SURVIVE LEVEL 4 | Get gardening inspiration from Cook Park

The Botanic Gardens will be blooming and Robertson Park is an icon, but why not start with the city's botanic jewel, Cook Park.

The town plan for Orange set aside 14 per cent of the original square space for recreation.

Cr Kidd said 4.5 hectares was reserved for this purpose by Arthur Templar, then Commissioner for Crown Lands, in 1845.

In 1873 it was proclaimed a park and in 1882 it was officially named Cook Park.

In 2018 it was awarded State Heritage status.

Trees were planted from 1870 onwards based on two decades of horticultural research by George Weily and George Hawke who had shown that many exotic species that failed in other NSW environments thrived in Orange's soil and climate.

Trees species from Europe, the US and other countries, rare in other parts, were planted to compare them with Australian eucalypts.

The first park curator, Andrew Patterson, was employed in 1887. He was a Swedish botanist and surveyor, originally employed by James Dalton at Duntryleague.

Cook Park is classic Victorian-type landscape architecture with a Gardenesque planting design.

The path arrangement is laid out to resemble the Union Jack.

The caretaker's house was built in 1887 and later named Bastick House to honour James Bastick senior and junior who were Parks and Gardens supervisors, serving for 90 years.

You will have to wait until February-April to see them in bloom but a wide range of colourful begonias are housed in the conservatory.

Mayor A. W. Blowes donated the glasshouse in 1934 to grow tuberous begonias.

The sunken garden, in memory of a town clerk for 40 years, has contained eight varieties of roses.

Built in 1937-38 it contains tree ferns, shade plants and the John Gale Memorial Fountain.