by Carla Caruso

More art and trees are what a local gardening guru would like to see in your Adelaide Park Lands.

Philip Konings, dubbed Mr Bowden, has been involved with the community group, Hindmarsh Greening, for 30 years, previously as its coordinator.

The group helps plant trees, decorate street flowerpots and stobie poles with mosaics, and organise art in the Hindmarsh area.

Living inner-city, Philip frequents the Park Lands at least twice a month – either via bike or on foot with his miniature English bull terrier, Toby.

Favourite haunts include Mary Lee Park (Park 27B), John E. Brown Park (Park 27A), and Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27).

“I just think there could be a lot more art around the place,” Philip says.

“What we’ve done with the mosaic pots particularly [within the City of Charles Sturt] is we’ve done it in an area where people walk. So, while they’re enjoying a walk, they’re also getting to see the art.

“You can use art to create trails [such as the group’s self-guided Bowden to Croydon street art tour]. Like at the back of the [Adelaide] Zoo, there’s quite a bit of sculpture along there … you probably wouldn’t [wander there] otherwise.”

In between volunteering, Philip runs his own commercial garden maintenance business. Previously, he was a trainee horticulturalist at the Adelaide Botanic Garden (Park 11) and the Government House Grounds. “I was [employed] when [royals] Charles and Diana visited, but I wasn’t allowed to work on that week!”

Along with more art, as mentioned, the 61-year-old believes the Park Lands could do with more greenery. “For instance, we should have a lot more dense, prickly shrubs, so small birds could nest in them.

“Currently, most of it’s, like, trees and open [space]. Without that sort of dense planting, the small birds have no protection.”

Though, he’d like to see bigger trees planted too. “A species that I thought that would look good if it was along a path, or as a small group [someplace], would be the Brachychiton rupestris. It’s common name is the ‘Queensland bottle tree’.

“When you see the tree, they basically have quite a fat trunk like a bottle, and they grow very well down here.

“It’s one of the favourite trees we plant in the parks [in the Hindmarsh area]. Kids love them because they’re big and fat and smooth, but they’re also sculptural-looking. You see kids hugging them.”

Hindmarsh Greening’s mosaic-making group meets in the Brompton Community Garden’s shed on Sunday mornings.

Their designs are generally nature-inspired. The group receives council funding and also has materials donated.

“We have a few art teachers involved,” Philip says. “So, when we come up with a concept, they draw it up on tracing paper, which we lie on a piece of wood. Then we cut [tiles] and fill in all the gaps.

“[Afterwards] we put contact on it, in sections, which are all numbered. Then we put glue on the stobie pole and stick it on with the contact.

“You stick it up, one piece at a time, moving up the stobie pole. Then we leave it for a few hours for the glue to set, then pull the contact off, and grout it.

“We’re pretty much replacing all the painted stobie poles now with mosaics. The painted stobie poles, at about 10 years, start to look quite faded. For a while, we were repainting them, then we just went, ‘Why don’t we do them in mosaics [too]?’.”

The group gets permission from SA Power Networks to beautify the poles.

All the public art has lent the area an artsy vibe like Fitzroy in Melbourne or Newtown in Sydney.

“Putting art out there makes people feel connected to that community,” Philip says. “Often I’ve asked people who buy in the area what made them choose it, and they said, ‘Well, all the art.’ They felt that meant there was a strong sense of community here.”

APA’s own Unpaving Paradise re-greening project – transforming a patch of bitumen in Bonython into a ‘creative oasis’ – is intended to generate a similar vibe.