Masterclass
Love your orchard: Grow healthier
& happier fruit
Brought to you by The Diggers Club
Your Masterclass
Caring for and managing home orchards can be a daunting task. Diggers Head of Gardens, Julian Blackhirst, shares his experience of all aspects of fruit growing, from fertilisation, pruning and training to pest control and companion plants.
What you will learn:
- How to prune your fruit trees to give them structure, shape and encourage fruiting.
- The difference between winter and summer pruning and how to use each technique to get the most out of your trees.
- Soil preparation and ongoing soil management to ensure a healthy, living soil in your orchard.
- Growing companion plants with your fruit trees to encourage biodiversity, support soil health and help prevent pests and diseases.
- How to identify and treat pests and diseases in the orchard to keep your trees healthy and productive.
This Masterclass is designed to teach you everything you need to know to grow healthy fruit trees in the home garden or orchard.
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Member price
$80
Non member price
$110
Your Presenter
Julian is our Head of Gardens here at The Diggers Club. He brings a wealth of experience from his time at St Erth, where he was the curator of the espalier orchard, the food forest and the bulb meadows. Julian is also a highly experienced market gardener and a passionate farm-to-fork foodie.
The Location
Featuring over 4 acres of food, cottage and bush gardens each season provides different delights and inspiration to both experienced and aspiring gardeners. The gardens are filled with plants which thrive in central Victoria’s cold winters and hot dry summers. A huge range of daffodils, hellebores and other flowering bulbs bring the garden to life in spring.
Visitors can admire the colour and beauty of our perennial flower borders throughout summer and autumn with hardy, long flowering perennials creating an amazing cottage garden display amongst our Australian bush setting.
The Garden has been certified organic since 2008 and Digger’s range of perennials, bulbs and heirloom vegetables are grown at St Erth using the best organic methods. Seasonal produce from our kitchen gardens is served at St Erth café throughout the year.
See more information on The Garden of St Erth
Masterclass
Love Your Orchard: Grow Healthier
Happier Fruit
20 July 2025
The Garden of St Erth (Blackwood)
Sunday 11 am - 12.30 pm
Limited tickets, don't miss out.