Garden project blossoming

The Gargarro Regional Botanic Garden project has been given the last injection of funds it needs to start stage two of the $2 million build.

Gargarro is the Indigenous name for the Girgarre district and the most recent $300,000 grant was announced by Federal Member for Nicholls Damian Drum.

Athol ‘Doc’ Mcdonald, the project convenor, said the community was pinching itself after putting the last piece of the jigsaw in place for stage two of the project to commence.

“We have been working on this project for 10 years and all of a sudden it has just fallen into place,” he said.

“We are about to appoint a contractor, that will happen as soon as we can sign all the paperwork.”

The group had trouble finding a suitable contractor due to the large amount of funding currently being injected into Victorian communities.

“Because there are a lot of grants available everyone is really busy and two contractors had to pull out because of previous commitments,” Mr Mcdonald said.

Mark Quarrell, from Quarrell Civil Construction, will be the man behind the botanic gardens project.

“They are just finishing the project at Echuca East Oval and will start work later this month,” he said.

The botanic gardens café has been put out to tender and three builders will submit costings. Those tenders close on October 21.

Mr Mcdonald said the most recent federal grant was the fourth piece of funding the group had received in the past six months.

“The garden project is worth about $2 million. Now we have been successful with the latest grant we can do some of the things that we had dropped off,” he said.