This is evident in the development of the Beechworth Bush Botanic Garden, located at the base of the Lake Sambell dam wall.
As far back as 1924, some three years before work began on the Lake Sambell dam wall, the Argus newspaper reported that Beechworth's students were rapidly covering the disfigured mining landscapes with young trees. By that time, two acres of trees had been planted and were showing excellent growth.
Today as we move around the lake, we can see the results of the extensive bush regeneration projects that have continued to transform this place over the subsequent decades. In addition to contributing to this process, the Bush Botanic Garden is significant as it brings together a broad selection of local plant species, in one place.
A garden beside the creek
One of the key features of the garden today is how it sits alongside the creek that has formed as a result of the discharge from the dam wall spillway. This drains past the garden and into a tunnel inlet that takes these waters away and underground for 800m, to flow out into the steep ravine on Spring Creek.
Due to this, the overall setting of the garden feels very natural, as if it has always sat there as a hollow, overshadowed by the houses and street levels around it. However, as we can see from a photo taken in the mid-1870s, this is not the case.
Here we can see that this place was already sunken well below ground level as a result of gold sluicing operations washing the alluvial sediments downstream. This work continued in 1880, once the Rocky Mountain Sluicing Company tunnel was completed.
Today when we look out from the garden, we can see these elevated landmarks that define the natural ground level across this place, which once sat as part of the Spring Creek floodplain.