Journal of the Australian Garden History Society

Australian Garden History is the
official journal of the Australian
Garden History Society and is
published six times a year.

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Ph (02) 6453 5578
Fax (02) 6453 5557
e-mail:trisha@snowy.net.au

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November/December 1999

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-15 September, 1999

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-15 November, 1999

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ISSN 1033-3673

FRONT COVER

Native laurel in bloom
Watercolour and gouache
on tinted card, 44 x 32 cm
by Margaret Henderson
Hope

Lady Smith’s presentation
album, page 55
Allport Library and Museum
of Fine Art, Hobart

GUEST

EDITORIAL

by Geoffrey Stilwell

T he place of the picture library
should not be undervalued.
Pictures prove as the written word
never can. However the information
has to be combined with the written
word.

For more than five years 1 was deputy
archivist of Tasmania where 1 learned
much from those great men Robert
Sharman and Peter Eldershaw and this
knowledge has been of great help in
my future career. In 1966 the position
of Librarian of Special Collections
was created. The Tasmanian Collection
had formerly been an adjunct of
the State Reference Library and Sir
William Crowther’s collection started
coming into the State Library in the
1950s but it was the trustees of the
third collection, the Allport Library
and Museum of Fine Arts who
persuaded the State Library that they
must appoint a librarian. We spent the
next six years at Cedar Court in Sandy Bay, Mr. Henry Allport’s house. Eventually it was decided to
move to specially designed premises in the State Library. During those years the Collection was open
to the public in a limited way, on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. The rest of the time
the staff were busy cataloguing material. It was a lovely but inconvenient way for the public, who
came by appointment to work, but it was a happy atmosphere. Much useful research made the
information available to the public.

I have talked about the State Library’s Special collections, but one must not forget those of the
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the Queen Victoria Museum and the National Trust, and the
Commandant’s House Port Arthur. Indeed for the researcher Tasmania is well served.

This issue of Australian Garden History explores the history of our colonial gardens. Much of the
research information comes from the paintings in our Special Collections.

Tasmania has a wealth of architectural and horticultural treasures and the gardens of Panshanger
and Wingfield are two examples of this rich heritage.

Geoffrey Stilwell is well known throughout Australia for his knowledge of Tasmanian history and the immense contribution he has
made to the work of writers, researchers and scholars through his association with the State Archives, The State Library of
Tasmania, the Cnowther Collection and the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, In 1992 a book of essays on aspects of
Tasmanian history and culture was published to honour his work.

2

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

CONTENTS

COLONIAL GARDENS
FOCUS ON TASMANIA

4

Wingfield

SALLY DAKIS brings to life a garden in one of Tasmania’s most evocative colonial streetscapes

7

Of Tasmania and its Early Gardens

HOWARD TANNER focuses on Tasmania’s colonial landscapes

12

Panshanger

HOWARD TANNER and ANN CRIPPS look at one of Tasmania’s most noted estates

14

Some Excursions into Plant Exchange and Symbolism
in Nineteenth Century Gardens

PHYL FRAZER SIMONS reveals fascinating snippets of early plant exchange

16

A Colonial Cottage Garden

ANN CRIPPS paints a word picture of an early Hobart garden

17

A Home by the Sea

MARGARET SCOTT comes to terms with the previous owner of Tara

19

From Gaiters to Gumboots

CHRISTINE REID reports on a Winter Seminar at Geelong, Victoria

20

Gardening on the Edge

MARCIA VOCE reports on a Winter Seminar held at Cooma, NSW

22

Botanical snippets

23

Calendar of Events

24

The Back Page — Margaret Anderson Hope

HEATHER CURNOW documents the work of one of Tasmania’s leading botanical artists

Thanks to Kate McKern, Mike and Kaye Stokes, Elizabeth Wright, Annie Pyers, Gwen Ward, Di Ellerton, Jane Bunney,
John Joyce, Ann Miller and Jackie Courmadias for packing the last issue of the Journal.

NATIONAL

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

3

Wingfield

by Sallyann Dakis

JUST ONE MILE FROM Hobart’s GPO, on the boundary of
Governor Arthur’s Military District, lies one of Tasmania’s most
evocative colonial streetscapes. Named after Arthur’s predecessor,
Davey Street runs past Constitution Dock and Salamanca, climbing
steadily south into the foothills of Mount Wellington.

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W ith the mountain backdrop, and views
of the city and the River Derwent,
Davey Street became the home of many of
the young colony’s premier citizens...
Colonial Secretaries, Solicitors, Doctors,
Consuls... and the houses they built and
the gardens they made have largely
survived.

The early town planners, recognising
the special qualities of the area, created
an elegant Georgian style crescent
between Davey Street and the Sandy
Bay stream, and named it Garden
Crescent, a name which was to
reflect the botanical gardens
planned for the lower side of
the Crescent (but which never
eventuated, laid out instead as a
charming English style park in
the early 1900s).

Amongst the impressive sand¬
stone gentlemen’s residences are to be
found some superb examples of early
colonial gardens, whilst some have been
lost and most altered from their early
form, the garden of Wingfield retains its
colonial resonance to this day.

Driving along Davey Street, Wingfield hides
enticingly behind an impressive two and a half
metre high sandstone wall, its entrance flanked
by three imposing sandstone capped pillars,
themselves dominated by the overhanging
branches of century old English Oaks.

The Georgian sandstone house was built by
George Henry Barnes, the Collector of Customs
in 1834 and a substantial garden must have been
started immediately, for 13 years later, an auction
notice advises:

SANDSTONE

TROUGH

Plan of Wingfield garden
by Joanne Stratford

The premises are situated in the most desirable
part of the town, commanding every delight of
terraqueous and marine scenery that either

4

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

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V THREE VILLA RESIDENCES

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reality or imagination can compass.... The
luxuriance and abundance the garden grounds
exhibit are not of the ordinary character. In the
pleasure ground the oak, borne down by the
abounding acorn, is only an example of the
abounding almond and divers value nuts and
fruits. Thence, through a never-failing foliage,
appears the house...

The approach to the house is along an elegant
carriage drive, lined on one side with a clipped
hedge of Primus lusitanica, the other side, by
the sandstone wall and Oaks underplanted with
a row of tall Tasmanian Tree Ferns, Dicksonia
antarctica. The house is only revealed as the
hedge curves away, neatly screening the walled
kitchen garden behind.

Directly in front of the house a traditional,
ornately shaped box hedge contains a rose
garden. More Oaks, a Walnut and a Cherry
Laurel, Primus laurocerasus line the south east
boundary, and in the area closest to Garden
Crescent (subsequently called Fitzroy Crescent),

what was once a tennis
court and cricket pitch
have now been converted
into beds containing
many interesting bulbs,
perennials and shrubs
(including many stunning
tree peonies).

This is the area which
has experienced the
greatest change, and
while its not been
possible to identify the
earliest layout, a plan of
three adjacent gardens

(top) Auction notice and plan of
three villas on Fitzroy Crescent
revealing with delightful detail
the layout of the Colonial
townhouse gardens.

Archives Office of Tasmania,

(above) Early street plan of
Garden Crescent circa 1835.
Archives Office ofTasmania.

gives us very strong clues.

Drawn up in 1854 when three Villa Residences
were to be auctioned, the plan shows us with
delightful clarity the layout of those gardens,
suggesting a gardenesque style where plants were
contained in beds divided by decoratively shaped
and curved paths (only the centre house now
survives).

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

5

The formal front view of
Wingfield, with traditional box
hedge. This is the facade which
faced onto Fitzroy Crescent
enjoying views across Sandy
Bay and the Derwent.
Photo by Chris Wisbey.

REFERENCES
Green, K. Garden Crescent
National Trust Walking
Guide, 1998

Robertson, E. Graeme, Early
Buildings of Southern Tasmania
Vol I. Georgian House,
Melbourne, 1970

Simons, R Frazer, Historic
Tasmanian Gardens Mulini
Press, 1987

Sallyann Dakis is a member of
the National Management
Committee of the Australian
Garden History Society and
lives in one of the earliest
houses built on Garden
Crescent — once home of
the first Superintendent of
the Botanical Gardens
William Davidson.

The Wingfield kitchen garden, bounded on
one side with a sandstone and the other by a
brick wall, is reminiscent of the English walled
kitchen gardens, and contained a plethora of
fruit trees, berries, vegetables and a glass house
(demolished). A cobbled yard (now asphalt) ran
across the front of a three bay stable (now
garage). Whilst the vegetable and berry beds have
been replaced by lawn, the kitchen garden still
contains a number of fruit trees including a large
walnut, a green gage plum, a dark prune plum,
pear, apricot, apples and what is believed to be an
original fruiting grape.

Unfortunately the integrity of Garden
Crescent was seriously damaged when two
substantial sandstone houses and gardens were
demolished, and the eastern edge of Wingfield’s
garden resumed to make way for a four lane
highway. Despite this, (or perhaps because of it)
the significance of Wingfield to this historic
landscape cannot be underestimated, either for
those fortunate enough to have visited through
Australia’s Open Garden Scheme, or for the
Davey Street travellers, like me, who appreciate
the silhouettes of the Oaks and Elms... or even
for the young man who I recently watched filling
his pockets with apples, overhanging the Davey
street footpath!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Joanne Stratford, B.F.A., Ad.Cert.Hort, and a
Horticulturist with the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens
who kindly drew the Wingfield garden, and to Richard Aitken
for discovering the Villa plans in the Tasmanian Archives.

Julie Keegan Tours
May/June 2000

Visit private houses and gardens;
enjoy excellent food and wine
all at a leisurely pace.

South of France & Italy
Portugal, Spain & Morocca
Burgundy & Prague

BROCHURES

JULIE KEEGAN TOURS PTY LTD
7 Cove Street Watsons Bay 2030
Tel (02) 9337 1147 Fax (02) 9337 6782

Licence No: 2YTA 4710

6

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

O F TASMANIA

AND ITS EARLY GARDENS

by Howard Tanner

TASMANIA, once known as the apple isle’ and as
the source of IXL jams and preserves, is a precious
geographic entity, small (comprising only 1% of
Australia) yet diverse.

I ts mountainous backbone confronts the
‘roaring forties’ and enfolds rare alpine plant
colonies and valleys verdant with cool climate
rain forests. Further east is a softer landscape
‘civilised’ by English colonists during the
nineteenth century, creating memorable rural
settings, townscapes, houses and gardens which
provide familiar images of a harmonious and
settled landscape.

Christopher Koch and Peter Conrad have
written evocatively of the Tasmanian landscape:

The whole of dry, time-flattened Australia lies
north of latitude forty, its climate Mediter¬

ranean and then
sub-tropical. But
small, mountainous
Tasmania, filled
with lakes and
rivers, is south
of latitude forty;
and this makes it different. Politically, it is part
of the Commonwealth of Australia; physically
it is not.

The island lies in the track of the Roaring
Forties, the westerly winds that blow from
Cape Horn. In the upside-down frame of the
Antipodes, it duplicates the Atlantic coast of
Europe... [we] were children of a green, marine
landscape: subjects of the stem winter cold. Our
spirits were conditioned by the blood-thrilling
Westerlies; snow fell in our mid-winters; we
walked to school through London fogs.'

1 C.J. The Doubleman,
Chatto and Windus,
London, 1985.

Hobart Town taken from the
garden where I lived.

Oil by John Glover, 1832

Dixson Galleries, State Library of
New South Wales, Sydney,

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

7

2 Peter Conrad, Down and
Under Revisiting Tasmania,
Chatto and Windus,
London, 1985.

Tasmania is an island of hills, a fragment
separated from the parent continent by a wide
stretch of sea. It is different from the hot
Australian mainland ; it has a different weather
and a different soul, knowing as it does the
sharp breath of the south, facing the Antarctic.
No wars, no disturbances have ever reached the
island: no honors at all, since the last convict
transport made the long run from England,
when the island’s dreaded name was Van
Diemens Land, in that bad, smelly old century
of rum and the lash. It lies now like a suburb
in the sea, eventless and snug.

It has two small cities, Hobart, the capital,
in the south, and Launceston in the north.

At their centres are the solid, ornate stone
buildings of Georgian and Victorian England;
in the suburbs, small swarms of twentieth
century bungalows, with galvanised iron roof
and neat front lawns, spread to the edges of the
country. There are prosperous fanning districts
and occasional little townships; and the rest is
bush, its metallic greeti tides ebbing and flowing
mile upon mile across the hills and gullies.

And the bush is silent. There is a silence in the
island, outside the towns, which the prosperous
life of today cannot break: the silence of a land
outside history, almost outside time It is so far
south: on the edge of the blank wastes of ice.

The island’s people have not been there long:
not two centuries. The dark, stone-age people
the colonists found when they came have all
been wiped out; they are a lost race. But they
are still a reproach fid memory in the island’s
silence. Only stone knives on the floors of
gullies, and the middens of sea shells from their
camps remain; the red, live eyes of their
campfires went out long ago...'

#

Before the engineers thought of diverting rivers
and shearing hills, transforming a plateau into
a pond and crushing boidders into roads, all
civilisation could do in Tasmania was stay
indoors and look through its ivindows at an
arboreal screen representing England. To
protect their fiction of rural gentility, the
colonists transplanted the landscape they had
left. Along the Derwent, banks ofwilloius
attempted a facsimile of the Thames. The
peeling, bedraggled local trees suffered social
exclusion: there’s a field outside Ouse in which

haughty poplars join ranks on three sides
against a single unkempt, stringy eucalypt.

Oaks were honoured as imperial ambassadors,
leafy flagpoles for a remote home. At Lilydale
Falls, acorns despatched from Windsor were
ceremoniously planted on Coronation Day in
1936. Tasmania still quotes from this distant,
indistinct prototype. In the midlands,

Georgian country houses shimmer through
incongruous dusty heat, and little girls with
riding hats and jodhpurs trot their ponies past
the red-whiskered mountain men who are
mending the road.

But once the view from the landowner’s
window stops, the truth of the country reasserts
itself — dry and windy plains like a desert of
spiky grasses, hilltops turned into dunes by the
glare; and to confound the oaks with their
umbrellas of shade, the presences tvhich
dominate everywhere are dead gums, twisted
in arthritic agonies but unbowed. Travelling
round Tasmania, I came to remember
individual specimens as vividly as if they were
human casualties I had met. 2

Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) was
settled early in the nineteenth century, firstly
on the Derwent at Risdon (1803) and then at
Hobart Town (1804) and in the north at
Launceston in 1805. The first gardens had
simple squared layouts, usually with an axial path
from front gate to front door.

At Hobart Town the initiative was taken to
establish an effective propagation ground to ensure
a supply of young seedlings and grafted fruit trees
and thus a successful agricultural base to the
economy. The native species were also a field of
interest, on one hand for their botanical curiosity,
and on the other for examination of what
economic properties they might possess. The
Botanic Gardens were well established by 1826
when a French scientific party visited and recorded
the scene, a squared layout complete with a small
glass house on the banks of the Derwent.

The original intention was for a convict
settlement with a handful of free settlers opening
up the farmland. At first a bridle track linked
Hobart Town with the north; convict gangs
converted this into the Midland Highway.
Along its length the arable land was cleared; the
resultant landscape and the cooler climate
combined to make the emulation of English
scenery a realistic ideal. Hawthorn hedges were
used to divide the fields, oaks lined the drives
and the Georgian style houses with their pear

8

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

(left) Residence of Mr. Ky.
Murray. Evandale.

Watercolour by
C.H.T Costantini. 1852
Allport Library and Museum of
Fine Arts, Hobart.

(below) Front View of Windsor
Park.

Watercolour by
C.H.T Costantini, 1854
Allport Library and Museum of
Fine Arts, Hobart

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

9

A View of the Artist's house and
garden, Mills Plains, Van
Diemen’s Land.
Oil painting by John Glover,
1835.

The Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide.

and apple orchards had a backdrop of a
mountain range or fast flowing stream.

Pre-photography, our best understanding of
early Tasmanian gardens comes from paintings
and lithographs. By the 1830s Hobart Town was
a well ordered setdement of neat houses and
gardens with the occasional church spire
breaking the skyline, well conveyed by Henry
Gritten’s various views, or John Glovers Hobart
Town taken from the garden where I lived (1832).
The latter is further inscribed “...The geraniums,
roses, etc., will give some idea how magnificent
the garden may be had here...” and indeed this
seems to be a fairly realistic portrayal of a larger
Hobart garden of the time. A crude picket fence
encircles the plot, the grass is roughly scythed
and cut by earthen paths and irregular sweeps of
flowering shrubs.

In d View of the Artist’s house and garden.
Mills Plains , Glover has, against a backdrop of
eucalypt-clad hills, portrayed the ‘compleat’
English cottage and garden. Straight paths direct
the eye to the front door and flanking windows
between a garden brimful of flowering plants.
Roses, veronica, broom, hollyhocks crowd the
foreground, while a network of paths, centred on
a giant palm, lead down to a pond fringed by
willows and young palms. Here the artist’s

imagination upgrades reality, for Glover’s
working sketch conveys a much simpler scene.

The transition towards more complex garden
forms is clear from the 1830s onwards, though it
does appear that small gardens maintained their
interest in patterns of paths and flowering
foliage, while the larger estates pursued broader
landscaped effects of vistas through parkland.

C.H.T. Costantini’s views reveal the gradual
elaboration of the squared garden theme: the
neat town garden of the Residence of Mr. Ky.
Murray, Evandale. (1852) shows the emphasis on
flowering bulbs and shrubs, but the straight grid
of paths is being tempered by the Victorian love
of variety, in both plan and foliage.

Costantini liked to paint ‘domestic’
landscapes sprinkled with figures, in which
box-like houses are made more secure by a
protective surround of trees and shrubbery, neat
paling fences or prim ordered gardens. Tiny
brushstrokes record each individual flower and
shrub, while distorted perspectives ensure
subdued horizons.

More expansive, but still squared around a
central walk is his water colour view of Windsor
Park (1854) at Glenorchy. Hedges and flowering
shrubs border the drive and central path which
terminates in a pavilion (an aviary?). Fruit trees

10

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

and vegetable gardens form a secondary grid
between the paths.

A further highly detailed and coloured example
of irregular paths and planting can be seen in
a c.1840 view of the Regency villa erected as
the Van Diemen’s Land Company’s manager’s
residence at Highfield, Stanley. Nearby, in a glade
in the forest, a classical funerary monument
was erected. Gardens such as that at Highfield
preluded Victorian taste, while at Connorville,
Cressy, traditional values permitted lower key
expressions of massed flowers adjacent to the
single storied buildings.

However, for the really grand estate, Palladian
and Greek Revival houses gradually gave way
to Italianate-style villas — such as Rosedale,
Campbelltown and Mona Vale at Ross — but
generally the principle of an ordered landscape,
of houses set on a rise or formal plinth with an
outlook to river or mountain over grass pasture
and past clumped trees was sought.

Beaufront at Ross is one of the simpler
examples; Joseph Archer’s residence Panshanger,
near Longford, one of the more elaborate.
Most expressive of the classical idiom is Henry
Gritten’s view of Quorn Hall (1861). Emulation
of England appears paramount in both artist’s
and owner’s minds. A wide vista sweeps through
parkland towards a Palladian house. The owner
is depicted in his carriage, while in the
foreground deer and a peacock confront an emu
and a kangaroo.

By the mid-century horticulture had become
a fashionable scientific pursuit, and newly
formed amateur societies sponsored floral
exhibitions and scientific journals. The 1847 fete
of the Launceston Horticultural Society was a
substantial affair set in elaborate grounds with a
central rustic pavilion.

In New South Wales and Tasmania the rocky
foreshores, enclosed reaches of water, and spiky
heath-like ground covers of Port Jackson and
the estuary of the Derwent made comparison
with Scottish loch and mountain country
inevitable and encouraged the introduction of
baronial-style houses in harbourside locations.

The promontories of Sydney Harbour became
the bastions of imitation castles, exemplified by
Government House (1837—45) on Bennelong
Point. Hobart’s Government House (c.1856)
folloived suit, its crenellated towers cresting the
skyline above dark pine plantations and an
inky lake, or viewed across the Derwent,
backed by Mount Wellington, between ‘the blue
river and the purple mountain’. 3

Increasingly Loudon’s design encyclopaedias (first
published in the 1830s) influenced Tasmania’s
garden layouts, with an emphasis on the
‘gardenesque’ and the use of architectural features
and horticultural episodes. Conscious garden
design veered away from broad landscape
principles towards elements of elaborate detail,
both architectural and horticultural — as evidenced
by the garden at Woolmers, Longford — and the
interest in exotic plants and fruits and scientific
botany encouraged the introduction of a heated
conservatory against a north facing wall, as at
Summerhome, New Town, and Mona Vale, Ross.

Quite a number of Tasmanian gardens still
convey their nineteenth century origins, and this
issue of Australian Garden History examines
Panshanger at Longford and Wingfield and
20 Byron Street in Hobart to explore significant
examples and aspects of Tasmania’s garden
heritage.

3 Marcus Clarke, For the
Term of His Natural Life,
1874 and 1882; Lloyd
O'Neil, 1981.

Howard Tanner is a Sydney
architect with an interest in
historic landscapes. A founding
member of the AGHS, he has
masterplanned gardens at
Goulbum, Mittagong and
Scone, and as Chairman of
the New South Wales
Heritage Council encouraged
the protection of the state's
colonial gardens. He gratefully
acknowledges Suzanne
Falkinehs The Writers'
Landscape — Settlement,
Simon and Schuster, 1992,
as the source of the key
quotations.

AUSTRALIAN GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY
20TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE

ucr,

py,

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.. a/ulcilA , U UUUjSVxAA-,

MOUNT GAMBIER SOUTH AUSTRALIA
5th -7th NOVEMBER 1999
For details contact the AGHS on 03 9650 5043

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

11

SEVERAL PUBLISHED nineteenth century
views made Panshanger, (first established as a
land grant to Joseph and Elinor Archer in 1823)
perhaps the best known of the grand estates of
central Tasmania.

(above) The gates to the
courtyard.

Panshanger is the
property of the
Mills family and is
open for pre-booked
accommodation and
group garden tours, only
by specific arrangement

(right) Plan taken from garden
diary April 15, 1926

(below) The courtyard,
Panshanger

I n an 1835 lithograph derived from a painting
by W. Lyttleton, the Greek Revival ‘seat’ on its
gentle rise overlooks the serpentine forms of the
river flats to a castellated folly. Behind loom the
Western Tiers. An even more effective view of
the same setting is that by Louis Haghe. Here
a Claudian mood pervades the landscape;
groups of trees, animals and figures are carefully
positioned to suggest an Arcadian setting where
English eighteenth century landscape ideals have
been fulfilled. The house, with its one gloriously
classical facade, fronts a formal terrace enhanced
by old roses, and a generous lawn immortalised
in W. Hardy Wilsons famous c.1914 drawing.
Over time the extensive plantings of trees and
shrubs have thrived, providing a sense of forest
enclosure to the garden. The landscaped grounds
are large and beautiful, with a long entry avenue
dominated by old oak and elm trees; a secondary
driveway was originally set within a formal pine
plantation. Meandering paths wander through
this remarkable woodland, its open spaces
accented by a memorial obelisk to the property’s
founder Joseph Archer; a castellated water tower;
an urn on a pedestal; and traditional glimpses of
a distant pigeon tower.

Behind the house, iron gates and handsome
garden walls enclose a courtyard which has been
planted by the present owners with roses,
shrubs, bulbs and perennials.
The cottage garden with
orchards, vegetable and flower
gardens is reached via a wooded
walk along the river.

Maud Mills, grandmother of
the present owner, lived at
Panshanger from 1908 until the
early 1970s. An avid gardener,
part of her legacy are the detailed
garden diaries which she kept.

Excerpt from October 3, 1925
Flowers out

Pink nectarine blossom over -
Some hedge plums flowering - Pears
beginning - The flowering peach covered
with bloom & the flowering apple
just out. The new one with the pale
green leaves

is very pretty - The two others, older
trees, have dark red leaves.

The daffodils are all out - and
primroses- aubretia - yellow
allyssum (just coming out). Virginia
stock - arabis - violas - iceland
poppies and a small pale yellow
iris. The rain last few days
has made everything grow - the days
have been warm & sunny -
Had 1st asparagus today .

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

(left) Panshanger, the seat of
Joseph Archer, Esq, County of
Cornwall, Van Dieman's Land
cl 835.

Hand coloured lithograph
Louis Haghe, 1806-1885
By permission of the National
Library of Australia

(below) The cottage garden,
Panshanger

(bottom) The courtyard

From a diary entry dated April 15, 1926

Eliz. Ernest & I began planting rosemary
bushes to form a hedge, enclosing old stone
cider press (as we are told it is) in garden,
our idea is to try and make a herb
garden around the cider press - beginning
with any simple garden herbs we have
here - like lavender, thyme etc.-

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

13

SOME EARLY EXCURSIONS into
PLANT EXCHANGE and SYMBOLISM
in 19 TH CENTURY TASMANIAN GARDENS

by Phyl Frazer Simons

IN APRIL 1977, the Heritage Commission held
a meeting in Launceston for those working on
historic garden inventories. Miranda Morris and I
were the Tasmanian representatives and organised
an autumn picnic near the green fields of
Woolmers.

Illustrations from Historic
Tasmanian Gardens by Phyl
Frazer Simons.

(right) Gatepost at Panshanger
(below) Malahide

A newsletter embellished with convolvulus
and a quotation from Voltaire appeared,
and Peter Watts, inspired by the English Garden
History Society, wrote a plea for a similar society
in Australia. The following year, with Dame
Elisabeth Murdoch as president, the society was
formed and became invaluable in the study of
historic gardens.

Tasmania, benefitting from an island
status, has, from the twilight of the English
enlightenment, a rich inheritance of architecture
and garden desigh. No other state is as fortunate.
The task of a study of Tasmanian gardens was
therefore a large one. Records were combed,
garden owners interviewed, and about three
hundred gardens studied. Some, alas, were
missed.

A start was made with the earliest gardens. A
pear tree survived long at Risdon Cove...
Georgetown was known to have first planted
potatoes and radish, and in his 1807 diary, Rev.
Knopwood wrote of planting the same in
Hobart. His garden was famous — bowls of
cherries went to ship’s officers and baskets of

strawberries and raspberries to the ladies of
Battery Point.

Alleviation of homesickness made some plants
popular. Louisa Meredith wrote in 1850:

... the most English, and therefore most
beautifiil thing I saw were the hawthorns.

Weeping gums may still be seen near her old
garden at Riversdale. She likened these to the
‘magnificent oaks of an English park.’

Trollope, in 1840, extolled Hobart orchards as
having

cherries and mulberries, the finest / ever saw.

This was near the former site of Bidenhopcs.

As a member of the English Garden History
Society, I learned of the exchange of plants
between Tasmania and Ireland, and decided to
go to sources in the Herbarium at Kew.

Here were the heavy parchment volumes of
loading lists, all in copperplate. Here too were
lists of plants that Gunn at Formosa had received
by Wardian case from Kew in 1845. Halliwell, a
curator from Kew, had helped set up the Fuchsia

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

House in Hobart in the 1950s. He maintained
that a Fuchsia corymbiflora he saw in a Von
Steiglitz garden in Hobart, must have come from
his friend Gunn’s imports.

Native plants sent from Tasmania to Kew were
distributed in Europe. Even Knopwood had
shrubs from Mt Wellington planted among his
roses. Launceston Horticultural Society not only
sent seeds of Norfolk Island Pine to London but
also pine plants to Sydney. A bushel of acorns for
£14 came to Hobart and in return Tasmanian
oak, musk and blackwood went to Kew. As
overseas exchange diminished, Joseph Harris sent
Abbot, Director of the Hobart Botanic Gardens,
nine varieties of Abies and a Cedrela odorata from
his South Yarra Nursery in Melbourne in 1883.

Tasmanians have surprising memory of their
horticultural past. A Hadspen resident told of his
grandfather moistening hessian-covered clay
balls holding hawthorn, elm and fruit trees on
the journey out with Lord Talbot of Malahide.
Old names recalled an English rural past, with an
apple on the East coast designated ‘Sheepsnose’.
At Panshanger, the owner pointed out a red bush
rose planted when the house was established in
the 1830s.

Sentiment was expressed by planting special
trees: oaks for royal events; Cedar of Lebanon

from Napoleon’s grave at Brickendon and
Pinefield. Christ Church at Longford had a Bible
Garden, but somewhat pagan was the hawthorn
encircled grave at Thorpe.

The research became a book, Historic
Tasmanian Gardens. Like most books, it took
longer than expected, but was written to draw
attention to a wonderful heritage.

(above) Thorpe
(below) Brickenden

Phyl Frazer Simons, FAILA
FRAIA is a landscape designer
and early practitioner in using
indigenous flora. Her work
includes the Tasmanian
Institute of Technology
campus, the Western
Australian Institute of
Technology campus, and
parklands and coastal
regeneration along the
Derwent estuary.

As a member of The Garden
History Society in England,

Phyl travelled to many historic
gardens as well as the gardens
of Persia. Tasmanian wilderness
has always been a passion and
Phyl lectured on this topic in
Europe. Inaugural member of
the Society for Growing
Australian Plants and The
Australian Garden History
Society, Phyl is the author of
Historic Tasmanian Gardens
published in 1987, which
covers 290 of the state's early
gardens. Phyl is now writing
on endangered plants of some
Australian grasslands.

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

15

THE LARGE INFORMAL front garden with mature trees
and central pathway leading to the front door of a colonial
cottage is a part of our garden history that, in most cities
has been lost by urban development.

The Front Garden
Photograph by Ray Joyce
©1999

Ann Cripps trained in the field
of librarianship but has a life
long interest in research and
garden history. She has acted
as consultant on a number of
historic landscape and garden
projects throughout Tasmania.

Ann has been actively involved
in the Tasmanian Branch of
AGHS since its formation and
has been a member of the
National Management
Committee for the
past nine years.

H owever right in the heart of a busy street
linking the city of Hobart to the suburb
of Sandy Bay is such a cottage and garden at
number 20 Byron Street. The property is part
of a land grant made by Colonel George
Arthur, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s
Land in 1830 and the early part of the single
story brick cottage dates from c.1834. It is a
typical Georgian cottage with the symmetrical
proportions of a colonial structure; the front
door with fanlight, and 12-paned windows with
shutters on either side. A straight front path
leading from the gate to the sandstone steps and
the front door, is flanked by hedges of English
box. Beside the front door are plantings of
cherry pie, Heliotropiurn peruvianum and lemon
verbena, Lippia citriodora.

the present street level and is
defined by an old sandstone wall
which stretches along the street
boundary. Early details of the
development of this garden are
sketchy, however with its plantings
and stone pathways there are so
many of the elements found in the
colonial cottage garden. However
the plan is not formal as is so often associated with
the early style, but it is an informal garden with a
delightful mix of old fashioned perennials, bulbs,
shrubs and mature trees.

Geoffrey Charles and Florence Gladys Payne
parents of the present owner moved here in
1921. Both were keen gardeners as was
Geoffreys mother Ellen Nora Payne. Ellen Nora
Payne has become the best known early
Australian woman wood carver and was a
leading member of the Arts and Crafts
Movement. Her work shows her great love of
plants and flowers and it is not surprising that
she loved the Byron Street garden.

Whilst so many of the early city gardens have
been encroached by development, this garden is a
vital and unique part of the heritage of the area.

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

A home by the sea

by Margaret Scott

IN 1987 I BOUGHT a derelict house on the
Tasman Peninsula in the south-east corner of
Tasmania. The Peninsula is an odd shape.
Marcus Clarke once likened it to a ‘huge double-
dropped earring’ and Martin Flanagan to a
‘Sailor dancing a hornpipe’ but it looks more
than anything like a roughly drawn H.

P ort Arthur, the long inlet on which the
famous prison was built in the 1830s,
separates the two lower strokes while Norfolk
Bay lies between the upper ones. The house that
has become my home stands in the middle of the
H bar, looking north across Norfolk Bay to the
Tasmanian mainland.

The friends who first told me about the place
thought it was called Tara, and that, in recent
years, has become its name, but in its early
days it was known as Toora. According to Tom
Jenkins, the elder son of the couple who had the
house built in 1916, Toora is an aboriginal word
meaning ‘home by the sea’ although I’ve never
managed to find evidence of this in any of the
fragmentary vocabularies which are all that
remains of Tasmania’s indigenous languages.

Tara, when I first saw it, was in a bad way.
There were bales of hay stacked on the verandah,
strips of tape plastered over the cracked windows
and a great staring blue rip on the eastern flank
where somebody had started to dismantle a
rickety extension. Clearly the house had come
down a very long way in the world. It had once
been, if not a stately home, at least a local show-
place, standing at the hub of one of the
flourishing orchard properties for which the
Peninsula had been famous in the days before
Britain entered the EEC and the bottom fell our
of the Apple Isle’s’ trade.

The prospect of restoring Tara was, to say the
least, daunting. There were rats in the walls,
possums in the chimneys and swallows nesting
under the cornices.

The roof needed replacing and the garden had
disappeared. A few bedraggled cordylines and
clumps of bulbs in the surrounding paddocks
suggested that, in its prime, it had covered at least

two acres. By 1987
Tara’s grounds had
been reduced to a
belt of waist-high
grass hemmed in by
an electric fence set
up to protect the hay
on the verandah from
wandering cattle. Yet
despite all this, it
was still possible to
believe that over seventy years earlier Tom
Jerkins’s parents had lavished the whole of the
profit brought in by their first crop ol apples on
creating this ‘home by the sea’. The lingering
glow of their vision still shone from the
dilapidated building and its buried garden.

Once Tara had been made habitable I set about
trying to build up a picture of the garden which
had been established in the years after 1916. The
house faces north, with its front windows looking
out across the sea, but the garden entrance, in the
shape of a decorative metal gate between stucco
pillars, faced west. In the Jenkins’ time a flagged
path led from the gate to the verandah and a
similar path ran all around the house. To the east,
about fifty metres from the front door lay a fish
pond with a stone border, then came a steep bank
sloping down to a lower level where the tennis
court was set out beside a small grove of trees —
several pines and a now enormous swamp gum.

Some of this — the lonely wreck of the
gateway, for instance — was clearly evident when
I first came to Tara. When I started to dig, the
broken remains of paths and the pond emerged
along with tons of small stones which the
Jenkins’s, with typical thoroughness, had used to
provide a foundation for their tennis court. As
well as the cordylines, the clumps of daffodils and
some arum lilies there was a man-fern and an
ailing cherry tree, but nothing which showed
where lawns or flower beds or vegetables might
have been. And the riddle of the garden’s original
plan had been made more baffling by numbers of
changes which had taken place even during the
Jenkins’ occupancy — the erection of extensions
to the house in the forties, for instance.

Neighbours who had worked in Tara’s
orchards, mill or packing shed up to fifty or sixty

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

17

Margaret Scott in Red Baron
helmet and boiler suit for her
first helicopter ride.

Margaret Scott has recently
been bestowed an Honorary
Doctor of Letters from the
University of Tasmania. She
already holds an arts degree
from Cambridge University
and a masters degree and a
doctorate from the English
department at the University
of Tasmania. Dr Scott gained
critical acclaim with the
release of three volumes of
verse and her novel, The Baby
Fanner was a best-seller. Poet,
television personality and
'cultural icon' (as described by
the Age and Sydney Morning
Herald), Margaret touches
base at Tara in between any
number of activities, ranging
from appearing on Good News
Week, or activities as diverse
as opening festivals,
commentator on the Tall
Ships Race, assisting in the
launch of a report on the
quest for a new preamble to
the Constitution or donning
orange boiler suit and a Red
Baron helmet and enjoying
her first trip in a helicopter!
As Margaret says 'One thing
is certain: life is never dull,
and the future, though it
sometimes looks alarming,
is not, it seems, likely to
be boring'. Margaret has
recently contributed an essay
to Peter Timms' forthcoming
publication The Nature of
Gardens, scheduled to appear
later this year.

years earlier or who had visited the property as
children supplied various, often conflicting,
details, Tom Jenkins’ daughter, who grew up in a
house built for her parents on the property,
thought that plums, apricots and greengages had
grown in front of the house, along the edge of
the apple orchard, but couldn’t place much else.
On at least two points, however, everybody
confidently agreed; the garden had been ‘a
picture’ ‘a wonder’, and it had belonged to Mrs
Jenkins. ‘She had that place immaculate’, they
said. ‘She had a tennis court and everything’.

At this stage I suffered a drop in confidence.
The patch of land which I had eventually bought,
while bigger than the area enclosed by the electric
fence, was obviously much less extensive than
Mrs Jenkins’ magnificent domain. Even if I had
possessed her legendary skill, I could never hope
to restore what had once been. Perhaps I should
just settle for something plain and unambitious.

Meanwhile, as I mulled over these thoughts,
my interest strayed from the garden to the
gardener.

On August 24, 1944, twelve months before the
end of World War II, the Hobart Mercury
devoted its front page to a celebration of Mrs
Jenkins’ achievements. It was a morale boosting

piece, presented as ‘chastening in
the realisation it brings to many
women, that, after all, their war
strain and weariness are negligible in
comparison’. Under the headline ‘If
You’re Tired Don’t Read This Story
of a Home Industrialist’ a series
of photographs, accompanied by
explanatory text show Mrs Jenkins
engaged in activities linked with the
production of ‘about 250’ separate
items of food. Dressed in an outfit
which looks rather like the uniform
of a girl-guide commissioner she
takes aim with a rifle at game (‘quail
and other edible birds’) ‘to be
prepared as a table delicacy’, and
holds up a net in the powered dinghy
from which she catches ‘trumpeter,
flathead, cod, conger ell, perch, etc’.
But most of her work relates in some
way to her garden and its produce.
‘Mrs Jenkins has her own seed
house, where she raises seedlings for
vegetable garden, whence she gathers
multiple crops for preserving or
drying’. She crystallises fruit which
she sends in packages ‘to her son and
his mates in the RAAF’. (‘It is simple
enough’, says Mrs Jenkins. ‘More women should
do it for their boys up North’.) She makes sauces,
jams and pickles. Above all, she preserves fruit
and vegetables in sealed jars: ‘Mrs Jenkins is
preparing a special one-woman display for the
Country Women’s Association exhibition in
September... 25 vegetables — including turnips,
tomatoes, sweet corn, cabbage, cauliflower,
onion, spinach — and 30 varieties of fruit...’ A
pyramid of gleaming jars rises like a glass
cathedral at the top of the page.

I have never managed anything like this,
though I did once win a prize with a very small
pot of crab-apple jelly at the Tasman Peninsula
Agricultural Show. The garden I’ve gradually
established at Tara is not a patch on that of Mrs
Jenkins as several neighbours have pointed out
to me. It’s planted with very ordinary hardy
perennials, the tennis court has become a croquet
lawn of a rather rough, amateurish kind, and
somehow I’m always behind with weeding and
pruning. But if Mrs Jenkins’ spirit still hovers
about the place (and many local people are
convinced it does) this seems to be a friendly
presence which accepts that, despite my
shortcomings as a gardener, I love the ‘home by
the sea’ which she created.

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

FROM

alters to

umboots

bv Christine Reid

DIGGING DEEP — the importance of rural
womens’ gardening — was the theme Dr Katie
Holmes took for her opening address at From
Gaiters to Gumboots, a winter seminar organised
by the Victorian branch of the Australian Garden
History Society.

T hroughout the weekend — held in Geelong
on August 7 and 8 — speakers ‘double dug’
beds to find new roots and some exciting new
garden paths were explored around the topic:
Women and Gardening in rural Victoria
1830-1999.

AGHS Victorian branch committee member
Suzanne Hunt organised the seminar, the first of
its kind, to raise awareness of Victoria’s garden
heritage and to launch an exciting archive
program which will establish the State Library of
Victoria as the main repository for garden history
in Victoria.

Katie Holmes, from La Trobe University,
lead the way with her exploration of how
women, through their productive and pleasure
gardening, have transformed the Australian
landscape since white settlement. Through visual
and verbal images she showed, in four separate
examples, how women had created the ‘civilising
presence’ of a garden and contrasted this with
the mullock heaps of goldfields, evidence of the
‘restless activity of men’. In her study of artist
and pioneer Georgiana McCrae, art historian
Caroline Clemente further emphasised this
theme.

Librarians from both the manuscript and
picture collections of the State Library of
Victoria also explored this topic showing seminar
participants the wide range of archival material
available in the Library that documents womens’s
activities.

By contrast, Jane Shepherd from the
Landscape Architecture faculty at RMIT, dug
deeply to unearth the work of pioneer women
designers — Grace Fraser, Phyl Frazer Simons,
Olive Mellor, Mervyn Davis, Emily Gibson —
which was further enriched by David Aldous’
perspective on early women graduates from
Burnley. David is the principal lecturer at
Melbourne University’s Burnley Campus.

While speakers
acknowledged past
gardeners and their
achievements, Peter
Cuffley reflected on
his family’s gardens
and through them
took us on a personal
journey exploring the
cottage gardens in Victoria, including his visits to
Jean Galbraith.

Current custodians of heritage gardens spoke
about the problems of conservation and
management. Jo Reid, from Belmont, showed us
how she gently manages the garden, without
disturbing the work of previous generations.
Dougal Ramsay, by contrast, showed how at
Darriwill Farm he has made radical changes,
including major tree surgery and removal of trees
and buildings, to restore and revitalise the garden
and surrounding landscape. Marika Kocsis
explained how she drew on archives to prepare
her Conservation Study and Management
Plan for Turkeith. Diaries, letters and early
photographs provided valuable information on
this garden laid out by William Guilfoyle in 1904.

At Saturday night’s dinner, Anne Latreille
reviewed the fascinating correspondence between
two of Victoria’s outstanding rural gardeners,
Joan Law Smith and Jean Galbraith.

In many ways the weekend was one of
discovery. Speaker after speaker revealed
connections between past and present gardeners
and the importance of archival material. This
theme re-inforced by the weekend’s inter-action
between Australian Garden History Society
members from Melbourne, Geelong and Friends
of the Geelong Botanic Gardens. Victorian
president Helen Page, in her opening remarks,
promised a lively and interactive seminar, and
indeed it was. Suzanne Hunt deserves heaps of
praise for her efforts in organising such a
successful event.

For a perfect expression of the weekend’s
theme, one need go no further than Jo Reid’s
poignant poem about her garden at Belmont.

Thrushes sing to me

Where my ancestors and I

Garden together

Transcripts of speakers' talks
will be available to members
in due course.

Christine Reid is a Melbourne
gardener and journalist who
has recently joined the
Victorian committee of the
Australian Garden History
Society. She contributes to
many publications in Australia
and overseas, including
Gardens Illustrated, Australian
Country Style, The Australian
Gardener and Your Garden,
writing about people and their
gardens, A graduate in fine
arts and history from
Melbourne University, she
combines her love of gardens
and history with travel, visiting
gardens in many parts of the
worid. Eariier this year she
trekked in the Indian
Himalayas looking for
wildflowers in the alpine
meadows. At home she
gardens in the Melbourne
suburb of Hawthorn where
she refuses to be beaten by
the possums!

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

19

Gar

EDGE

Marcia Voce reports on the Winter Seminar held at Traveller’s
Rest, Cooma on 24 - 25 July.

in

THE TREELESS PLAINS OF THE MONARO
southern New South Wales, where gardeners have battled
the elements to create some outstanding gardens, was the
scene for a mid-winter weekend seminar. A contingent
from as far afield as Walcha, Orange, Adelaide and Wagga
Wagga gathered together in the old Travellers Rest Inn on
the outskirts of Cooma for a weekend of inspiration.

A fter registration and morning tea in the
delightful conservatory tearooms, members
took their seats in the function centre, bathed in
winter sunshine, overlooking an intriguing
winter garden created by the owner of Travellers
Rest, Gay Epstein.

Gay was introduced by Trisha Dixon, convenor
of the seminar. Gay entertained us with the story
of the wooden cobbled gardens and how they
were transported to Cooma several years ago
from their original site at Darling Harbour. We
were amazed to hear that seven semi-trailers had
delivered them, leaving a huge pyramid of
hardwood logs which then had to be cut up into
blocks and laid to form paths and edges for the
gardens as well as flooring for the conservatory.

The energy and originality shown by Gay was
to be echoed again and again over the weekend as
each speaker contributed to the seminar their
share of the same resolute spirit, determination
and enthusiasm for the projects they have
undertaken over the last few years, all of them
true modern pioneers of the Monaro. Each has
found their answer to the problems of living on
the edge — making a living in this very beautiful,
unique part of Australia. Lengthy droughts have
taken their toll on farm and garden and ways
have had to be found to overcome these
difficulties.

Then Trisha introduced key-note speaker,
Trevor Nottle, well-known teacher and garden
book writer from South Australia. Trevor
delivered the opening address and set the
framework for the theme for the weekend,
‘Gardening on the Edge’ as he discussed taste,
design and climate. Trevor offered many ideas,

Keynote speaker Trevor
Nottle at the Raglan Gallery,
Cooma.

backed up by his own wide
knowledge of garden-making,
suggesting ways of conserving
energy and water and reducing
maintenance. He urged his
audience to test the limits of their
knowledge and above all to
express their own personalities via
their gardens. They should
continue to trial plants new to
them, but known to succeed in
similar climates of the world. He mourned the
loss of many small nursery businesses which used
to provide small quantities of lesser-known
plants, now swallowed up in the large nursery
centre environment developed over the last few
decades, resulting in even more restricted plant
choices as the gardening public yearns for bigger,
brighter blooms, all year round if possible. He
stressed the need for education of gardeners in
the wiser choice of suitable plants which are more
drought-tolerant. Above all, he said learn to
garden where you are. Avoid the escapism of
thinking things would be easier if only you lived
elsewhere. Accept the reality of weather patterns and
use the opportunity to make your garden where you
are. Work with nature, do not fight it.

Sue Edmondson echoed these thoughts as she
spoke of the creation of her own productive food
garden in the Jindabyne area, just 30 kilometres
east of Mount Kosciuszko. She inspired us with
her down to earth tried and tested methods,
telling us how she allows plants to set and replant
their own seed, devising simple ways to beat the
problems which beset all country gardeners and
how she manages to produce vegetables and
salads all year round.

Vanessa and Tom Ranken from Tumbarumba
told us they have learnt to work their farm in
times of economic difficulty — they have turned
their farm into a giant garden, divided into areas
of various use — tree production for a nursery on
the property, contract growing, and areas planted
out with selected eucalypt varieties for the
production of masses of cut foliage to be used in
the floristry market. Superb examples of their
end product were on display. As they identified

20

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

each beautiful specimen, they explained how
their trees were coppiced annually to allow the
growth of fresh, juvenile leaves. Exploiting the
natural growing habit of the eucalyptus genus,
they have managed to take control and produce
an economically viable end product.

It was time for lunch and we were buzzing with
excitement. After a delicious lunch it was time to
stretch our legs, so a garden visit to nearby
Llangrove filled the bill perfectly. More Monaro
resourcefulness was displayed as we listened to the
story of this lovely farm garden by its owner Mrs
Pam Glasson and asked questions about how she
managed it. A few kilometres drive took us then to
Woodstock, where part of the old garden was
designed many years ago by Edna Walling. The
stone walls and familiar plant choices of
this eminent plant designer were easily discernible
and everybody enjoyed afternoon tea in the
delightful courtyard of this graceful old residence.

Sunday morning saw us back again at
Traveller’s Rest, ready to embark on another day’s
revelations. We were not disappointed. We
listened with fascination as Jan Illingworth talked
of her marvellous venture into lavender growing.
Work with nature was the message again.
Lavender loves the conditions found on Monaro,
revelling in the excellent drainage of the granite
areas and its tolerance to drought makes it a
perfect choice.

Jan displayed a broad knowledge of lavender
varieties as she took us through the story of the
establishment of her commercial lavender¬
growing business at Bibbenluke Lodge near
Bombala, and the foundation of the Australian
Lavender Growers’ Association, now 400
members strong. An Australia-wide lavender
growers’ conference will be held early next year.

Then followed a fascinating account of keyline
farming by the enthusiastic (and entertaining)
farmer, Rix Wright. Sculpting the landscape, he
designs plans for property owners whose farms
have been degraded over years by soil erosion. To
halve the degradation and to allow natural
reseeding of bush plants, tree shelter belts are
planted at carefully planned intervals. Contour
ploughing allows more economical use of natural
rainfall and with the addition of dams, built as
high as possible on the ridges, more even
distribution of moisture is obtained by using
gravity-fed irrigation systems.

Our last speaker, Suzannah Plowman, a
heritage adviser, then told us of her interesting
work researching old buildings and gardens on
Monaro. She undertakes private consultations
and has worked with four different shires in the

area to develop records of these historic remains,
buildings of slab and bark which dot the
landscape of the Monaro and provide fascinating
insights into the social history of our pioneers.
Suzannah talked of the evolution of the pleasure
garden through stages of gardening for
sustenance and survival — food gardens and
wheat-field to vary the monotony of a diet of
mutton and black tea. By the turn of the century,
these survival gardens gradually gave way to
decorative gardens surrounding substantial
dwellings. Circular beds, gravel paths and pine-
lined entrance drives became fashionable. The
surviving remnants of these old gardens give us
clues to which plants grew well; fruit trees, plants
which sucker (such as robinias and poplar), ivy,
banksia rose, bulbs and species roses. These
pioneers certainly gardened on the edge, using
the plants which suited the conditions and
noting the pattern of seasons.

With the closing remarks of Trevor Nottle, the
circle was closed. His comments — choose hardy
plants which will survive shortage of water,
dependable plants which will see the core of the
garden through the tough times. Work with
nature, not against it.

Thank you to all the speakers so full of
inspiration, creativity and the willingness to share
their gardening lives with us.

Marcia Voce is a herbalist and
garden designer who lives in
Bungendone. Marcia has run a
number of watercolour
workshops at Birchfield Herbs
for the Australian Garden
History Society.

(left) Marg Haylock, Mary
Walker and Joan Williams in
the Woodstock courtyard.

(below) Edna Walling arrived
at Woodstock in the early
1950s, to design the garden. It
was an opportune time as she
was able to stop the complete
removal of the verandah
(right) that once encompassed
the house.

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

21

CONFERENCE UPDATE

This year’s garden history conference is

shaping up to be a fantastic event.

The mystery of caves, the romance of
limestone cliffs, a mild climate and a
water table close to the surface give the
South East of South Australia unusual
advantages for developing gardens.

We are lucky that a member of the
society is Marianne Cleves, owner of
The Barn Palais, venue for the conference
sessions. This unusual building is set in a
garden of extravagant proportions with
luxuriant perennials and splendid roses,
encouraged in growth by the end product
of the Cleves’ family herd of cattle.
Gardens to be visited include the premier
wine growing region of the Coonawarra
and the historic town of Penola, home
for many years to Australia’s first saint,
Mother Mary MacKillop.

Many speakers are travelling from all
over Australia to inform, entertain and
stimulate our minds as we explore the
topics vital to the area ‘Garden,
Vineyards and Forests’. An erudite local
group, including winemaker Peter Rymill
and historian Pam O’Connor, will give
us a stimulating introduction to the local
area and its history.

Guest speaker at the dinner is the
ebullient and effervescent Valmai
Hankel, Keeper of Rare Books and
Special Collections at the State Library of
South Australia, who addresses the topic
‘I was drunk when I died’. The evening
continues with The Southern Heritage
Singers who will entertain us with a
recital of songs inspired by the words of
the district’s well known poets, including
the notorious Adam Lindsay Gordon.

Come and join us. This is an area rich
in history, one you will never have
properly explored before. It’s an easy five
hour drive from Melbourne or you can
take the bus or an aeroplane. Call me for
details for a splendid long weekend in
South Australia in November.

Nicky Downer (08) 8370 8783
Fax (08) 8339 2070
Mobile 041 980 8957
email dfat@tpgi.com.au

AGM

The Annual General meeting of the
Australian Garden History Society will
be held in Mt Gambier on November 6,
1999 at 9 am. Items to be included on
the agenda should be posted to the
AGHS office.

Branches are asked to nominate
their representative onto the National
Management Committee and to inform
the Secretary, Helen Page (C/- AGHS
Office) by Friday September 17, 1999.
National Management Committee
elected representative, Ann Cripps, is
due to retire after serving a maximum
term of nine years. Former Chairman,
Margaret Darling, resigned in February
1999, leaving a casual vacancy on the
National Management Committee.
Peter Watts was co-opted to fill this
casual vacancy which he accepted. In
accordance with the constitution, Peter
Watts is required to seek nomination to
the National Management Committee.
Nominations for the National
Management Committee close on Friday
September 24, 1999.

Nomination forms are now available
from the National Office and should be
accompanied by a statement outlining
involvement with the AGHS and a
commitment to attend meetings. Each
years there are three face to face
meetings in Sydney, Melbourne and the
Conference venue as well as three
Conferlink phone meetings.

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‘ Donations are welcome and should be payable to the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and forwarded to the AGHS.

Membership benefits: subscription to the Society’s official journal, Australian Garden History , six times a year; garden related seminars, lectures, garden visits and
specialist tours; opportunity to attend annual conference and conference tour; contributing to the preservation of historic gardens for prosperity.

AGHS Office, Royal Botanic Gardens, Birdwood Avenue, South Yarra, Vic. 3141
(03) 9650 5043 Toll Free 1800 678 446

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22

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

m

SEPTEMBER_

SATURDAY I I

SA Hahndorf — Working bee at The
Cedars Time 10 am — 4 pm Enquiries
Helena Runge (08) 8391 1723

SUNDAY 26

NSW Sydney and Northern — South
Coast Spring Garden Tour
commencing at the Garden of Peace,
Stanwell Tops at 11.00am followed by
a visit to the garden of John Challis
and Arthur Cheeseman at Wombarra
and the Grevillea Garden at Bulli
Corf $10.00 Bookings Colleen Morris
(02) 9660 0573

Vic Bitregurra — Working bee
Turkeith — dry stone walling.
Enquiries Helen Page
(03) 9397 2260

OCTOBER

FRIDAY I - MONDAY 4
Vic Wyperfeld and Little Desert National
Parks — self drive tour led by Rodger
and Gwen Elliot. Interstate members
welcome. Booking form now available
Enquiries Helen Page
(03) 9397 2260

SATURDAY 2 - SUNDAY 3
Tas Swansea — Talk on Dry Climate
Gardens, Plant Sale and Garden Visits.
Kevin Walsh, garden designer and
horticultural consultant for The Age
will present a lecture on Dry Climate
Gardens in Swansea followed by a
special plant sale. Three gardens will be
visited on the Sunday - two early East
Coast gardens and an amazing new
garden which has grown out of the
sand hills of Dolphin Sands.

Enquiries and bookings Ann Cripps
(03)6225 I860

SATURDAY 16

SA Hahndorf — Working bee at The
Cedars Time 10 am — 4 pm Enquiries
Helena Runge (08) 8391 1723

Vic Daylesford — Working bee
Wombat Park. Enquiries Helen Page
(03) 9397 2260

NOVEMBER_

MONDAY T-WEDNESDAY 3
SA Adelaide to Mt Gambier — SA
Adelaide to Mt Gambier — The

Adelaide Bus Tour to Mt Gambier
led by Richard Nolan visiting gardens
in Coonalpyn Downs, Padthaway,
Coonawarra, Lucindale, Robe,
Beachport and Millicent districts.
Wineries, Tantanoola Caves and an
Historic Woolshed also to be visited.
Enquiries Nicky Downer
(08) 8370 8783

TUESDAY 2 - THURSDAY 4
SA Mount Gambier — Pre Conference
Tour led by Di Wilkins focusing on
the gardens and caves of the region and
nearby: Tantanoola, Naracoorte,
Englebrecht and Princess Margaret
Rose. Enquiries Nicky Downer
(08) 8370 8783

THURSDAY 4

Vic Melbourne — Coach departs for
Mount Gambier — lunch/garden stop,
Titanga, Lismore, led by Pam Jellie.
Time 10 am Royal Botanic Garden,
10.35 am Tullamarine airport
SA Mount Gambier — Conference
registration at The Lady Nelson Visitor
Centre and tour of the Discovery
Centre

FRIDAY 5 - SUNDAY 7
SA Mount Gambier — 20th Annual
National Conference: The Changing
Rural Landscape... Gardens, Vineyards
and Forests’ Venue Barn Palais, Mount
Gambier, SA. Enquiries Nicky Downer
(08) 8370 8783

MONDAY 8

SA Mount Gambier — Optional Day.
Gardens of Western Victoria — visit

The Ramsay family at Turkeith. See article p. 19

Ardgartan designed by Edna Walling;
Pine Grove created by Conference
Speaker Helen Diprose; Kort Norien,
an historic property dating back to
1845 with historic shearing shed; and
Nareen, with a short stop at historic
Harrow with its convict slab huts.
Enquiries Nicky Downer
(08) 8370 8783

MONDAY 8-THURSDAY I I
Vic Western District — Three day Post
Conference Tour commencing Monday
evening 8 November following the
Optional Day of gardens in Western
Victoria. Three days meandering
through special historic private gardens
of the Western District: historic
Merndal, Devon Park, Pear Tree
Cottage, Green Hills, Minjah, Boortkoi,
Woolongoon and Banongil. Tour
commences on Monday evening
8 November with dinner and night at
The Botanical Motor Inn opposite the
Hamilton Botanic Gardens, followed
by two nights at The Royal Mail in
Dunkeld and finishes in Melbourne
(via Tullamarine airport) on Thursday
evening 11 November. Tour Cost of
$495 (Single supplement $90.00)
includes three nights accommodation,
all meals and garden entries.

Enquiries AGHS Office (03)9650 5043

SATURDAY 27

Vic Beaufort — Working bee Belmont.
Enquiries Helen Page (03) 9397 2260

Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999

23

THE BACK PAGE

(above) Tasmanian wild orchids
Watercolour and gouache on
tinted card, 44 x 32 cm
by Margaret Anderson Hope
for Lady Smith's presentation
album, page 17
(right) Wattle and white gum
Watercolour and gouache on
tinted card, 44 x 32 cm by
Margaret Anderson Hope for
Lady Smith's presentation
album, page I I
Both illustrations from the Allport
Library and Museum of Fine Arts,
Hobart,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article is based on
Professor Joan Kerr's entries
for Margaret Anderson Hope
in Heritage: The National
Women's Art Book, Sydney,
1995 (pages 174 and 375).

Heather Curnow is Curator
of the Allport Library and
Museum of Fine Arts in
Hobart. The Allport houses a
unique collection of colonial
works of art, rare books and
decorative arts, bequeathed to
the people of Tasmania by
Henry Allport in 1965.

by Heather Curnow

"argaret Anderson Hope is now acknowledged as one of
l Tasmania’s most important botanical artists. She was born in
1848 and educated at Miss Garretts Ladies College in Hobart. She
became well known for her paintings of Tasmanian wildflowers,
which were painted on paper, on fans, and as furniture decorations.
Her work was exhibited in Hobart from 1876, and included a
decorated easel, painted table-tops, and flowers modelled in wax.

Her work was frequently and favourably reviewed in Hobart. In
November 1878 an exhibition of her work included painted table-
tops and an exquisitely modelled’ collection of coloured wax flowers
— ‘eucalyptus blossoms, clematis, fuchsias, waratahs, and other
natural beauties’. In 1880, she won fourth prize in the Melbourne
International Exhibition in the ‘Cheap and Fancy Furniture’ section for
a Huon pine table-top painted with Tasmanian wildflowers. Her picture
Blue Gum and Laurel won a prize in a competition in Sydney in 1882.

In spite of local and interstate recognition, her work was often trivialised
by critics. Like other women artists who specialised in decorative flower
painting, she was considered an amateur, although by 1890 she had been exhibiting
and selling her work for many years as well as teaching painting and drawing at her
studio in Elboden Place, Hobart.

The most significant examples of her work in public collections are a four-panel
wildflower screen in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and three watercolour and
gouache paintings in the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts. The three Allport paintings are
of the Tasmanian mountain laurel (front cover illustration); native orchids (above left); and white gum
and wattle (below) and are included in an album presented to Lady Sarah Smith, the wife of
Tasmania’s Governor, in 1883.

The album also contained decorative botanical compositions by other Tasmanian women artists,
including Curzona Frances Louise Allport. When compared with her peers, many of whom were true
‘lady amateurs’, Margaret Hope’s works stand out as the most accomplished — particularly the robust
naturalism of the mountain laurel (front cover illustration).

Hope received little genuine recognition until the 1920s; both
her gender and chosen genre worked against her.

Margaret Hope was interviewed by the Australian Womans
Mirror in 1925. At that time, aged 76, she still owned a
‘monumental’ collection of her own paintings of Tasmanian
flora.

The work has occupied her a lifetime, and is little known
apparently, even among botanists, chiefly because the artist insists
on hiding her light under a bushel. For more than 50 years —
ever since she was a girl — she has been carefidly collecting,
cataloguing and painting practically every native plant. Her
work necessarily contains records of many things that are now
extinct, because of the opening up of country and of the
vandalism of tourists and picnickers; and, if only on this account
alone, her service in the cause of natural history deserves mention.

Margaret Hope died in Hobart on 25 April 1936.

24

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Australian Garden History Vol 11 No 2 September/October 1999