Keeping Melaleuca Station in trim

Melaleuca Station topiarist Trevor Parker with his trusty hedge trimmer.

John Gass

IT HAS become as much a landmark as crossing the Tweed River for all those travellers either approaching or departing Tweed Heads to the south - Melaleuca Station Memorial Gardens which nestles between the intersection of the Pacific Hwy and Tweed Valley Way at Chinderah.

The spectacular building and magnificent gardens are impossible to miss for anyone driving north or south along both major thoroughfares.

The stunning building could be mistaken for a huge Edwardian railway station or a grand Victorian-era hotel - the imposing structure really grabs the eye.

As do the picture-perfect gardens on the 10-acre site, highlighted by the stunning topiary works which include a giant ship (Australian lilly pilly) with brown pine "funnels", the Melaleuca Station sign (murraya) and a grove of 28 towering Hill's weeping fig (hilli ficus), well ... towers.

There are extensive hedges throughout the gardens as well as numerous gardens and a host of trees and shrubs which managed to escape the topiary bent of Trevor Parker, Melaleuca's resident gardener, grounds- man and, yes, artist.

Mr Parker wields his hedge-trimmer with the skills of a neuro-surgeon using a scalpel.

His dexterity with the machine is a wonder to behold as he works on his huge "canvas".

"I've been doing it for nigh on 20 years so you would reckon I'd have it down pat by now," Mr Parker said.

He was at the site 20 years ago when the property was being transformed from a cane field into a ti-tree nursery by the Brisbane-based Christensen family.

"I had left school at Murwillumbah and started working at the Christensen's tree farm and nursery at Duranbah when they purchased the property and began to develop it," Mr Parker recalled.

"They transferred me down to help set up the new place and I've been here ever since!'

Mr Parker helped plant those rows of Hill's weeping figs and watched them grow from metre-high saplings into perfectly manicured towers standing five metres tall - but for Mr Parker's topiary skills, the figs would reach as high as 15-20 metres.

Mr Parker gives his artwork a trim whenever he believes the leaves have become a "bit scraggly".

"All of the topiary pieces get a trim because their leaves seem to grow about the same speed across all the species of plants," Mr Parker said.

"Once I start, it normally takes me two weeks to get through all the work, a lot of which involves using a cherry-picker to access high and awkward places."

When asked if he used a spirit-level to get perfect symmetry in his trimming, Mr Parker just laughed.

"No way, I just seem to have a good eye for it," he said, which in turn provides countless thousands pf passers-by with a panorama to please the eye.