In our continuing series this week we catch up with Cowra Japanese Garden head gardener Mathew Rush.
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How long have you been the head gardener?
For about five years, I've worked here for about 15.
What drew you to the Garden?
I've always been interested in this field, I spent the best part of 15 years as a greenkeeper at the Cowra Bowling Club.
I worked there in the golden years of the club as far as lawn bowls. The highest point being the Festival Fours, we were drawing international players and held a number of high level events at the club, that was very rewarding.
What tends to work really well (at the Garden) is the attention to detail that I learnt from the greenkeeping days.
What drew you the industry?
Both my grandmothers have beautiful gardens in which I always gave a hand and still do. I give advice to them and friends and design some gardens for them as well, which is all pretty rewarding.
What does a typical day at the Garden look like for you?
Generally I arrive at work by 6am and then do infrastructure checks first up, make sure everything is in order, no breaks or alarms. Then there is a bit of a team chat and we choose where we are going to work and what we are going to do, and again depending seasonally, the extent that I'll oversee that.
How do you keep the garden in such good condition given the harsh Australian conditions?
The first thing in gardening is awareness and then consistency, if you do both of those right then everything falls into place, whether that's through your integrated pest programs, fertilization, plant nutrition and irrigation works.
We have a pretty up-to-date irrigation system here with control measures we can do off our phone.
How has the role developed over the years?
It's an overall curator/facility maintenance role, so it pays to know a little bit about everything. For example over the years we've actually replaced the roofs on some of the buildings ourselves, installed the paths - they were originally old granite paths. There's a a lot of that hardscaping stuff that's carried out as well.
How do you see your role and the gardening team's role in the relationship between the local community and the international community?
We play an integral role, that's probably a part that has been overlooked since the garden's inception, the gardener's knowledge on how to maintain a Japanese garden.
That's something the team is continually working on, it's not something that you pick up overnight.
There's secret teachings on how to set rocks in numbers and placements, there's certain pruning styles you need to learn and how they integrate into the garden around proportion and scale.
Do you have any advice for local gardeners who would like to replicate what they see here or how to improve their garden?
I think for starters make sure you allow enough time to take it all in, the Garden is all about contemplation and mediation, so if that's what you are trying to do at home come in and take note of some of our design principles.
(Locally) A lot of what I see, it's a lot like keeping up with the Joneses, these gardens are viewed from the road instead of inside the house. They are gardening for their neighbours instead of themselves.
A focus should be on what the vista is from inside your windows, where you are most likely to view the garden. It should be for your enjoyment and not so much for your neighbours. That's one garden design principle people could reflect a bit more on.
Is there anything visitors should look out for when they visit the Garden?
The Garden does have 44 points of interest and that is something we are working on to make them available to visitors. There is a lot to take in.
Is there anything the Cowra community doesn't know about you?
Not really, I think having grown up here and played sport for Cowra most people know who I am.