Subversive gardener saving the best of the past

Clive Blazey and his wife Penny were groundbreakers long before sustainable gardening became the hobby of hipsters.

Sustainable gardeners Penny and Clive Blazey. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Long before sustainable gardening became the hobby of hipsters, Clive Blazey and his wife, Penny, were breaking ground as subversive gardeners.

The Blazeys started the Diggers Garden Club, a mail-order heirloom seed business, back in 1978 out of concern that the biodiversity of fruits and vegetables was being washed away in the mass production of produce. “Subversive gardeners, well, I suppose we’re counter-popular-culture people,” he said.

“Being a subversive is to question conventional wisdom.”

Mr Blazey has been made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to horticulture. He said there were thousands of fruits and vegetables not sold in supermarkets, including about 5000 different types of tomatoes, which were at risk of disappearing from gardens and plates forever.

“It took a long time before they caught on: we tested them out through Stephanie Alexander and other chefs at the time,” he said. “They were blown away with the fantastic flavour compared to the supermarket variety. That sort of put Diggers on the map.”

The Diggers Garden Club now has 75,000 members nationally.

Mr Blazey said his mission was to preserve the natural beauty of gardens, which is suffering from mass-produced plants intended for pots. “You might say it’s retro,” he said. “We are trying to ensure the best of the past doesn’t disappear.”

At 74, Mr Blazey said he doesn’t consider himself part of the gardening revival flourishing in community garden, although he is glad of the renewed interest in traditional gardening practices.

“We think the trend towards looking back is a big plus, because I guess I’m appalled by the modern trends,” he said. “I see you can certainly make money that way but I don’t think you can create beauty … floral sex appeal is winning out against beauty.”

Mr Blazey said he was gratified by his award, but says he remains a gardener first and foremost.