The Diggers Foundation is Australia’s leading gardening charity, custodian of a legacy that began in 1978 when Clive and Penny Blazey founded The Diggers Club in Melbourne as a commercial nursery and seed business. Preservation and conservation sat at the core of the Blazeys’ vision from the start – preserving historic houses and gardens such as Heronswood (circa 1864) and The Garden of St Erth (circa 1855), planting water-saving gardens, and championing heirloom vegetable and flower seeds in the face of corporatisation.
In 2011, the Blazeys took the significant step of establishing The Diggers Foundation as a registered not-for-profit charity, gifting The Diggers Club business along with their privately-owned properties, Heronswood and The Garden of St Erth, to the Foundation. Today The Diggers Club is Australia’s largest gardening community, with over 85,000 members nationwide, and all its proceeds – membership, sales and garden entry – are now channelled into the Foundation’s charitable mission.
What it does The Foundation’s work spans preserving historic houses, gardens and arboretums, rescuing heirloom seeds through its “Support a Seed” initiative, and its “Seed the Future” community program, which has donated over 1.2 million seeds to community groups since 2023. Its broader focus is the conservation, protection and enhancement of botanical and ecological habitats, historic gardens and buildings, and cultural heritage, achieved through property stewardship, research and community education.
The gardens The Foundation owns and cares for several significant Australian gardens:
- Heronswood (Mornington Peninsula) – the home of The Diggers Club and the first public garden in Australia to be certified organic.
- The Garden of St Erth – a property with a history going back over 150 years, in Diggers’ care since 1996, spanning over 4 acres of food, cottage and bush gardens.
- Cloudehill – acquired as the third garden under the Foundation’s stewardship, giving Diggers Club members free access and other visitors entry for a small fee to help fund upkeep.
Founders Clive Blazey AM is the author of eight gardening books and led the club to five awards for heirloom vegetable seed preservation. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019 for services to horticulture and conservation. As Clive Blazey has put it, when custodians are lucky enough to hold places like Heronswood or Cloudehill, they come to see that such gardens should never be traded like real estate but preserved for everyone to enjoy – and, since these gardens receive no government funding, the Foundation operates in a similar tradition to the UK’s Royal Horticultural Society.
