Werribee Park Heritage Orchard

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Werribee Park Heritage Orchard

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We are a group of volunteers, restoring and preserving the Orchard, and it’s heritage varieites of fruit trees, on the river flat at the Werribee Park Mansion grounds, originally established in the 1870's.

26/06/2026

Orchard Friday 19-Jun-26

It is a cold morning at the orchard.

We usually set up the grafting table inside the carriage shed. But we have to move it outdoor today because of power outage. At the outdoor grafting table, we work on the second lot of peach and nectarine scions. We graft another fifty plus trees.

In the orchard, we continue to collect peach and nectarine scions. After that, we move to cherry, followed by apricots, j*p plum and euro plum. There will be a few weeks of solid work – all parts of the preparation for the upcoming Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival.

Winter is the maintenance season. We continue with the weekly check of irrigation system, fencing, and netting. The integrity of the fencing system is particularly important in winter season when the hungry rabbits look for every bit of tree branches and tree trunks to get their teeth in. Check out the ‘teething power’ of these rabbits in the photos.

Our Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival is on 9-Aug-26 (Sunday) 10am to 3pm. Mark the date!

19/06/2026

Orchard Friday 19-Jun-26

It is a cold cloudy morning at the orchard.

In the orchard, the peach and nectarine trees lose their leaves and go into dormancy. It is time to collect scion. Some scions will be prep for sale on festival day, as well as via the online shop after the festival. The scions are waxed, catalogued and go to the scion fridge for storage.

Some scions go straight to the grafting table. After a morning’s work, we have grafted seventy plus peach and nectarine trees. We should finish this batch of peach & nectarine grafting next Friday. Cherry grafting will be next.

For maintenance tasks, we continue with the weekly check of irrigation system, fencing, and netting. We fix some problems today and schedule other repair in the next few weeks.

We check the fig trees and get ready to collect cuttings. We check cherry trees for scion growth. We come across this Sweetheart cherry tree – the branch splits from lower part all the way to the top. The shape of the branch is distorted. But the deformed branch heals up. There are buds on both side of the flattened branch, and the buds are vital. It is very odd – but it is amazing to see how trees heal themselves (see photos). We will collect scions from the tree in a few weeks’ time and prune off the ‘distorted’ part.

Our Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival is on 9-Aug-26 (Sunday) 10am to 3pm. Mark the date!

12/06/2026

Orchard Friday 12-Jun-26

It is a mild sunny morning at the orchard.

Winter is the season of maintenance. Lawn mowers are the most ‘hard-working’ machines. Push mowers are run at full capacity at orchard sessions. They are being serviced on-site today. Robert gives them a full-body check – repair and replace damaged parts as required (see photos). The ride-on mower needs to be serviced off-site. Fingers crossed that it is ready for next Friday.

Other maintenance tasks include irrigation system, fencing and netting. We schedule weekly check to make sure that everything is working properly.

The Winter Festival is just over 8 weeks away. We walk the tree rows and check for scion growth. We get the scion collection list and will start cutting scions next Friday.

We also have some small group training to boost up the grafting skill of members before the busy grafting season starts.

Our Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival is on 9-Aug-26 (Sunday) 10am to 3pm. Mark the date!

05/06/2026

Orchard Friday 5-Jun-26

It is a wintry morning at the orchard – our first winter session. We are lucky to have a break from the rainy weather.

Winter is grafting season. Late May early June is the narrow window of grafting apricot to get a better strike rate. We grasp the opportunity to get over a hundred trees grafted over these two weeks.

Summer / autumn pruning is always a big job for us. We made a very start this year – pruning cherry trees around mid-January. We finished pruning apple and quince trees last Friday, just before winter came. Today we cleared the backlog of all the branches and pruning of the mulcher/chipper.

There are trees in the orchard are over 100 years old. Some of these elders are fruit trees and some are not. The quince trees are dating back over 120 years yet still producing fruit. They are now in our pruning schedule. Check out the before and after photo of the quince tree next to the historic ruins. The Bhutan Cypress is more than 120 years old. Unfortunately, there was a peppercorn tree planted immediately next to it. The peppercorn tree was cut down, but tree stump kept reshooting. Removing the tree stump may cause damage to the Cypress tree. We take the conservative approach - continue to remove new shoot of peppercorn tree to reduce competition with the Bhutan Cypress.

Summer and autumn are the busy seasons with harvest and pruning. Winter is also the maintenance season at the orchard. We start checking through netting and fencing and establish a schedule to carry out the tasks on a regular basis. Tree guards, fencing, and netting are the last line of defence against hungry rabbits and other wildlife.

Our Sunday session is on this weekend – 7-Jun-26 9.30am to 12.30pm. Planned activities include tree planting, lawn mowing, learning about bark-grafted trees, tidying pear and nashi trees, and fitting new tree

29/05/2026

Orchard Friday 29-May-26

It is a cool morning at the orchard. Winter will be here in a few days, but our Neutrog winter order already arrives. Our home garden is getting ready for winter with these goodies.

A group of volunteers from KPMG join us for some orchard actions. We start with grafting demo at the farmyard, then move to the orchard for pruning demo (we finish autumn pruning of the last apple tree). We plant 15 apple trees – a mix of varieties from US, France, Canada, Germany, etc. We make tree guards with aviary grade wire mesh and fit to the newly planted trees. One can’t be too careful with lethal jaws from hungry rabbits.

We catch up with irrigation maintenance and lawn mowing. We pick the last lot of figs. We will prune the fig trees and collect cutting at the same time.

We continue with pruning quince tree. The last one is a virtually a rescue operation. Years ago, parts of this quince tree fell on the ground and continued to grow from this awkward position. These parts start to deteriorate this season with leaves drying out and shrinking unripen fruits. There is still vital part on the far end of the tree. We take out the dead, diseased and damaged parts, and remove the heavy dead branches hanging over the healthy ones. We will finish clearing the rest of the dead branches next week. Check out the before and after photo.

22/05/2026

Orchard Friday 22-May-26

It is a cold foggy morning at the orchard with a temperature of just 7°C. When the fog clears, it turns out to be a beautiful sunny day.

We continue with autumn pruning of the heritage quince trees. The lower branches are removed, and we get access of lawn mowers to the base of the trees. We get another four trees pruned – check out the after-photo. We have one left at the far end of the orchard, and that will be done next Friday. The fruits of these quince trees are beautiful. We have some poached quince for fruit tasting at the coming Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival. We will also take cuttings to propagate more quince trees!

We removed all the damaged apple trees (from rabbit ringbarking) last week. We plant the first lot of replanting along the Australian and UK session of the apple tree rows. After a morning’s effort, seven apple trees are planted.

For fruit harvest, we are picking the last lot of figs. The fig trees will be prune in a few weeks’ time. We will collect cuttings at the same time.

We also check through the apricot trees, map out the steps to collect scion and start grafting new trees next week.

For irrigation maintenance, the team continue to check the shrubblers on irrigation line. Our power tools are in action this morning - ride-on mower, push mowers, and chipper / mulcher.

We have a sausage sizzle after orchard session to celebrate National Volunteer week. It is great to down tools and catch up with everyone over lunch, reminiscing our journey from ground zero of the overgrown orchard to the current planting of five hundred plus varieties of trees. We certainly come a long way!

Our Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival is only a couple of months away. Come to join us on 9-Aug-26 to share our orchard journey – mark the date!

15/05/2026

Orchard Friday 15-May-26

It is a mild morning with beautiful sunshine at the orchard.

We finished autumn pruning of stone fruit trees last Friday. Today we move onto the quince trees. The quince trees are the ‘originals’ at the orchard, about 100 to 120 years old. Quince trees are propagated via rooting cuttings rather than grafting. Unlike the other grafted fruit trees, these quince trees do not have the problems of rootstock overgrown the scions. Until today, these quince trees are still productive.

However, the yield of fruit trees declines over the years without proper pruning and maintenance. We put the quince trees on our pruning schedule this season. Today is the first ‘haircut session’ of the quince trees. Following the principle of pruning, we clean out the dead, damaged and diseased branches. We prune off the branches growing downwards and clear the long grass at the base of the trees. There is much better air circulation and sunlight pe*******on, and much better access for lawn mowers (see photos). After a morning’s effort, we finish pruning half of the quince trees. Another half to go next week.

Last season our apple trees were ringbarked by hungry rabbits. We started removing the damaged trees a couple of weeks ago. We finish removing the rest today. We are ready for planting replacement trees next week.

For fruit harvest, we are still picking figs - probably for a couple more weeks. Then we will prune the fig trees and collect cuttings at the same time. It is always nice to taste the different varieties of figs at the end of the orchard session.

For irrigation maintenance, the team continue to check the shrubblers on irrigation line. We have issues with blockages of the shrubblers and the irrigation lines. Justin (from Netafim Irrigation) and Michael (from Sunbury Water Life) come on site to give us some expert advice of the filtration system upgrade.
We have delivery of important asset and supplies on site this morning – the coffee machine and ground coffee beans! Coffee operation is now back on site – definitely a boost

08/05/2026

Orchard Friday 8-May-26

It is a chilly morning with light drizzle at the orchard. At least we have a break from the rain yesterday.

We had a team meeting on site for the soil regeneration project two weeks ago. After that, we start working on the design of the study to incorporate different variables in conditions and interventions. We are back on site again to further refine the design. Planning stage is tedious but extremely important for the proper conduct of the study.

For autumn pruning, we work on the last lot of euro plum trees, also the last lot of stone fruit trees. After this, we only have a few pome fruit trees to prune. We are on schedule to finish autumn pruning in autumn!

For irrigation maintenance, we check the shrubblers on each irrigation line for blockage. Regular test ensures the integrity of the irrigation system.

W**d / grass management is an ongoing orchard task. We have the push mowers in action this morning.

For fruit harvest, there are still few weeks to pick figs and quince. Pruning of fig trees is a winter job. We will prune and collect cuttings at the same time.

In the farmyard area, we install more shelving units in the stable / shed. We move our festival supplies to the shelves. We now have everything in one place – we are getting organised for the coming Festival.

Our Winter Heritage Fruit Tree Festival is on 9-Aug-26, just over 13 weeks away! Mark the date!

03/05/2026

Orchard Sunday 3-May-26

It is a rainy but warm morning at the orchard. The gusty wind from yesterday calms down a bit, but the rain settles in.

The rain is constant. It is too wet to work in the orchard. We work ‘undercover’ at Implement Shed. We sort out the nursery product signages to get ready for the Winter Festival in August. We finish around 10.30am.

The rain starts to ease out. We decide to tackle the carpet w**ds in the ‘new nursery area’. The nursery relocation will be around late August early September. We need to prep the area for repair of fence as well as the ground for laying of gravel. The first step is to clear carpet w**ds.

After battling with carpet w**ds in the orchard for the past few years, we gradually work out the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ to do. Sickle and grass hooks are the ‘must-have’ tools to release the carpet w**ds from the fence as well as from the ground. We need to keep the w**ds in big trunks so that we can roll them up like ‘carpet’. With all things in place, we clear the area in just over an hour. Check out the photos to see the amount of w**d being removed and the rediscovered fence line! This is a lot of hard work but strangely satisfying.

Our next Sunday session is on 7-Jun-26 9.30am -12.30pm. Come and join us for some orchard actions!

01/05/2026

Orchard Friday 1-May-26

It is a glorious autumn morning at the orchard. We are going to make the best of warm weather when we can.

In the nursery, we continue potting up rootstock to make life easier for the coming grafting season. We will start with grafting apricot in the later part of this month.

For irrigation maintenance, the second water pump is now in place with proper connections and the protective casing. We will run small group training sessions in the next few weeks to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

We have ride-on mower as well as push mowers in action this morning. The combination of different mowers as well as manual w**ding helps to help the grass at a manageable height.

For autumn pruning, we start working on euro plum trees. This is the last lot of stone fruit trees to be pruned. We get some trees done this morning and continue Sunday (our May Sunday orchard session). We should finish the autumn pruning of stone fruit trees by next Friday. The plum rootstock (myrobalan H29C) is vigorous and suckers readily. We check through the young trees along the euro plum row and clean up the rootstock suckers. Unfortunately, a couple of young trees are overtaken by rootstock, and the grafts did not survive. We pick that out early and will arrange replacement planting.

Last season our apple trees were ringbarked by hungry rabbits. We now have the replacement trees ready for planting. We start removing the damaged trees today.

We are at the end part of the harvest season. We pick figs and quince today. When properly ripening on the trees, the figs are to die for. We have some figs (and others) preserved for tasting at the Winter Fruit Trees Festival on 9-Aug-26.

Our Sunday session is on this weekend 3-May-26 9.30am-12.30pm. Come to join us for some orchard actions!

Address

Werribee South, VIC

Website

https://werribeeparkheritageorchard.org.au/

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