Jane Edmanson OAM (OL 1967)
ABC Gardening Australia Presenter

During her time at Lauriston Jane was a House captain, the Vice Captain of the tennis team and was also involved in basketball, baseball and running. 

Even back in high school Jane loved learning about plants in Biology as well as enjoying History, Literature and Latin. Studying Latin certainly proved to be invaluable for Jane given her involvement in horticulture; it has given her a significant advantage when it comes to understanding the botanical names of plants. 

After Lauriston Jane pursued teaching and completed a Bachelor of Arts/Diploma of Education at Monash University. After taking a year off to travel Jane decided it was time for a career change. When she returned to Australia she secured a job in a plant nursery and studied horticulture at TAFE. Jane spent the next 15 years working at the State Schools’ Nursery, which was established in the early 1900s to provide plants for school gardens and to educate children in horticultural principles. 

It was during this time that Jane met gardening identity Kevin Heinze. Jane’s combination of botanical knowledge and teaching expertise took his interest and Jane was invited to take over his role as host on the ABC’s “So What” program. During that time each state had a gardening program, but these were stopped and combined into a national program, and Gardening Australia was born.

Jane has now been involved with the program over 25 years.