Behind iron gates near the entrance to Berwick village are scenic gardens still unknown to much of Victoria’s population.
But no longer will curator Lex Nieboer be little known to the wider community as the the man who was there from the start.
At the park’s 30th anniversary celebration on Friday 8 July 2022, it was announced a part of the park would be named in his honour.
Lex said it was quite emotional to learn of the plan.
“It’s very honouring,“ he said.
“I didn’t do it to be recognised but it is nice to be.“
He served as the park superintendent from 1987 until he retired in 2019.
Superintendent involved everything, Lex said.
“In the early days there was no one else to do it, so it was planning events, promotion, concreting, building walls, cutting bluestone, planting and office work.“
He said if it wasn’t for a few health concerns, he would still be in that position today.
Instead, Lex was honoured with a life membership with the Friends of Wilson Botanic Park, and attends their meetings and working bees.
In 1981, Lex took a pay cut to join the parks and gardens team at Berwick, bought the cheapest house in town with wife Lyn, and waited for the opportunity to lead the horticultural side of the bicentennial project that would become Wilson Botanic Park, named after the old Berwick farming and quarrying family who owned the site.
Lex had been working at the Blessington Gardens in St Kilda when word spread about a plan to set up a quarry garden on 100 acres at Berwick.
From day one, Lex has done the groundwork at the park, with help from his family, friends and volunteers.
The world has many quarry gardens, including the Butchart and Queen Elizabeth gardens in Canada and one in Newport in Melbourne.
When Lex took on the job, he spent some of his long service leave visiting gardens in England, Scotland, Holland and Canada.
“I’ve done over 100 gardens overseas, I gave a presentation at the International Gardens Conference in New Zealand, volunteered at Kew Gardens in London,“ he said.
“I planted a tree at the Auchincruive Garden in Scotland, and 13 years later the supervisor Ian Dougall, whose son now lives in Pakenham, planted a tree at Wilson Park.
“I have promoted Wilson Botanic Park wherever I could go.“
Part of the promotion for the park has included features with 3AW, Gardening Australia with Jane Edmanson, Totally Wild with Channel 10 and the local newspapers.
As Lex walks around the park today, he sees the thousands of hours of hard work he and many others put into the park.
“My heroes are all the people who were at the anniversary event on Friday,“ Lex said.
“They are the supporters of the park and really were the ones to get the park to where it is today.
“I do see a lot of the work that went into the park but I also see the potential future of the park to be a beautiful garden.“
-With Elizabeth Hart
