Rain, hail or shine Julie Stoddart heads to Toowoomba’s Queens Park just after sunrise nearly every day.
One of five council gardeners tasked with looking after the city’s most popular garden, she has had a front-row seat over several months watching the flowers take centre stage at Toowoomba’s botanic gardens as the seasons change.
“Who wouldn’t want to work in this beautiful part of the world?” Ms Stoddart said.
“You’ve got flowers, green grass, beautiful trees, and all the history that surrounds this park.
“I reckon I’ve got the best job in the world.”
Known as Australia’s garden city, Toowoomba is home to the Carnival of Flowers, one of the country’s largest flower festivals, which brings thousands of bloom-loving visitors to the city each September.
Queens Park is the heart of the city, both geographically, and culturally. It is home to several sporting fields, playgrounds, and tree-lined avenues, but every spring its botanic gardens become the focal point of the park.
This year the team of five gardeners planted more than 35,000 seedlings and 5,000 bulbs for the colourful spring flower display.
“It’s a big job for just five of us,” Ms Stoddart said.
“But we pull it off,” added horticulture supervisor Matt Schick.
“There’s pressure, I suppose, on us all to deliver these displays, but it’s what we enjoy doing.”
The small team not only maintains the garden, but also designs the annual flower displays.
“I think people are surprised that we do everything from sketching, to ordering the seeds, to planting and then maintaining them,” Mr Schick said.
“Basically everything.”
Ms Stoddart described her job as “reasonably challenging physically”.
“There’s lots of digging and lifting and kneeling and crouching and squatting and bending,” she said.
“And being on a ride-on mower all day is not glamorous,” Mr Schick added.
Receiving compliments every day
But the pair say the smiles and the feedback they receive from park visitors more than make up for the dirt under the nails and calluses on their hands.
“We get compliments every single day — and not just once a day either,” Ms Stoddart said.
“Who goes to work and gets compliments about their job?”
She said she did not know how to “take all the compliments” when she first started at the gardens.
“In any other job, you go to work, do the job, and go home, but when you receive compliments all the time it’s really rewarding,” Ms Stoddart said.
“Even little kids will come up to us and say, ‘Are you the flower people?'”
Working in a public place, the gardeners have ended up becoming the unofficial face of Toowoomba Regional Council.
“We’re quite often the first port of call for local questions,” Ms Stoddart laughed.
“I really enjoy talking to the public, and being able to give them some hints and tips about what grows well here.”
“I often get, ‘Why don’t you have barbecues?’, but we’re a heritage-listed botanical garden, so we’re limited with what we can do,” Mr Schick said.
But after a hard week’s work in the park, where do the gardeners go for some rest and relaxation?
They head straight back to the park.
“I’ll pop over on the weekend when I’m not in uniform and bring the family,” Ms Stoddart said.
“Life can be so busy when you’re a gardener, and this time of year you need a chance to stop and smell the roses.”