From the inception of Maroondah Group, members had been active in promoting the growing of Australian plants at flower shows.
In October 1967 the Blackburn and District, Doncaster and District and Templestowe Tree Preservation Societies organised a flower show at Mitcham High School. Several members, including Grant Mattingley, Trevor Blake, Gladys Eunson and Tony Liddle supplied flowers, helped identify plants and staffed the show.
In August 1968, the SGAP Victoria Native Show at the Lower Melbourne Town Hall was held and Maroondah members were asked to support the Show. Fred Rogers was organising this important event for the eighth time!
The involvement of Maroondah members in SGAP Victoria shows grew and in 1973 the Group was requested to stage a display featuring “Hardy Plants Grown in Melbourne” at the SGAP Victoria Wildflower Show held in September at the Camberwell Civic Centre. Kelvin Poole was in charge of this display, assisted by Gail Poole, Clive and Sandra Brownsea, and Mick and Judith Lumb.
Again, in 1974 at the SGAP Victoria Show, members under the leadership of Alec and Sandra Gibbon put on a display featuring Grevilleas.
In between the main SGAP Victoria shows members were active in staging displays and selling plants at various Shows and events including the Ringwood Highland Games, Tree Preservation Shows, Montrose Environment Group shows, and various Horticultural Society Shows (Box Hill, Ferny Creek and Croydon).
Maroondah Group was represented at the Ringwood Highland Games for several years in the early 1970s. A report in the March 1973 Newsletter referred to the value of this exposure to a wider audience: “A wide range of folk come and discuss their gardening with you at functions like this. One gentleman was quite concerned that he had planted seed (collected himself) of Hakea suaveolens, and something entirely different had come up. Those who are familiar with this fine leaf, prickly Hakea, will know that seedlings come up with a holly-shaped leaf, totally different from the parent plant – but it can certainly mislead you if you’ve never experienced this before.”
Apart from staging these various displays, Maroondah Group also made prizes available to various Horticultural Societies for presentation at their Shows. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of these prizes were won by Maroondah Group members.
At the April 1975 Croydon Horticultural Society Show, Jean Galliott took off the prize for “Best Vase of Natives at Show”. At the same Society’s Annual Spring Flower Show in the same year, Gwen Elliot won second prize in the native plant section, with Callistemon violaceus and Grevillea caleyi hybrid. At the Box Hill Horticultural Society’s one day flower show in October 1975, Arthur Schulke won first prize in the “Best Native Plants” section.
With all this experience in participating in other Groups’ shows under their belts, the Committee made the decision to hold its own show.
The first show was held on the 26th and 27th July 1975 at the Yarra Valley Church of England School. The first show was a great success with 3000 people attending, including visitors from the Grampians, Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, Bendigo and Shepparton.
The Shows were held at the Yarra Valley School until 1983 and then moved to the Ringwood Convention Centre (now called Karralyka Centre), where they were held each year from 1984 until 1995. With the move to Ringwood, the Shows went under the title of Melbourne Wildflower Show. The final Show in 1996 was held at Mueller Hall (and adjacent marquees) at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, and was held in conjunction with the 150th Anniversary celebrations of the Gardens.
(Extract: First 50 years)