Our Story

A Golden Dream

On Sunday the 8th of November 1981, a group of intrepid members of the Australian Rhododendron Society (NWTas) walked into a steep, scrubby piece of land and the retiring President of the National Council, Dr Chris Laurie (South Australia) planted the rhododendron “Golden Dream”, in what was to become the birthplace of the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden.

The Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden was conceived by three men and their passion for the genus Rhododendron. Hilary O'Rourke, the landowner and rhododendron breeder, Noel Sullivan, the learned expert and teacher, and Bob Malone the talented breeder and nurseryman, discovered their shared interest in rhododendron culture and from it arose the concept of the garden. Hilary, previously to joining the Society in 1979, had sub-divided a 30 acre bit of “jungle” from his property, but found that he couldn’t sub-divide it further or build on it.  So he offered it to the Society on a 99 year ‘peppercorn’ lease at just $20 a year. A little later Hilary and the committee agreed that it would be a more secure arrangement if the Society bought the site, and a figure of $28,000 was settled upon. Members took up “debentures” to fund the purchase, however later many forgave the debt.

It was also decided that the Garden, being a large undertaking, should be run separately from the Society, and so a separate legal entity (the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden Inc) was set up in 1982 to own, operate and develop the new asset. Without this, Society meetings would have ended up being all-day affairs!

This potential haven for long-lived rhododendrons needed imagination to visualise and plan for the world standard garden it was become. Noel Sullivan envisaged the Garden as being a natural style as dictated by the terrain, with a geographical sequence of sections around the amphitheatre representing the countries of the world that the rhododendrons were indigenous to. In each of these sections were to be planted the appropriate rhododendrons together with their companion plants, being mostly conifers and deciduous trees.

Planting continued at a great pace and with substantial community support, the garden progressed. A generous donation from the National Rhododendron Ladies Committee, and other donations from among our members meant we could purchase a large number of plants. More areas were cleared and another walking track around the side of the hill was created. This track was to continue around the garden and bisected most of the countries where species grow. A few of our members had already been growing species rhododendrons and some of these were to start the collections in Japan, North America, Yunnan, Northern India and Burma. Conifers and deciduous trees also started to appear. The last large lake was built in Japan – now known as “The Sea of Japan”, complete with two small islands and stepping-stones across one end. We needed to add buildings to the Japanese Garden to make it look more authentic, so over the spillway from this lake, a covered bridge was constructed using illustrations and descriptions of existing bridges in Japan. This was a challenge for our builders but they rose to the occasion and the result was outstanding – very much used and admired with countless photos taken because of the picturesque nature of the structure.

In 1988, Australia’s bicentennial year, we were fortunate to receive funding from the Federal and State Governments, which enabled us to build the ground floor of our main building, situated above and overlooking our main lake, Lake Grebe. On the completion of these works we were officially opened on the 9th of November 1988 by the Tasmanian Governor of the day, Sir Phillip Bennett. The opening prompted a further influx of people wishing to join in and become members, and a very valuable addition they became – each having differing talents to contribute to expand our enterprise.

The hybrid Rhododendron ‘City of Burnie’, developed by Hilary O'Rourke, was adopted by the Burnie City Council as its floral emblem, and a colour print was presented by Terry Shadbolt (President - Left) and Hilary O’Rourke (Right). It was an acknowledgment of the relationship between the council, the community and the society, so necessary to the successful future of the garden.

In 2001, the year of our Centenary of Federation, we were extremely lucky to have been chosen as the site for an outdoor concert over two nights, featuring the renowned pianist David Helfgott. A week of preparation saw the construction of a stage built out over the lake, tiered seating set out around our amphitheatre site and marquees, giant poles housing enormous speakers, lighting effects of different colours showing upward through the trees, fog machines creating atmosphere amongst the tree ferns. The outcome was sheer magic. People who attended still talk about this event - certainly one of the highlights of our forty-year history.

The Federal Government then granted us funds in 2005 to build a convention centre, the result being a magnificent building giving us views of not only the garden, but the beautiful farmland beyond the Emu River. The building was architecturally designed to complement its surroundings, with the large expanse of roof providing an excellent means for capturing valuable rainwater. This extra facility has helped the Garden grow from strength to strength, enabling us to host International Rhododendron Conferences and even the Governor herself. We now regularly host Weddings and other functions year round.

Soon after a Pavilion was constructed in Chinese area of the Garden, and you can read more about this here. More recently, in a bid to encourage more families to visit our Garden, our intrepid Horticulturist Juanita, created a beautiful play-space for Children to adventure in, called Hybrid Hideaway.

The Garden continues to be well supported by our immediate and wider community at large. In March 2020, we were very privileged (and excited!) to have our blossoming Garden featured on Better Homes and Gardens.

We were able to take conservation another step forward in 2018 thanks to the State Government, with the addition of a digital irrigation system, which not only conserves water but ensures that every plant receives the water that it needs to survive. This project was completed in 2022, thanks again to the generosity of the State Government who provided the second round of funds to make this happen.

Thanks go to David Cherry, Maurice Kupsch and Noel Sullivan, for the notes kept and the articles written, from which the historical information contained on this page was drawn.