning, I make sure I prune the day before I’ve got to be at the nursery and they take the prunings for cuttings. It’s wonderful,” she said.
The Donnybrook Gardening Club is presenting a free workshop with speakers from the Great Gardens Team on March 19 at the Donnybrook Rec Centre.
Anyone interested in attending can call 1300 369 833 to register.
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