Needed: 'Help in paradise'

While the burgeoning red, pink and purple blooms of spring are still a few months away, the work never seems to end at Illawarra Rhododendron Gardens.

And don’t site managers David and Pat Stanton know it.

On a picture-perfect late autumn morning, lawns pristine, lake glistening in the dappled sunlight that Pat says rhododendrons enjoy most, it’s easy to see why more than 50 couples are enticed to get hitched here every year.

There is zero sound from the nearby freeway, a Thermos and well-worn gloves on a picnic table before us – and a trailer-load of mulch that needs shifting off a driveway.

“My father had big eyes,” says David with a smile, referring to the vision of Don Stanton, a rhododendron enthusiast who started the gardens more than half a century ago. The resulting horticultural sprawl over 13 hectares at Mt Pleasant is one of the Illawarra’s most brilliant and, in some ways, unsung gems.

David and Pat know every blade of grass and rock on the premises, and while they have no plans to hang up the trowels just yet, they could always do with an extra hand. Volunteer labour developed and maintains the gardens, the brochure proudly proclaims. Even more importantly, it follows up, “new members always welcome”.

“Help in paradise,” says Pat, viewing the lush surrounds and summing up what’s required.

“It’s the weeding – nobody likes the weeding. The men like projects, moving soil, building walls … the wall-building and so on.

“Nothing’s flat round here. And everything needs to be wheeled uphill.”

Experience with rhododendrons or even gardening is not required, and nor are tools or equipment. Tasks that require sweat can be easily be found (talk among the men turns all too easily to hernia surgery), but there are also lighter duties.

Volunteer Ken, who shows up two or three times a week, takes a break from a machine and relates tales of mighty eucalypts inclined to take a tumble and damage the gardens’ fence, erected for deer protection.

“You need a sense of worth … and this keeps us off the streets,” he says, with a chuckle.

Apart from its namesake bloom, the gardens also provide a home for bountiful azaleas, native orchids, fig varieties, rainforest and a camellia garden.

Pat points out that Don was the first to grow azaleas in Wollongong after having been told the popular bloom would not thrive in this climate, and David mentions that the gardens are possibly the only ones in the world where three of the various types of rhododendron, including tropical and deciduous, can thrive outdoors.

With annual rainfall of 1420mm (56 inches), the centrepiece lake has never run dry, although levels were low during the recent drought.

As we chat, former volunteers Vi and Sue, with decades of volunteering at the gardens between them, show up for a visit. Vi, 96, appears recharged after beating a recent bout of vertigo. If she’s giddy today, it’s from being in such a wonderful natural setting that holds many memories.

“I see the weeds keep coming,” she says. “But what can you do?”

Illawarra Rhododendron Gardens are in Parrish Ave, Mt Pleasant. Open Tuesdays (8am-5pm) and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays (10am-5pm).