The Diggers Foundation - Living Plant Library
Processed securely via the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. All gifts are full tax deductible.
The Diggers Foundation · Dromana, Victoria
A garden where the seeds we’ve saved come to life.
The Living Plant Library is where fifty years of preservation becomes something you can walk through, taste, and take home.
- 93% of heirloom fruit and vegetable varieties lost globally since 1903
- 350+ varieties in the Diggers seed bank, including 230 tomato varieties
- 50 yrs of seed saving that needs a permanent home to grow from
The Diggers Foundation is the only organisation in Australia operating at this level of commitment to edible heritage variety preservation.
Help build the Library.
What is it
Not a museum. A living, working garden.
The Diggers Foundation has spent nearly fifty years preserving rare and heirloom seeds the world cannot afford to lose. The Living Plant Library is where that work becomes real, a purpose-built collection at our Boundary Road headquarters in Dromana, where every variety in our seed bank is grown, documented and shared.
It closes the loop between preservation and practice. The seed bank holds what must not be lost. The Living Plant Library ensures it is not forgotten.
- 350+ varieties in the Diggers seed bank
- 230 of those are tomato varieties alone including member-donated favourites like ‘Uncle Tony’s La Stupenda’ and ‘Nonno’s Italian Pear’
The Diggers Foundation
Living Plant Library
Processed securely via the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. All gifts are full tax deductible.
How it works
Active cultivation, season after season.
1. GROW
Planted each season
Varieties from the seed bank alongside perennial stock are grown in real soil, in real weather. Growing conditions, yields and characteristics are observed and recorded.
2. DOCUMENT
Knowledge made permanent
Each variety is documented: its flavour, its growing habit, its uses in the garden and the kitchen. Knowledge that storage alone cannot generate, and that can otherwise be lost forever.
3. SHARE
Survival through use
Seeds and plant material are shared with growers, schools, community organisations and researchers. Every variety shared is a variety that continues to survive.
The stakes
A global movement. An Australian home.
The Living Plant Library joins a small and significant number of institutions worldwide that understand what is at stake in the loss of food diversity and have built living collections to do something about it.
- 75% of all agricultural plant diversity lost in the past century (UN Food and Agriculture Organization)
- 12 plant species provide 75% of the world’s entire food supply (UN Food and Agriculture Organization)
“Some things only survive because someone decides they are worth saving.”
Six reasons to visit, give, and grow.
1. Heritage vegetable beds
Rows of rare and unusual vegetables drawn from the seed bank, varieties that once filled Australian kitchen gardens and are now almost impossible to find commercially.
Member-donated favourites include ‘Uncle Tony’s La Stupenda’, ‘Nonno’s Italian Pear’ and Franks Pea.
2. Heirloom fruit collection
Heritage fruit varieties grown in active production, selected for flavour, diversity and historical significance to Australian growing culture.
3. Climate resilience trials
Heritage varieties trialled across conditions to assess adaptability and resilience, contributing directly to the Foundation’s climate adaptation research program.
4. Education and community
A working space for growers, schools and community groups to learn growing and harvest techniques alongside the Library’s active collection.
5. Rare ornamentals
Less common and beautiful ornamental varieties drawn from the Diggers collection, showcased in the historic borders at Heronswood and St Erth.
6. Member access
Diggers members will have privileged access to the Library’s collection, its knowledge base and its seed output, deepening the relationship between the Foundation and the community it was built to serve.
Processed securely via the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. All gifts are full tax deductible.
Companion reference
A shared conviction · The Serge Hill Project, Hertfordshire UK
“Founded on the conviction that working with plants transforms lives, 2,000+ species in active cultivation, grown for evaluation, education and community access.”
Where Serge Hill demonstrates the power of living collections for human wellbeing, the Diggers Foundation Living Plant Library does so for edible heritage and food security. We are the Australian chapter of this global movement.
Donate
Make a gift
Help build something that will endure for generations.
The Diggers Foundation is inviting donors to contribute to the establishment of the Living Plant Library. Your support goes directly toward restoring the garden, establishing the living collection, and building infrastructure that will make the Library a permanent resource.
Your gift makes possible:
- Restoration of the garden at Boundary Road, Dromana
- Heritage vegetable and fruit beds established from the Foundation’s seed bank
- Climate resilience trials contributing to food security research
- Education programs for schools, communities and growers
- A legacy in Australian food culture that will endure for generations
“Some things only survive because someone decides they are worth saving.”
Processed securely via the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. All gifts are full tax deductible.
