Myall Park Botanic Garden is a heritage-listed botanic garden at Myall Park Road, Glenmorgan, Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia. It was founded by grazier David Morrice Gordon who made the first plantings on his Myall Park sheep station in 1941. He expanded the garden in the 1950s with the help of gardeners Len Miller and Alf Gray and nursery buildings were built by Harry Howe. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 November 2012.
History Myall Park Botanic Garden is a large garden devoted to the growing of Australian flora. It was established in 1941 by David Gordon (1899–2001).
David (Dave) Morrice Gordon (AM) was born 9 July 1899, the fifth of nine children for James and Agnes Gordon. In 1910 the Gordon family moved to the Western Downs region from Talbot, in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria. The Gordons took up a "prickly pear selection" known as "The Lagoons" (later Lesmoir) on the Balonne River, as part of a group settlement. The rapid infestation of the prickly pear cactus, Opuntia stricta, led to abandoned properties and surrendered large pastoral leases in affected areas of Queensland. In response, the Queensland Government introduced prickly pear selections, where land either infested or partly affected was offered for lease at good terms. Group Settlement Schemes, where three or more parties selected in the same parish, were promoted as part of this process. By the beginning of 1909, had been taken up as prickly pear selections, the majority being in the Dalby Land Agent's district, where the Gordons settled.McKenzie, pp. 8, 12-16Brisbane Courier, 20 February 1909, p.5
The planting of Australian flora in gardens and house settings began early in Queensland and other Australian colonies, but it was not until the latter decades of the 20th century, that their popularity became widespread and gardens devoted to Australian flora became common. From the middle of the nineteenth century, large tall trees from the Araucaria family such as the bunya and hoop pines, and fig trees were widely planted, or in some instances, retained on properties after clearing. Ferns and palms suitable for indoors or simple ferneries became increasingly popular in the late 1800s. The nationalist sentiment of the Federation era influenced a wider appreciation of Australia's flora and fauna, with native plants and animals appropriated as patriotic symbols in architecture and the decorative arts and crafts. While horticulturalists, botanists and other gardening writers increasingly advocated the use of natives in gardens, most household gardeners preferred to plant out their gardens with plants that reminded them of their largely European origins. For people who were interested, only a small number of nurseries stocked a sufficient range of Australian plants. In the early 1900s Australian flora was more likely to be seen in decorative architectural elements of domestic housing than in gardens.Sim, Jeannie, 2001, "A Golden Age of Gardening in the Subtropics" in Whitehead, Georgina (ed) Planting the Nation, Australian Garden History Society, Melbourne, pp.118-119 (pp.115-135)Timms, Peter, Australia's Quarter Acre: The Story of the Ordinary Suburban Garden, Miegunyah, Carlton 2006, pp.172-173Mirmohamadi, Kylie, 2006, "Cultivating the Australian Gardener: Native plants and Victorian State School Gardens in the Federation Era", in Supski, Sian (ed) ACH: International Journal of Culture and History in Australia, No.24, pp.83-88 (pp.81-98).
Though their collections were not always extensive, one type of place where Australian flora could be found was in Queensland's botanic gardens. A network of experimental botanic gardens all initially named Queen's Park, were established throughout Queensland from the mid-1850s. Walter Hill, the first Superintendent of Brisbane's Botanic Garden (now the City Botanic Gardens), played a key guiding role, advising regional botanic gardens, lobbying governments for support and corresponding with like-minded institutions including the Melbourne Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. Sustained by annual government grants, local residents were trustees of these early gardens and professional gardeners were employed to develop them. While part of the horticultural purpose of these places was to provide public spaces of ornament and beauty for recreation and education, research and experimentation into the utilitarian qualities of plants were also major functions.Sim, "A Golden Age of Gardening in the Subtropics", pp.119-121.
From a very early age, Dave Gordon was interested in Australian flora. Nurtured by his father's own interest, by the age of seven he was helping to collect seed and raise native trees in Talbot. At the age of 15, following the death of his father and the enlisting of his brother Jim for military service during World War I Gordon became largely responsible for running "The Lagoons". In between developing the family property for wool production and completing schooling by correspondence, Gordon further developed his interest in native plants through extensive reading, seed collecting and experimental plantings.McKenzie, pp. 12-16Crone, Nina, 2002, "A Patron of Australian plants: David Morrice Gordon", Australian Garden History, Vol.13, No.6, p.22 (pp.22-25)Borschmann, Gregg, 1993, "David Gordon interview", National Library of Australia, Oral TRC2845/20, transcript, 1.1.6.
In late 1926 the Gordons acquired Myall Park, comprising part of the combined blocks of Cobblegun, Lower Cobblegun and Miggabaroo, that in turn were formerly part of the large Murilla consolidated pastoral run. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Gordon improved Myall Park and acquired more property to increase wool production capacity. In 1940 a pre-existing house on the property was relocated to a ridge just west of Myall Creek and enlarged. Single men's shearing quarters were also built nearby, which were used as temporary accommodation by the Gordon family before the house was completed.McKenzie, pp. 18-19, 26-27.
On pastoral properties producing wool, the provision of accommodation for seasonal workers during the shearing season was a necessity. Shearers' quarters were built to varying standards all over Queensland from the 1840s. The Shearer's and Sugar Worker's Act 1905 was the first Queensland legislation to prescribe minimum standards for "proper and sufficient" seasonal worker's housing. The Workers' Accommodation Act 1915 and subsequent amendments extended these provisions. Requirements for quarters included a location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, suitable building materials, provision of a verandah, sleeping rooms for workers of a minimum size and height, and separate kitchen, dining room and cook's quarters.See Queensland Government Gazette (QGG), 1915, 30 December No.268QGG, 1905, 14 November No.122QGG, 1921, 17 November No.201.
To the south-west of the house, Gordon's long-term vision was to establish a large garden of native plants. The site did not suit grazing purposes and featured aspects desirable for growing the type of arid and semi-arid plants favoured by Gordon. Well-drained, the area was largely unaffected by humidity and frost, had access to water, and featured a range of soil types. While beauty and climatic suitability were important considerations, Gordon also consciously chose particular inland plants for conservation purposes, because of their vulnerability in their natural habitat from land clearing and grazing practices.Mckenzie, pp.18-19, pp.26-27
The prickly pear infestation was successfully controlled across Queensland by 1933 after the introduction of the cactoblastis moth in the mid-1920s. Wool production increased and prices gradually recovered following the worst years of the Depression. Transport links were improved by the extension of the branch of the Western railway line from Dalby to its terminus, the newly surveyed town of Glenmorgan, seven kilometres south-east of Myall Park in 1931. These factors meant by the beginning of the 1940s Gordon could devote more time to establishing his garden. In 1941 the first garden plantings commenced, including needlewood (Hakea leucoptera), scarlet bottlebrush (Callistemon macropunctatus) and silver cassia (Senna artemisiodes) and species of Acacias and Eucalypts.McKenzie, pp.27-29.
Gordon's interest brought him into contact and correspondence with fellow native plant (and wildlife) enthusiasts from across Australia, including botanists, horticulturalists and naturalists. By the early 1940s he was providing specimens and corresponding with the Queensland Herbarium. Another early contact was George Althofer, who with his brother Peter, established Nindethana, one of Australia's earliest commercial nurseries dedicated to native flora at Dripstone, New South Wales. Gordon ordered many of his first plants and seeds from Nindethana and continued to do so over many years until Myall Park became more self-sufficient in the mid-1960s.Aitken, Richard and Looker, Michael, (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Oxford University Press, 2002, South Melbourne, p.18McKenzie, p.29, pp.42-43.
While a private garden, the Myall Park Botanic Garden was a serious botanic undertaking from its beginnings. The singular emphasis on collecting and growing native flora was an important step in the evolution of Queensland's botanic gardens. Myall Park was only one of a handful of larger scale gardens with a botanical focus established in the first half of the twentieth century in Queensland. Others were Laurel Park Bank in Toowoomba (1932), originally a private and later council owned garden with a large collection of exotics; Anderson Park in Townsville (1932) a council owned collection of native and exotic tropical flora (mainly trees); and Adel's Grove, Albert de Lestang's private experimental botanic garden. Located along Lawn Hill Creek in savannah country southwest of Burketown, by 1939 de Lestang had planted over 1000 species of exotic and native plants, shrubs and trees. De Lestang corresponded with Dave Gordon and sent him Grevillea and Acacia seeds, before his garden was almost completely destroyed by fire and flooding events in the early 1950s."Adel's Grove & Dave Gordon", Friends of Myall Park Botanic Garden Newsletter, Winter 2009, p.2"Laurel Bank Park", viewed 26 June 2012, http://www.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au/ "Townsville City Council Parks Services", http://www.soe-townsville.org/ .
The 1950s were the key decade of development for Myall Park. Gordon was able to invest more time and money in the garden because of a boom in wool value that saw prices triple between 1947 and 1951.Pearson, Michael and Lennon, Jane, Pastoral Australia: Fortunes Failures and Hard Yakka, 2010, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, p.155. By this time 26,000 sheep were being shorn annually and Gordon was able to leave much of the responsibility of the property's day-to-day operations with an overseer. A timber residence for the overseer and family, which Dave Gordon named Avochie, was constructed in the early 1950s, south of the single men's quarters.McKenzie, pp.18-19. One hundred and twenty-eight hectares were fenced to prevent livestock from entering the garden. While much of the fenced area was cleared for growing purposes, with the managed garden taking up about , some existing brigalow-belah vegetation was retained, providing a bush setting for the garden.