The Halls Gap Botanical Garden will be without its statue for some time.
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The beloved emu statue has been a feature of the garden for more than five years.
Garden volunteer David Witham said some work went into the statue to make it more solid when it first was placed in the garden.
“The statue had been nodding down for the past 18 months due to weight which was placed on top of it,” he said.
“We suspect someone has sat on it again or done something to it and it totally collapsed.
“We realised it was totally broken last week and put it in the shed. Our attention now turns to find someone to fix it.”
Mr Witham said the story of how the emu ended up in the garden was an interesting one.
“Someone from the Mornington Peninsula got in touch with one of our volunteers, Margo,” he said.
“A deal was made with Margo and she was to take the sculpture structure to a field day and enter it into a competition.
“If it didn’t win a prize, Margo was able to keep it for the garden.”
The garden is run by the community association of Halls Gap group’s volunteers.
It was established in 1996 after Janet Witham applied for a federal government grant to set up the garden.
“The official name is The Grampians Florist Flora Botanic Garden,” Mr Witham said.
“Our aim is to have purely Grampians native flora.
“Visitors won't see anything in the garden that isn’t native to this area.”
Mr Witham said flowers grown in the garden are used for the annual wildflower show.
“We have also recently installed a solar fountain which we are still working on,” he said.
“It’s a lovely place to go and have a picnic and take in the surroundings.”
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