by Loine Sweeney

Born and brought up in South Australia, but living overseas for much of her adult life, Karen Rowley still keeps a postcard of the ornate front gates of the Adelaide Botanic Garden propped up on her bookshelves in Cologne, Germany.

It’s just one of a few precious postcards she keeps, to bring back favourite memories. 

“I bought the card at the Garden’s North Lodge, near the Friends Gate, after I had been living overseas for some time,” she said. 

“When I come back to Adelaide I always visit the Park Lands, including the Botanic Garden, because it’s one of my very favorite places. On one visit to the Garden, I found this postcard of the North Terrace front gates.

“I love the gates; I think they’re absolutely beautiful with their wrought iron patterning, which I think gives them a regal look. So when I spotted the postcard, I thought, ‘Ooh, I can take a little bit of the Adelaide Botanic Garden back with me.’  

After living and working overseas for 31 years, Karen made one of her visits home this Australian summer, when I caught up with her during Adelaide Festival-time. 

She recollected for me the bond she developed with the Adelaide Botanic Garden - part of Park 11 - when, as a young woman, she moved from Myponga to the city.

“I lived in Marden for 6 years. Half the time I was studying at Flinders University and for the other half, I was working as a Clinical Psychologist at Port Adelaide. My life was very busy and I didn’t get to the city very often during the week, so I really could only come on weekends. I got into the habit of parking my car in Plane Tree Drive, so I could walk through the Botanic Garden and just enjoy the relaxing atmosphere - the peace, the quiet, the space, the greenery - before I reached the hustle and bustle of Rundle Mall. 

“And then when I came back through the Garden, all the stress and tension that I had built up from the CBD just fell away as soon as I walked through those beautiful main entrance gates.”

Visiting again today, Karen relished the inviting vista from the gates down through the entrance walk. “Back then, when I lived in Marden, I had a little 2-bedroom flat with a very small garden, but the Garden and the Park Lands were a beautiful big, green piece of nature, a cool and shady oasis that I - and the birds - could come and enjoy.”

Karen would walk back to her car through the splendid avenue of old, giant Moreton Bay fig trees after she’d spent time lingering in the Botanic Garden. ‘It’s just stunningly beautiful and shaded; a really lovely experience to walk through. Then I’d get in my car and I’d be so relaxed and content by the time I travelled home.”

As we wind up the interview, I ask Karen about her very first visit to the Botanic Garden and she excitedly recalls being a 7 year old member of the Scouting world’s Brownies in Myponga, when they and the older Girl Guides were given the opportunity to visit the Botanic Garden in Park 11 for a Brownie Day.

She recalled them sitting in a circle around what she thought was something like a toadstool fairy ring sculpture, dedicated by the Brownie movement, with a Brown Owl sitting under it.

“It’s still here,” I told a very surprised Karen and I took her back to the sculpture.

“I haven’t been to this spot for 60 years,” she reminisced.

“For we Myponga girls to come to these amazing Gardens in the Park Lands, and on top of that, to have this fairy tale Brownies’ sculpture - something solid here that represented our world, what we had been doing in a little church hall in Myponga - it was nothing short of magical.”

Karen didn’t think the sculpture would exist in the Botanic Garden anymore and was grateful that they valued South Australia’s heritage.

“This is a People’s Garden,” she said. “People can come to the Adelaide Botanic Garden, they can have picnics on the lawns, this sculpture is still here for former Brownies and modern-day Guides, everyone has free access to these Gardens and the Park Lands with all its nature, history and facilities. It’s brilliant!” 

Pleased to meet you, Karen Rowley.