Miss Pink's garden

The founder of the Garden, Miss Olive Pink, planted many different trees and shrubs in the 20-odd years she lived on site. It is clear from her diaries that many of the seedlings she grew failed to establish in the Garden – probably because of the harsh summers. However, despite the long drought in the 1960s, some of the trees she propagated from seed survive in the Garden today.

There is a guided walk around some of the sites of significance for Miss Pink that we run as part of our winter guided walks program - look at the events calendar to see when the next one is scheduled, or click on Miss Pink's Garden Guided Walk to download a PDF version of the walk.

Most of the garden she planted around her hut was a mix of native and introduced species, such as agaves and annual flowers. These plantings were removed when Miss Pink passed away, in line with her wishes to establish a public botanic garden on the Reserve.

In this studio image of Johnny Jampijinpa Yannarilyi, Miss Pink's assistant gardener at the Reserve for 15-odd years, you can see some of Miss Pink's garden around Home Hut (the site of the current Visitor Centre). There are agaves as well as red gums and wattles visible in the Garden.

In one of Miss Pink’s diaries that Olive Pink Botanic Garden holds, Miss Pink has sketched out the layout of the planting of three rows of 13 bean trees (Erythrina vespertilio) that she grew from seed collected from Aileron Station north of Alice Springs. Of these 39 trees, seven plants remain in the Garden today, including a specimen she named for Reginald Marsh, then Assistant Administrator of the Northern Territory, who helped Miss Pink establish the Reserve in the 1950s.

There are also four other larger bean trees planted by Miss Pink that are thriving in the Garden despite their susceptibility to frosts. It is likely that these were also named for people who helped or hindered Miss Pink. There are many anecdotes of Miss Pink having turned off the water from plants named for people who had in some way aggravated her.

Miss Pink's image of one of the bean trees she planted in the 1960s.	A close-up view of the flowers produced in November 2007 on one of Miss Pink's surviving bean trees (Erythrina vespertilio).

Other plants surviving from Miss Pink’s collection include various mature red gums, mulgas, desert kurrajongs, and hakeas – including one named for Des Nelson, local field botanist and friend of Miss Pink.