What’s New Complementary organisations The Australasian Association of Friends of Botanic Gardens (AAFBG) held its 2016 conference at the Geelong Botanic Gardens at the end of April. They have already produced a special conference edition of their newsletter viewable at AAFBG Newsletter.
Vale Allan Dale Correy landscape architect My friend of a lifetime has gone! But what a lifetime we have had in the great horticultural industry, especially botanic gardens. Allan and I started work in the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney back in 1946, just after the end of WW2, as Junior Outdoor Attendants. As such we started at the bottom! Allan and I attended the Sydney Technical College and completed our horticultural training. While doing that we took up bushwalking and had many walks and climbs in many areas of Australia and many discussions on development of horticulture – particularly how Australian landscapes should develop. Allan went off to England and USA and became one of Australia’s first university trained landscape architects. Always interested in botanic gardens Allan came back to Australia and did the master plan for Mt Lofty Botanic Garden in South Australia. We have kept in touch over the whole of our lives, fostered our families, kept up walking in the bush in our home areas, played our parts in the horticultural industry and both became Volunteer
Allan at Fountain Falls Lamington NP in 1952.
Guides in our home botanic gardens: Allan at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney and myself in Brisbane’s botanic gardens. In our retirement years we walked and talked our way through our careers and life in general. Allan has made a mark on the landscape of Australia, which will continue with all the landscapers he has influenced in our ‘wide brown land’. The Volunteer Guides in Sydney’s botanic gardens and I will remember Allan, for his quality walks, and his great interest in plants that remained with him to the end of his life.
Mates for life.
Ray Steward, Retired Director Parks and Recreation Brisbane City.
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the botanic gardener | ISS 45 JULY 2016