By Mikayla van Loon
Tucked away behind the main shops of Montrose sits a hidden gem, a sanctuary gifted to the township as a garden for the people.
By that exact name, The People’s Garden, formerly the property of Kevin and Jill Heinze, local people who gave back an abundance to their community, has been an integral part of Montrose since 2006.
Despite the love and respect the town has for both the garden and the Heinze legacy, it is in need of some extra attention and with the enthusiasm of a new working party, under the auspices of Montrose Township Group, attention is what it is getting.
With the leadership of Chris Dowling and Sally Smith, the working party hosted its first working bee on Sunday 29 September to mulch and weed as a first priority.
Bringing in the support of Montrose Environment Group, Montrose Scout Group and the Township Group, over 60 locals attended, managing to move 20 metres of mulch, remove many weeds including Ivy and the picking up of sticks.
Ms Dowling said a very special thank you had to go to the Montrose Scouts and their parents for bringing “a troop of young workers”, as they “were the backbone of the mulching team”.
But no matter what age or ability, the working bee provided time and space for people to gather in the garden, to voice ideas and to remember the Heinze impact.
“The ages of our happy team ranged from eight to 80. We all love and want to be part of this beautiful community space,” Ms Dowling said.
While this was the first community activity for the working party, Ms Dowling and Ms Smith said there was much more in discussion behind the scenes.
Having been a regular visitor to the garden on a nice day, Ms Dowling said over the last two or so years she noticed it had declined in upkeep.
“I just love it here. I’m quite happy to read the paper and whatever. But the last two years, especially, it just wasn’t being maintained,” she said.
“So I sent an email to the township group as the lead representative body and they already happened to have it on their agenda.”
Ms Smith said that email was the trigger to getting things moving and “we’ve seen quite a lot of interest and other people join our small group of a working party”.
With the help of local groups and residents, Ms Smith said the idea is to be custodians of the garden and to ensure Kevin Heinze’s vision lives on.
“We’re interested in building a community around this garden and actually bringing it back to its former glory and working with the council to develop a master plan and help implement that as residents,” she said.
Unfortunately, Ms Dowling said many of the bench seats within the garden had to be removed because of graffiti but the hope is by renewing the space they can combat that.
“There’s a lot of history here, but if we can make it more comfortable, more accessible to local residents, I think that will have to reduce the vandalism because the community, we hope, will take ownership of it,” she said.
While very much in the early stages, meetings with the council have begun and actions for the future are slowly coming together.
“Our ultimate aim would be to have seasonal working bees in conjunction with the council as a bare minimum and they would be set at a certain date, so the whole community knows,” Ms Smith said.
“Then in between there we envisage there may be a… specialist group that starts in Montrose that might be part of it who have a particular interest in camellia and rhododendrons.
“So in between those major working bees, that is literally spreading mulch and weeding, there may be some specialists that can come in and work with the council to do some arborists and replantings.”
For now, watch this space and to get involved contact montrosetownshipgroup@gmail.com or follow along for updates on the Montrose Township Group Facebook.
