Exploring the landscape history of Heide Museum of Modern Art | Garden Design | Gardening Australia

Jane and Costa explore the history of the landscape at Heide Museum of Modern Art. Subscribe 🔔 ab.co/GA-subscribe
The Heide Museum of Modern Art began life in the 1930s when Sunday and John Reed took over an old dairy farm. Their vision was to create a haven for emerging modernist artists, and over the decades it became a collective known as the Heide Circle, including Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. Sunday Reed was an avid gardener and passionate about connecting art and nature. Head gardener at Heide, Dave Murphy, says, “(Sunday) was on a particular diet for medical reasons, so one of the big motivations for them having a kitchen garden was that she could have fresh leafy greens.” Many of the trees now standing were planted by John, who during the 1960’s environmental reawakening began to rehabilitate the river frontage with local endemic species. In recent years, the Heide team have developed a healing garden near the original cottage and expanded John’s vision with a transformative native revegetation program, to protect its significance of place, history and culture.
Yaluk Langa:
The Heide grounds and surrounding areas are central to the Wurundjeri people and part of an important songline. Wurundjeri Elder, Uncle Dave Wandin, says, “Heide realises it’s historical importance to modern Melbourne as we know it today, but they started to ask the questions, you know, how did my people live here on this land before.” This resulted in a revegetation and cultural education program designed in collaborative partnership with The Wurundjeri Corporation called Yaluk Langa, which translates to river’s edge. Uncle Dave says, “They engaged with a whole heap of Elders as to what we would like to see here, so we could come down here and celebrate the Yarra (River) the way our ancestors used to do... We want people to have a much bigger experience when they come to Heide.” At the top of the hill, a towering gum tree estimated to be 500-600 years old shows a large scar in its trunk. “We hold scar trees very, very close to our hearts and to our spirit, because they are actually part of our songline, or our traveling routes to explain it better,” says Uncle Dave, “It took me a long time to understand songlines because I’m not a singer, but delving into our history, I know that we used to sing Country.” These pre-colonisation scar trees were an indication of a gathering place, access to water and sources of food, and Uncle Dave continues this cultural practice. “I don’t believe our culture is dead, it’s alive, but we don’t get to practice it,” says Uncle Dave, “so what I do is I sign-board for our people or other mobs that might be walking through this Country. They can be walking through Heide Museum... be looking around, they’ll see the scar trees and go, oh, the local mob here; they’re still living, they’re still practicing their culture.”
Healing Garden:
Heide have also been rejuvenating the gardens of Sunday Reed, with a new 450m2 healing garden near Sunday’s kitchen garden and cottage. Landscape architect, Liz Herbert, designed the project and says, “Sunday always wanted this space to be public.” The kitchen garden was originally run by Sunday and the resident artists worked for their dinner. After falling into disrepair, Liz says restoring the gardens was about “having a space that allowed people to come find respite, to sit. So, we had to find places for sitting because it was a working space.” There is a range of different spaces including the heritage listed kitchen garden, a meadow of soft moving flowers and scented entries. Sunday Reed loved roses, wildlife and flowers that bloom in colours of sky blue, all of which have been incorporated in this design. As well as caring for the iris and forget-me-nots that were planted by Sunday, they’ve built a water feature "that has just increased the bird life,” says Liz, “The future is to just keep evolving and experimenting. We've never wanted to recreate what was here, we don't think that Sunday would want us to do that,” says Liz.
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[@senthamarair8339]

I love your country.. there are lots of big trees and natural woods. And you know the value of them. My English is not good.sorry I want to say more but.....

[@inabates8919]

Guys why aren’t we having Gardening Australia, on TV anymore?

[@JulianFoley]

Uncle Dave Wandin always manages to put his finger on it. There is no place on this continent that hasn't been touched by Aboriginal hands in the 65,000 years of their life here, and there are no plants that haven't been brought up by them within their ethos of Relationality. The new scar trees are a testament to their living culture, about which we are all proud.

[@brucedeacon28]

👍👌