HISTORY
Va/e Margaret Darling
j7ze Vision Splendid'
Queensland conference
JOURNAL OFTHE AUSTRALIAN GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY
r Ssiz]
"Mjk
jVtWjt ^MCHiik
wpd
Al. ^AUA^
GARDEN
HISTORY
SOCIETY
Patron
Sue Ebury - Countess ofWilton
Executive Officer
Jackie Courmadias
Publication
Australian Garden History, official
journal of the Australian Garden
History Society, is published four
times a year
Editors
Christina Dyson
Richard Aitken
editor@gardenhistorysociety.org.au
8 Eastern Place, Hawthorn East,
Victoria, 3 1 23
Enquiries
TollFree 1 800 678 446
Phone 03 9650 5043
Fax 03 9650 8470
Email
i nfo@gard en historysociety.org.au
Website
www.gard e n h i sto r ysoc i ety. org.au
Postal Address
AGHS, Gate Lodge
1 00 Birdwood Avenue
Melbourne Victoria 3004
Subscriptions (GST INCLUSIVE)
For I year
Single $67
Family $92
Corporate $2 1 5
Youth $22
(UNDER 25 YEARS OF AGE)
Non-profit organisations $92
Advertising Rates
1/8 page $ 1 32
(2+ issues$l2l each)
I /4 page $220
(2+ issues$l98 each)
1/2 page $330
(2+ issues$275 each)
Full page $550
(2+ issues$495 each)
Inserts $440
for Australia-wide mailing
Pro-rata for state-wide mailing
Editorial Advisory Committee
CONVENOR
Christine Reid
MEMBERS
Glenn Cooke
Timothy Hubbard
Colleen Morris
Prue Slatyer
John Viska
ISSN 1033-3673
NATIONAL MANAGEMENT
COMMITTEE
John Dwyer (Chairman)
Ray Choate (Vice Chairman)
Lynne Walker (Secretary)
Kathy Wright (Treasurer)
Elected Members
John Dwyer
Trisha Dixon Burkitt
Stuart Read
Jan Schapper
John Viska
Lynne Walker
Kathy Wright
State Representatives
ACT Nancy Clarke
NSW Eleanor Dartnall
QLD John Taylor
SA Richard Nolan
WA Caroline Grant
VIC Pamela jellie
TAS Mike Evans
BRANCH CONTACTS
ACT/Monaro/Riverina
Tony Byrne
PO Box I 630
Canberra ACT 260 1
to ny by r n e@efrect. net.au
Queensland
John Taylor
I I joynt St
Hamilton QLD 4007
Phone: 07 3862 4284
jht@hotkey.net.au
South Australia
Ray Choate
Barr Smith Library
University of Adelaide
Adelaide SA 5005
Phone: 08 8303 4064
ray.choate@adelaide.edu.au
Southern Highlands
Eleanor Dartnall
478 Argyle Street
Moss Vale NSW 2577
Phone: 02 4869 I 825
eleanor@dartnalladvisors.com.au
Sydney & Northern NSW
Stuart Read
Phone: 02 9873 8554 (w)
stuart.read@planning.nsw.gov.au
Tasmania
Elizabeth Kerry
PO Box 89, Richmond, TAS
Phone: (03) 6260 4216
liz.kerry@keypoint.com.au
Victoria
Pamela Jellie
5 Claremont Cres
CanterburyVIC3l26
pdjellie@hotmail.com
Western Australia
Caroline Grant
9A Grange Street
Claremont WA
chhgrant@yahoo.com
Villa Gamberaia from Edith Wharton’s Italian Villas and their Gardens
(1904) — see co-editor Christina Dyson’s 'Notes from a hillside villa’
on page 25.
Cover: Photographer Simon Griffiths has extensively documented
Margaret Darling’s garden at Woomargama over several years and
here we see a quintessential image of the rose garden with rolling
paddocks and hills beyond. An appreciation of Margaret’s life and
her support for the Australian Garden History Society — penned by
friend and colleague Peter Watts — is on page 4.
2
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Architecture Branch Library, The University of Melbourne
From the chair
John Dwyer
Let me begin with thanks on behalf of the Soeiety as a whole to the Tasmanian
Braneh for the most sueeessful 2010 eonferenee at Launeeston, whieh was
thoroughly enjoyed by the members fortunate enough to attend it. For some
members this was the first AGHS eonferenee they had attended, and they
have been lavish in their praise. I am eonfident that future eonferenees will
maintain and even improve upon this high standard. It was very pleasing that
the Tasmanian Braneh agreed to inerease the numbers from 200 to 250 to ease
the number of members disappointed that they eould not attend, and that Mai
Paul took the initiative to plan an alternative optional day to avoid many more
being disappointed.
This brings me to the question of numbers at future eonferenees, whieh the
National Management Committee has eare fully eonsidered at several meetings.
It is always unfortunate when we are unable to provide a plaee at our national
eonferenee for all of the members wishing to attend. In reeent years this has
beeome a pressing problem. Some have expressed the view that our eonferenee
should be large enough for all members to attend. But a eonferenee for 2000
delegates would be both unwieldy and laeking in eollegiate spirit. Garden
visits as an integral part of the program would be impossible for numbers of
that order. The praetiealities of the size of eonferenee venues — partieularly
outside major eities — and the number of delegates who ean be taken on garden
visits, require that our eonferenees be smaller than that. Prudent fmaneial
management means that we should plan for eonferenees whieh will be fully or
nearly fully booked, and avoid the wasted eost of empty seats. Many members
have argued that we would lose a great deal if we signifieantly enlarged our
eonferenees.
Where a larger venue is available, we are moving eautiously towards a larger
eonferenee. Our plan for the eonferenee at Ballarat in 2012 is for 300 delegates.
If we eontinue to have to turn members away, we may eonsider some further
inerease for later eonferenees at Armidale, NSW (2013) and in Western
Australia (2014).
For the 2011 eonferenee at historie Maryborough (Qld), whieh is not a large
town, we are limited to a maximum of 200 delegates by what is available at
the venue and by way of aeeommodation. Bookings for the Optional Day are,
unfortunately, limited to 150 people; the Pre-Conferenee Tour to 60 people;
and the Post-Conferenee Tour to 60 people. It remains to be seen whether this
eonferenee will be as popular as reeent eonferenees have been, but we will not
have the ability to inerease numbers as we did in Launeeston. You will have
the best ehanee of seeuring a plaee if you book early, but unfortunately some
may again be disappointed.
A booking form for the 2011 Annual National Conferenee — to be held in
August — is enelosed with this journal.
Contents
Vale Margaret Florenee
Darling AM (1923-2010)
PETER WATTS
4
Finding Netherby and its
custodian Robert Pulleine
CAS MIDDLEMIS
6
Margaret Floekton: botanieal
artist
PAMELA BELL
12
‘The Vision Splendid’
Conference Summary
DEBORAH MALOR
Engaging with the designed
landscape
JANE LENNON
16
32nd Annual National
Conference, Maryborough,
Queensland, 19-22 August 2011
21
Victory for Mawallok—andfor
the protection of historic gardens
PETER WATTS
23
Notes from a hillside villa:
Revisiting Villa Gamberaia
CHRISTINA DYSON
25
Review essay: Plants from old
catalogues
STUART READ
26
For the bookshelf
28
Recently released
29
Jottanda
30
Dialogue
31
Society news
32
Diary dates
33
Western Australian landscape
forum
CAROLINE GRANT
35
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
3
Vale Margaret Florence Darling AM
(lo May 1923-6 November 2010)
Peter Watts
With the passing of Margaret Darling, the
Australian Garden History Society has lost one
of its greatest supporters. Margaret served the
AGHS as both Chair of its National Management
Committee (1990—99) and Patron (1999—2006).
At her memorial service at St John’s Anglican
Church, Toorak, on 16 November 2010, one of
her grandchildren was quoted as saying ‘she was a
classic and just got better with age’.
With the passing of
Margaret Darling, the
Australian Garden History Society
has lost one of its
greatest supporters
Margaret Anderson was born in 1923 and attended
St Catherine’s, Toorak, a school with which she
maintained a lifelong association. She was accepted
to study architecture at the Melbourne Technical
College (after the war renamed Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology), but war intervened and
she joined the Women’s Royal Australian Naval
Service (WRANS), working in signal code breaking.
She married L. Gordon Darling in 1945 (dissolved
1989) and while managing a growing family of four
children developed a growing interest and active
involvement in the conservation of the historic
environment. She was a very active Councillor of
the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) from 1966
to 1990, serving as President from 1979—82 and
then as a Vice-President. In 1991 she became a
Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of
her service to the Trust.
But Margaret was not just one to sit at the board
table. And she was certainly not one to squander her
privileged personal circumstances. I recall her, on
many occasions, lugging heavy boxes of merchandise
around the National Trust headquarters at Como
that were destined for the highly profitable
Margaret Darling pictured in 1 980 during her presidency of the
National Trust of Australia (Victoria) — it was at this time Margaret
offered the support of the Trust in hosting the first Garden History
Conference (at its Toorak property lllawarra) and in the subsequent
founding of the Australian Garden History Society.
National Trust Women’s Committee shop which she
managed — as a volunteer. Through the Women’s
Committee Margaret published the wonderful
garden books of her close friend, and AGHS
benefactor, Joan Law-Smith. I recall her infectious
enthusiasm when she read my manuscript The
Gardens of Edna Walling dsadi wanted immediately
to publish it. Typical of Margaret there was no
contract, but a firm ‘understanding’. That was her
way — minimum fuss, maximum return. In truth
Margaret could have been a highly successful and
wily commercial publisher.
Margaret was President of the Victorian National
Trust at the time it hosted the conference at which
the Australian Garden History Society was born
and she offered wise counsel on the development
of our constitution. As its author I recall her advice:
4
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
National Trust of Australia (Victoria)
‘Keep it short and sweet or there will be too much to
challenge’ — such wise words. Margaret later served
the AGHS with distinction, as Chair of the NMC,
and subsequently as Patron. No matter what her
role Margaret lead with wisdom, graciousness, and
enormous energy.
When Margaret took the Chair of the Society
in 1990 it was emerging from a difficult period.
Jocelyn Mitchell had expertly and determinedly
guided the organisation back to health after a
particularly difficult time and the NMC was
looking for someone who could provide a steadying
influence and consolidate the gains that had
been made under Jocelyn’s chairmanship. We
could not have done better than Margaret. She
combined an unusual set of skills — understanding
the peculiarities of a voluntary conservation
organisation, respecting the academic and cultural
dimension that underpinned the AGHS, and
knowing that hard work and time were needed to
do the job well. Equally she knew the importance
of the bottom line and together with the Treasurer,
Robin Lewarne, nurtured the Society’s finances.
Margaret had a keen eye for a column of figures
and she kept a tight rein on the financial and
administrative aspects of the Society, finishing her
term with the AGHS in fine shape. Committee
meetings in her elegant apartment overlooking
Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens were lively
and decisively lead, and always fun.
Margaret combined an unusual
set of skills — understanding
the peculiarities of a voluntary
conservation organisation, respecting
the academic and cultural dimension
that underpinned the AGHS, and
knowing that hard work and time
were needed to do the job well
Margaret’s generosity knew no bounds. As Chair she
regularly attended AGHS events all over Australia.
Each year, quietly and at her own expense, she
visited the state whose task it was to host the next
annual national conference. She vetted each garden
to be visited, the conference programme, and the
venue, and used her formidable skills in tact and
diplomacy to ensure that everything would meet her
high standards.
It was Margaret who suggested, then arranged
for, Joan Eaw-Smith to bequeath her book.
Kindred Spirits^ to the AGHS. The Kindred Spirits
Eund, as it became known, now stands at over
$150,000. What a wonderful gift that has been,
allowing the Society to foster, in a very tangible
way, some of its scholarly, literary, and artistic
interests. Margaret too, without any fanfare, made
significant financial contributions to the Society.
In an act of great generosity she matched the
AGHS contribution to the development of The
Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens. Richard
Aitken, in his Acknowledgements, noted that
‘without it the Companion would surely never
have come to fruition’.
Ihe garden at Woomargama
was her great passion ...
an affair of the head and the he art ^
Margaret may have gone but Woomargama remains.
Here, in southern New South Wales, Margaret had
gardened since acquiring the property in 1965. Her
son, Michael, noted at Margaret’s memorial service
‘the garden at Woomargama was her great passion
...an affair of the head and the heart ... and it was
fitting that it was at its peak when she died, a living
“floral tribute’”. Woomargama was a metaphor for
Margaret — elegant, controlled, intellectual, civilised,
visionary, and the result of deep knowledge and
hard labour. It was not without whimsy too. As her
daughter, Clare, noted ‘the cartridges were kept
with the hankies’. That was very Margaret.
Margaret Darling will be remembered with great
affection and deep gratitude by all associated with
the Australian Garden History Society.
Peter Watts AM is a former Chairman of the
Australian Garden History Society National
Management Committee.
An obituary for Margaret Darling, by Lynne Cairncross,
was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on
13 December and in The Age on 27 December 2010.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
5
Courtesy Michael Treloar
Finding Netherby and its custodian
Robert Pulleine
Cas Middlemis
The spirited polymath Robert Pulleine (1869-1935) was an acknowledged
specialist in botany and anthropology as well as a highly respected medical doctor
Pulleine’s endeavours benefited the Adelaide community and also institutions internationally
Robert Pulleine of Netherby
Pulleine Street, in the Adelaide suburb of Netherby,
is a wistful echo and reminder of the exceptional
man for whom it was named. Dr Robert Henry
Pulleine. It is easy to imagine from our twenty-first
century perspective that we have the priority on
communication and travel, but almost loo years
ago, Pulleine was in touch with experts worldwide
in his fields of interest and passion. He travelled
extensively to increase his knowledge and augment
his notable plant collection which focused on cacti
and other succulents. Pulleine excelled in a wide
variety of fields and, maybe more importantly,
shared his scholarship with others.
Pulleine’s bookplate encapsulated his polymathic interests in the
worlds of science, anthropology, and natural history.
Robert Pulleine moved to Adelaide with his
family in i88i, aged 13. In 1892 he attended the
University of Adelaide to study medicine. He
moved to Sydney to complete his degree and then
began working at Sydney’s Prince Alfred Hospital.
He married an Adelaide woman, Ethel Williams,
in 1899 and the couple initially settled in Gympie,
Queensland, before moving to Adelaide in 1905.
The Pulleines spent a year overseas in Germany
where Robert worked in an eye clinic at Gottingen
University, Dr Pulleine returned to Adelaide in
1907 and established a medical practice with two
partners. He was well regarded in this field.
Portrait of R.H. Pulleine, c. 1 930
6
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Pulleine Family Collection held by DiTostevin
Dr Pulleine and his family lived
in a house called Netherby.
The house had been
built in the late 1840s,
with a number of
owners prior to the
Pulleines. One
owner, Sir William
Morgan, was
Premier of South
Australia for
nearly three years
from September
1878, and Netherby
saw many official
functions during that
time. The grounds had 1 1
acres of orangery and vineyards.
Morgan was, according to one
newspaper article, an expert on citrus fruits and
opened up a spring with a plentiful water supply
for the ‘orange and lemon trees of every variety’.^
The subsequent owner, keen on maintaining the
established orchards, added a gardener’s cottage.
After that the property passed into the hands of the
Bank of New South Wales. There was a series of
caretakers and a few other owners until 1913, when
Dr Pulleine and his family moved in. Ethel also
gave birth to their fifth child in that year.
By 1931 Dr Pulleine was known to have the
best collection of succulents in South Australia,
comprising almost 800 varieties. One writer
commented that ‘notwithstanding his [medical]
practice he takes a big interest in his wonderful
garden, in ornithology and anthropology and yet he
never seems to be in a hurry. How I envy him his
calm temperament!’^
William Tibb its, Netherby House, Netherby, South Australia, c. 1 896.
[Art Gallery of South Australia (893P6); Presented by the family of Dr R.H.
Pulleine, 1989]
related to his botanical interests.
Fortunately a number of excellent black and white
images document the garden, some taken at the
time the property was acquired in 1913, others in
the early 1930s, and an aerial photograph in 1936.
These images can transport the viewer to that point,
the day the shutter clicked. Any lack of colour only
serves to highlight the layout and foliage variations.
An attractive long and wide drive ending in a large
loop took the visitor to the house though a rich
selection of plant species. Large clumps of dense
shrubs along the driveway created a green wall
The Netherby garden
The structured or formal part of the garden at
Netherby during Pulleine’s time was about one sixth
of the property. It fanned out westwards from the
house and included the main drive. The rest of the
land was mostly hedged orchards and open land with
overgrown areas containing large pine tree groves, or
the ‘Wild Part’ as the grandchildren called it. John
Noble recalled that this area was the backdrop for
their childhood games. 3 When the wind blew though
the pine trees it added a wonderful soundscape. The
orchards, to the north of the property, contained
citrus and olive trees. It would appear that much
of the garden structure at Netherby had been
established prior to Pulleine’s arrival. But significantly
he augmented it with an extensive plant collection
Detail of 1 936 RAAF aerial photograph (north to top of photo)
showing Netherby
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
7
United Photo & Graphic Services (image 885/4255-936)
Pulleine Family Collection held by Carolyn Semple Pulleine Family Collection held by Carolyn Semple
Netherby at the time the Pulleine family took up residence, c. 1 9 1 3- 1 4.
and added a sense of mystery to what lay beyond.
In neighbouring sections of the driveway shrubs
were used giving a more open feel. A stand of trees
(possibly conifers) was mirrored across the drive.
The lower limbs were removed and they were under
planted with low shrubs interspersed with strappy
plants. Close to the house, a rock border added
formality to the driveway and a similar treatment
was used to divide the formal plant beds. Large
rocks also littered the beds creating a naturalistic
scene. The top section of the loop, close to the
house, had a lawn area for children to play. Just a
short distance behind the house. Brown Hill could
be seen. Rising just 300 metres it was a perfect.
lightly treed backdrop. One visitor commented
that this ‘old-fashioned’ garden with its trees and
shrubs and quaint-looking cacti and euphorbia was
a delight to visit. Robert Pulleine did not do all
the physical gardening although he was involved.
According to the family, three gardeners were
employed although two were very old.
Pulleine’s botanical interests
Sadly both the garden and the house at Netherby
are long gone, with numerous houses filling
the landscape where the Pulleine children and
grandchildren used to play. But the story does not
end there as Robert Pulleine’s diverse botanical
At the end of one of the
garden beds, standing like a
proud sentinel, was a five-
foot Carnegiea gigantea
that Pulleine had managed
to safely transport from
Arizona. Whilst in America
visiting the Boyce Thompson
arboretum with a friend,
Pulleine had been allowed
to 'chose and pack the best
medium specimen we could
find in an afternoon'. He
commented in a letter to
Arthur Hill (director of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
in 1931 that 'my specimen
unpacked without a single
broken spine and now after
nearly two years is showing
quick growth."* Adelaide’s
climate proved very suitable
for such plants.
8
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Pulleine Family Collection held by Carolyn Semple
An interesting garden feature of Netherby was its large Oriental-influenced rustic gate (for vehicular traffic) of bamboo and bark-stripped
branches. This photograph was taken around 1 9 1 3 so it is uncertain if the gate was installed by Robert Pulleine, although his grandson, John
Noble, recalled that the interior furnishings at Netherby were largely oriental style including framed kimono cloths, screens and 'many cabinets
full of mysterious ebony, jade and ivory objects, charms, figurines [and] opium weights.'^
interests were wide-ranging. In 1907 he brought to
the attention of authorities the potential danger of
fruit fly to South Australia, having seen the damage
caused in Queensland. He noted that introduction
could be ‘as simple as a piece of affected fruit
brought over by passengers and perhaps thrown out
the window of a train in orchard country.’ Today all
interstate travellers to South Australia are asked to
heed fruit fly protection measures.
In 1909 Robert Pulleine established the South
Australian Botanical Club which regularly held its
meetings in his medical rooms on North Terrace.
Amongst the members and regular attendees was
botanist John Black, author of The Naturalised Flora
of South Australia (1909) and the later multi-volume
The Flora of South Australia. He was considered
to be the best systematic botanist in the state for
almost fifty years. Another member was Dr E.
Angas Johnson, a governor and benefactor of the
Adelaide Botanic Garden, who published a number
of papers on the history of plants. Club members
discussed a wide range of issues including fodder
feed, the disappearance of indigenous plants on
the Adelaide plains, the merits and disadvantages
of growing of spineless cactus, and the value to
medicine of Australian plant species.
In 1916 Pulleine questioned why the state
government was suddenly interested in the Botanic
Garden appointments after being unconcerned
about the Garden previously, both in its structure
and funding. He was questioning the government
appointee for the position of director, suggesting
that first-class men had been shut out of the process.
He supported the board of governors as they
maintained a determined attitude with regard to
the appointment of a successor to director Maurice
Holtze. Pulleine was very keen to establish a
herbarium within the Botanic Garden but suggested
that the government and the public were inclined
to look upon a botanist simply as a sort of herbalist.
He keenly defended botanists saying that botany
was ‘next to mathematics and was the most exact of
sciences’. ‘During the last 200 years especially since
Linnaeus’, he added, ‘it had received the attention
of men of the highest calibre and greatest intellect.’^
Robert Pulleine also had a passion for Australian
flora. He went on a number of excursions inland
and interstate to broaden his knowledge on
diverse growing environments. He collected many
samples, sending them to botanical institutions
in Australia and overseas. The State Herbarium
of South Australia has over 100 specimens listed
under Pulleine’s name. These specimens had been
collected between 1905 and 1932 from the Gawler
Ranges, Flinders Ranges, and Innamincka in
South Australia; Broken Hill and Menindee Lake
in New South Wales; the Macdonnell Ranges in
the Northern Territory; Herberton in Queensland;
and around the south-west of Western Australia.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, received
several parcels of plants between 1916 and 1931.
In 1926 Pulleine’s daughter visited the director
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
9
Pulleine Family Collection held by Libby and Jim Smith
Gravel paths led the
visitor around formal
island beds in front of the
house. Located within
the large driveway loop,
these beds were densely
crowded with plants,
succulents interlaced with
ground covers.
at the Gardens in Kew ‘with a small collection of
ephemeral plants ... and a few odds and ends’.
One parcel in 1931 from Robert Pulleine was
acknowledged by Kew’s director, Arthur Hill,
who commented ‘I note that you intend visiting
Central Australia again in August, and I shall be
very pleased to receive any specimens that you
may collect then. Material from South Australia
would also be very welcome for the Herbarium.’^
The Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, also holds
over 140 of Pulleine’s specimens. A new species of
mesembryanthemum, Carpobrotus pulleinei (now
10
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
known, after numerous revisions, as Sarcozona
praecox)^ from the Gawler Ranges was named after
him along with six other species of animals and
plants. Apparently after propagating some arid-zone
plants Pulleine would post the seedlings to outback
teachers to plant in school gardens.®
Robert Pulleine was often in touch with individuals
in numerous countries seeking to enhance his plant
collections. These included Dr O. Burchard of the
Canary Isles, Dr O. Luckhoff of Cape Town, Ernst
Rusch of South West Africa, Dr Carl Diner, Mrs
van der Dijl and Louis Vogts of South Africa, Alain
White of United States of America, and Dr Cravely
of Madras. In 1932 Pulleine was photographing
his numerous euphorbias and hoping to bring out
a monograph on them from a photographic view
point. Interestingly it appears he was using one of
Douglas Mawson’s cameras for this work. The Royal
Botanic Cardens, Kew, sent a parcel of euphorbia
to Pulleine in August 1932. Although the content is
not confirmed, it possibly included Arabian and East
African varieties of euphorbia, which had eluded
Pulleine to date.
During its 1933—34 session Robert Pulleine
presented a paper to the South Australian Branch
of the Royal Ceographical Society of Australasia
entitled ‘The botanical colonisation of the Adelaide
Plains’. Published in 1935, this still provides a useful
overview of Adelaide’s early plant development
focusing on some of the key players and plants.
REFERENCES
1 Sunday Mail, 9 June 1928, p.13.
2 Adelaide Advertiser, 17 December 1931, p.i6.
3 Jim Smith (comp.), A Pulleine Family Story: from
Yorkshire to New Zealand and Australia, The Author,
Tuross Head, NSW, 2000, p.io6.
4 Correspondence from Dr Robert Pulleine to Sir
Arthur Hill, 15 June 1931, Held by Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew.
5 Jim Smith (comp.), A Pulleine Family Story: From
Yorkshire to New Zealand and Australia, p.io8.
6 Adelaide Advertiser, 1 5 July 1 9 1 6, p. 1 1 .
7 Correspondence from Sir Arthur Hill to Dr Robert
Pulleine 4 August 1931. Held by Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew.
8 Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition
http:/ / adbonline.anu.edu. au/biogs/Ai 103 i6b.htm
9 R. Pulleine, The Botanical Colonisation of the Adelaide
Plains, SA Branch of the Royal Geographical Society,
Adelaide, 1935, p.6i.
Under a section on fruit trees Pulleine comments
that ‘It could be stated without fear of contradiction
that no city and community in the world is so famed
in regard to variety, abundance, and quality of
its temperate and citrus fruits as Adelaide and its
vicinity. ’9 Peaches, according to Pulleine’s article,
found their way to Adelaide via Sydney’s Darling
Nursery in 1836. So it was interesting to find this
comment by Arthur Hill in a letter to Pulleine in
1931: ‘I have not forgotten your kind present of
peaches to help me on my journey to Melbourne’.
Envoi
Dr Robert Pulleine died in 1935, aged 66. He was a
dynamic character who ‘showed unfailing kindness to
all with whom he was associated’. He was connected
with many scientific societies and boards during
his lifetime including medical, anthropological
(although not detailed in this article, his work on
Tasmanians and their stone culture, was noteworthy),
geographical, and botanical. He held various and
numerous official positions within these organisations.
He travelled to conferences and presented papers.
Although is it difficult to portray the scope of the
intellect of this passionate and creative individual in
the short compass of an article and despite the fact
that the garden and home at Netherby no longer
exist. Dr Robert Pulleine has left behind myriad ideas
and aspirations on which can reflect.
Thanks to members of the Pulleine family
including Carolyn Semple, Di Tostevin, and
Libby & Jim Smith; Cate Parkinson for her
initial research on the subject; the support from
Garrick Hill and its director Richard Heathcote;
Judy Blood, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney;
Hannah Jenkinson, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew;
and Peter Guffley.
Netherby features in the exhibition ‘Lost
Gardens of Adelaide’, on show at Garrick Hill
Historic House and Garden until the end of
Lebruary 2011 — see <www.carrickhill.sa.gov.au>
for further details.
Gas Middlemis is co-author and publisher of Flung
Out to Dry: Gilbert Toyne’s classic Australian clothes hoist
which chronicles the rich, little known, and intriguing
history of an Australian icon, <www.clotheshoist.com>
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
11
Margaret Flockton: botanical artist
Pamela Bell
The shy but very hard working and intelligent Margaret Flocl<ton (I 861-1953), was
the first botanical artist employed by the Sydney Botanic Gardens, where she worked
with the director Joseph Henry Maiden for twenty-six years.
Margaret Flockton arrived in Sydney in the early
1880S with her family. She had been born in Sussex
on 29 September 1861 into a family of amateur
and some professional artists. Her father had work
hung at London’s Royal Academy and other family
members were amateur painters.^ She was educated
at the free art training school at Cardiff Library and
Museum. The school was a branch of the South
Kensington National Art Training Schools, one of
many established by the British government where
teachers who were graduates of South Kensington
gave classes in drawing, painting, sculpture,
engraving, and lithography for which rigid
examinations were held. According to family history
Flockton was also a student at Miss Gann’s Life
School in Bloomsbury — this too was a branch of
the South Kensington schools. It may be that there
she came into contact with the teacher of botanical
drawing Christopher Dresser, who subsequently
became an influential ceramic, wallpaper, and
textile designer.
In Sydney, Miss Flockton found work with
publishers and printing companies Gibbs, Shallard
& Go. and S.T. Leigh. In 1895 she opened her own
studio at 3 Victoria Arcade, Castlereagh Street,
Sydney, where she gave classes in painting.^ She
also became a member of the Royal Art Society,
where she exhibited oil and watercolour paintings
every year in company with Sidney Long, Arthur
Streeton, Tom Roberts, and other notable artists. In
1895 she exhibited seven paintings of flowers and
one still life, of which her ‘Waratahs’ was bought by
the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The Royal Art
Society selected some of her paintings for inclusion
in an album presented to Queen Victoria (which
included works by W. Lister Lister, A.H. Fullwood,
W.G. Piguenit, and Ethel Stevens). Her painting of
two dead parrots was also included in the Australian
Federation Album presented to the Duke and
Duchess of York in 1901 — this album remains in
Australia. 1901 was the last year in which Flockton
exhibited at the Royal Art Society and thereafter
she gave up painting in favour of a professional life
as a scientific botanical artist at the Sydney Botanic
Gardens.
In 1901, Joseph Henry Maiden, the energetic
director of the Sydney Botanic Gardens was only
able to employ Margaret Flockton part time,
but he was so impressed with her work that he
persuaded the government that he needed more
funds to employ her full time. ‘She is a gifted artist
and lithographer besides possessing good botanical
ym.CLj Fujii, NSW. Kl. »
Margaret Flockton’s drawings of White Honeysuckle’ (Banksia
integrifolia) published in J.H. Maiden's Forest Flora of New South Wales
(vol. I, 1904, plate 29).
Facing page: Each of Margaret Flocicton’s published botanical
drawings was preceded by painstakingly accurate drawings,
often with water-coloured washes or highlights and occasionally
undertaken over a lengthy period of time, such as this 'Opuntia
bergeriana’ (now Opuntia elatior) painted during 1908-1 I.
12
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
^ ^ ‘ T ft.
^ in -
Cm> xxfci*^ jfvi' uJk^ f*^
feiC ptiU /2 Jtxt^ fu^i ^
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Left and opposite: Margaret
Flockton’s paintings were
widely reproduced as
postcards and in a booklet
Australian Wild Flowers
( 1 908) — ^this popular
illustration of'Christmas
Bells and Fern' (Bland fordia
nobilis and Blechnum
cartilagineum), painted in
1 900, featured in bothi.
[Private collection]
knowledge’ Maiden wrote to the Under Secretary. ^
By the time she retired from the Gardens in 1927
Flockton was earning the very respectable sum
of £300 per annum. Maiden knew what he was
doing — here was a highly trained commercial artist,
who was also a trained lithographer.
Margaret Flockton was employed at the Sydney
Botanic Gardens from 1901 to 1927. She was the
first botanical artist to be employed full time for a
herbarium in Australia. Flockton’s line drawings
were reproduced as lithographs, which she made
herself. This was unusual, as most artists relied
on others to produce lithographs for publication
of their art work. Moreover, according to Norman
Hall, she was the only female lithographic artist
in Australia at that date .5
When Maiden employed Flockton, he had
already embarked on two major projects: T/ie
Forest Flora of New South (1903— 24), 77
parts in 8 volumes, and A Critical Revision of
the Genus Fucalyptus (1903—33), 75 parts in
8 volumes. By the time the Genus Fucalyptus
project was complete, Margaret Flockton had
contributed 308 detailed images. Each drawing
showed up to 45 separate depictions of leaves,
stems, buds, flowers, seed pods, and seeds. All
were exquisitely drawn, with some seeds and
leaves, for example, shown from different angles.
All her drawings were arranged into clearly
balanced and pleasing designs thanks to her
extensive training in drawing and design. She
then translated these images into lithographs
ready for printing.
At the same time. Maiden was working on a
second project, the Forest Flora, which like the
Genus Fucalyptus, was published in sections by
the Government Printer, William Applegate
Gullick. This work contained 295 images, 235
of which were by Margaret Flockton while the
remaining 60 images were drawn by E.A. King
under Flockton’s supervision. This work contains
14
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
a diverse group of
plants, many with
lush-looking blooms,
graceful sweeping
branches, leaves,
and distinctive seed
pods. The images
from the Forest
Flora are perhaps
more decorative
than the eucalypts
due to the nature
of the specimens.
All are shown in
graceful and exquisite
detail. The patience
and skill required
to produce these
outstanding images,
and then to translate
them into lithographs is
astonishing. Although
many of the Flockton
drawings survive, unfortunately there are only very
few coloured works. These are held by the Royal
Botanic Gardens Herbarium and Library in Sydney.
Over the years of Flockton ’s employment at
the Sydney Botanic Gardens, Maiden gradually
acknowledged the enormous contribution she had
made to his publications. In the introduction to the
first volume of the Genus Fucalyptus^ she is merely
referred to as the ‘artist’ although by the end of the
final volume Maiden acknowledged;
the help I have received from Miss Margaret
Flockton ... [which] is immense, and it speaks for
itself. She is practically a joint author. Her drawings
are alike beautiful and artistic, and the botanist will
appreciate them because of their fidelity to nature
... [which has] sometimes brought out a hitherto
unsuspected point.
In Volume 7 he wrote of his hope that ‘selections
from the beautiful drawings of Miss M. Flockton
will be found in every school throughout the
Commonwealth’. Likewise in the conclusion
of Volume 8 of Forest Flora, Maiden wrote ‘It is
impossible to say what proportion (a very large
share) of the credit of the work pertains to my
esteemed colleague. Miss Margaret Flockton ...
who has supervised the whole of the illustrations,
and who has drawn and lithographed the vast
majority of them.’ Again in Volume 8 of the Genus
Fucalyptus (1933) we read that many of Flockton ’s
images of eucalypts were made from observation of
seedlings raised in pots at the Gardens, as Maiden
said, through gazing at them again and again.
Besides being used for publication Flockton’s
drawings were shown ‘before Sydney Scientific
Societies’, presumably at lectures. Joseph Maiden
also honoured Miss Flockton by naming new
species after her: Ole aria flocktoniae, Fucalyptus
flocktoniae Acacia flocktoniaem 1909, 19 ii,
and 1916 respectively.
Both the publications discussed here are in constant
use by students of botany, to such an extent that
the University of Sydney has published both in
their entirety, complete with Flockton’s illustrations,
in the SETIS electronic book section of the
University of Sydney Library so that these elegant
and informative drawings are available, not only to
students and botanists but also to the general public.^
Among many other projects that Flockton worked
on with Maiden was the research done at the
Botanic Gardens on the prickly pear, which became
a threat to agriculture throughout Australia.
Continued on page 32
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
15
'The Vision Splendid':
31st Annual National Conference,
Launceston, 5-8 November 2010
Deborah Malor and Jane Lennon
Conference summary
Recording and memory are such subjective matters.
Entering the wonderfully rich Victorian atmosphere
of Launceston’s Albert Hall on the first morning
of the conference, I was immediately drawn to the
striking mirror by craftsman Peter Colenette on
display. John Hawkins reminded us of that mirror in
his talk, referring to its use of treasured Tasmanian
timbers, the design incorporating Tasmanian
birds on the brink of extinction, and — against the
odds of plantation monocultures and ecological
change outpacing that of adaptation — the mirror’s
iconographic tree of life. The mirror has watched
over this conference.
The mirror draws on the idea of ‘The Vision
Splendid’, the conference theme, in the words of
William Wordsworth (from ‘Ode: Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’:
1807) and of A.B. Paterson (‘Clancy of the
Overflow’: 1889). This is an important dichotomy,
the English romantic, the Australian balladeer. Yes,
at the times they were writing, both Wordsworth
and Paterson were nostalgic for the past, but in
different ways. In their poems, they are also looking
forward, to their countries being inhabited in ways
almost unimaginable to them. Only that there was
a future, was understood. But the aesthetic, the
visual sensibility that informed each one’s vision, is
of an old country and a new, each writer aware of
his changing environment. Wordsworth’s England
was being irrevocably changed by the forces of
industrialisation and, yes, of tourism. (Wordsworth
continually complained about the traffic jams to
the Lake District on summer weekends). Paterson
was lamenting closer settlement, the demise of
the squatter, the increasing control of the ‘long
paddock’, the retreat to the cities (‘doubt he’d
suit the office’, he quipped of Clancy). He saw the
impact on the land of what already had occurred
over the previous century, and there was the
recognition of not just the fact of continual change
under the pressure of a humanity bent on an
evangelical view of progress, but humanity’s belief
in the rightness of that vision of progress.
Wordsworth and Paterson wrote across the period
that informed our forefathers’ view of this land,
and its subsequent colonisation, the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Underneath all that romantic
stuff, they were activists, revolutionaries, rebels
against the view of progress at all cost. Wordsworth
and Paterson have looked in the mirror. They have
not only viewed themselves, and their recent past,
but they have looked further back, and attempted
to imagine, to envision, what the deep past may
have been. Another vision splendid. Of course,
they cannot inhabit that past — the past is, indeed,
a foreign country, as Lowenthal reminded us.
But, like us, they might have thought to use that
envisioning for a better future.
The odd couple that is Wordsworth and Paterson
set the tone for some of the issues raised or
tacitly recognised at this conference. There have
been moments of conflict, ambivalence, of great
questions, comparisons that have not been odious,
but have been used to activate ideas. I’ll comment
very briefly on some of these issues.
Power: In art and photography, just as in the
cause of empire and colonisation, there is the
conquistador view (a term clearly borrowed from the
Spanish conquest of the Americas) — a view that
is possession, owning what one surveys, naming
it (probably for somewhere in Britain, or for your
family ‘back home’). The newcomers to this island,
Tasmania, saw the vision splendid, the Aboriginal
fire-controlled landscape before them, set about
mapping it, controlling the experience of the land
through inhabitation, shepherding, then fencing,
walls, enclosures, compounds. Keeping out and
keeping in. The British or European language of
power has been symbolised in hard landscaping that
allows the running of beasts, the planting of crops.
16
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
and manufactury of all kinds. But that language of
power is heard most in the public buildings, houses,
and gardens of its settler societies.
Economics: Once the driving force of colonisation,
economics has continued control of the door to
exploitation of the land; the driver of destruction of
buildings, their curtilages, of trees and their cultural
context, of the species of birds and animals that
existed in a natural ecology; of the conditions in
which plants may survive without a regular dose of
chemicals or the importation of water that deprives
others less powerful of that resource. Economics is
the rationale for manipulating environments without
acknowledgement of a wider ecology, both through
actions and inertia. It is, of course, the raison d’etre
of many planning departments and local authorities.
Aesthetics: Otherwise known as the ability to
recognise beauty, and to recreate it in that image.
A number of speakers and property owners
have recognised the hard decisions of satisfying
personal taste or the allure of past styles, and the
reality of gardening today, with the imperatives
of working with climate change and in otherwise
difficult conditions, some of which are economic,
of course. I sympathise, indeed, empathise,
somewhat illogically. I drool over books of Arts
and Crafts gardens while waging battle against
ivy and blackbirds on a 6o x 6o foot block in
suburban Launceston; on our Mole Creek farm,
the shrubbery is mowed indiscriminately by
wallabies and topiaried by the occasional poddy
lamb. The spring creek that borders the garden,
fenced and re vegetated courtesy of a National
Resource Management grant, is now so clogged with
watercress since cattle no longer graze and pug its
banks that I could probably redress the overdraft
by supplying every restaurant in the state with this
green, peppery invader. The ability to look afresh at
a site and recognise its changing potential can only
come about by looking in the mirror and recognising
that a broader understanding of aesthetics, an
historically and culturally informed extension of
taste, must come into play, in concert with the
practicalities of managing a landscape.
Time: I have a personal peeve about the idea of the
‘timeless’ garden (with apologies to Trisha Dixon
and the many others who evoke this particular
vision). What I have found often tacitly recognised
in both the lectures and field trips is that time is a
major issue for gardens, landscapes, trees, and their
place in the broader landscape, built or otherwise.
Time is integral to how we understand these places,
whose histories we are attempting to retrieve or
to bring to notice. We don’t all work on the same
time. Tree time is not our time. The experience of
human time is now more compressed, more intense,
than ever. In the last few days we have looked at
sites of great longevity, but with recent gardens,
perhaps punctuated by the occasional venerable
tree. It is clear that history is not about time, but is
simply a series of markers of time ... periodisation.
This understanding has huge implications for a
garden history society. To lay out a new garden
on a site of early non-Indigenous settlement
should not be about historical re-creationism — no
ball-and-chain gardeners, please — but about an
emerging environmental responsibility, that is, to
the environment in which you already operate, and
the one you will create in the making of a garden.
It is not about the romantic notion of inhabiting an
imagined past, but about the equally romantic notion
of a better future for that site.
So, my final issue is history itself As we listened to
talks ranging from the broadest historical brushstrokes
to the tiniest isolated detail of a birdsong or a flower, it
became clear to me that this society for garden history
The Great Western Tiers — Kooparoona Niarato local Aboriginal people — form a dynamic backdrop to the Chudleigh Valley.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
17
Jane Lennon
attracts both the Wordsworthians and the Patersonians,
those who nostalgically sniff the roses and those who
see the past as worth recording, even as it rushes away.
Garden historians are dealing with a most ephemeral
of histories. We can look at garden plans, scan plant
lists, identify the remains of hard landscaping, but
it is most difficult to understand how a garden was
used. Even the grandest gardens do not easily give
up to us the information about how people lived in
them, in the past. Of the simpler gardens of farm or
suburb, almost nothing remains to tell us of how the
vast majority of the population of settler societies
lived. Population change and movement — through
aspiration or desperation — sees the loss of cultural
memory, the loss of a language for what I see as the
most important aspect of gardens of the past: how we
were when in them. Lucky is a family with a raconteur
such as Kenneth von Bibra who can translate that past
experience for us. Yet, as I said earlier, recording and
memory are such subjective matters.
We have been reminded many times over the
duration of the conference, of the need to read the
landscape, but this takes skill, knowledge, and
imagination. It is about being open to possibilities.
It is looking at how history has given us what we
have in the here and now. It is gut feeling and
access to a large database of information that had,
until that very moment, seemed trivial. Much like
gardening. Look in the mirror, and ask yourself:
Should I place that here? Now? In this climate?
In this place? Is there a better way? How will my
actions be reflected in the future when they will be
others’ history?
But to conclude. Both Wordsworth and Paterson
brought to us a vision splendid that is in the hands
of youth — Wordsworth’s Youth ‘still as Nature’s
priest’ ; Paterson’s Clancy an individual in harmony
with the bush through which he moves. As youth,
they look forward, into the future. Simultaneously,
they are the future. Now, I don’t really want to
comment on the demographic of this intellectual
community, the Australian Garden History Society,
but I must say this. We are simply custodians — this
has been made clear in every talk we have heard,
every garden we have visited, every young sapling
we have seen, these protected from predators
introduced and indigenous by a range of tree
guards so varied and ingenious that they could be
the subject of a book. So, consider the gardens of
your children, your grandchildren. Think. Protect.
Record. Act. That is what this conference has been
about, in this special place, Tasmania. Reflect on
the mirror of the self, the tree of life, and keep your
vision splendid.
Dr Deborah Malor is Graduate Research
Coordinator, in the School of Visual & Performing Arts
at the University of Tasmania.
Reflections on the designed landscape
We were invited to examine Governor Lachlan
Macquarie’s ‘Vision Splendid’ two centuries on:
‘the grand view and noble picturesque landscape
that presented themselves on our first coming
in sight of Launceston and the three rivers and
fertile plains and lofty mountains by which they
are bounded, were highly gratifying and truly
sublime’ — and so it remains.
Stimulating morning lectures were followed by
bus tours through the rich cultural landscape, the
most English corner of Australia with its hawthorn
hedges, narrow lanes, stone fences, and Georgian
houses surrounded by walled gardens and treed
parks. European settlers occupied the fertile
valleys along the principal rivers north of the
dramatic rising walls of the Great Western Tiers.
They found relatively treeless valleys, the result
of centuries of firing by Aborigines to maintain
hunting areas.
Conflict or ‘collision with the natives’ inevitably
followed the occupation of their hunting areas and
grasslands, and the fortified stone barn complex
at Old Wesley Dale in the Ghudleigh Valley built
by Lieutenant Travers Hartley Vaughan between
1829 1834 is an obvious testament to this
period when the property was known as Native Hut
Corner. Richard Dry’s estate of over 30,000 acres
near Westbury was commenced in the 1820s and
named Quamby, an Aboriginal name meaning ‘a
camping place’ or ‘place of rest’. As Henry Reynolds
reminded us in question time after his lecture, ‘the
settler had to be self aware . . . steel yourself to what
you were doing or go home’. In the 1850s Quamby
was described as ‘very prettily situated in a large
and well laid out park with handsome trees’ and in
1887 there was a garden of ii acres. The main drive
of nearly two kilometres still has large trees from
the 1850s plantings — maritime pine, oaks, coastal
18
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
redwood, poplars, ash, and elms — and hawthorn
hedges; our stroll along it in the mid-afternoon pale
sunshine could have been in England.
This was further reinforced by our visit to nearby
Exton which was settled in 1820. Extensive
hawthorn hedges bordered one-chain-wide laneways
seemingly stretching to the Tiers and enclosing rich
working farmland. Poplars, oaks, and elms bordered
the main drive leading to the double storey house
built in the 1840s.
Captain Rolland of Port Macquarie fame explored
the Ghudleigh valley in 1823 named its
features; Gog and Magog, after the gate keepers
to Paradise, for the high ground at the entrance to
the valley; he gave his name to the highest peak
at the end of the valley and called the next peaks
Claude, after the great Erench landscape painter,
and Van Dyke, after the portrait painter. By the
end of the 1820s land grants were given for this
valley and Native Hut Corner and Bentley were
taken up. Native Hut Corner as we have noted
became Wesley Dale in 1834 when Henry Reed
purchased it. Reed’s estate extended over 6500 acres
employing 84 people at its peak in the 1870s, with
the home farm of approximately 2500 acres and
the balance leased to tenant farmers. In 1873 Reed
commissioned the construction of a grand residence,
known then as Mountain Villa, and outbuildings
(including a stone granary, coach house, and chapel),
and used it as a summer house for holidays from
his Eaunceston mansion Mount Pleasant. A giant
macrocarpa hedge to the east of the house is the
chief garden relic of this era, although eighty per
cent of it has been removed. As the house was
unoccupied from the 1930s until 1998 this hedge
protected it from the elements and intruders.
New beech and oak trees have been planted and
a large fowl yard added interest for the garden
visitors. At Old Wesley Dale a new garden was
commenced by the Scotts in 2001 to the west of the
fortified barn and features a terrace garden, walled
kitchen garden, hedges (including box honeysuckle
sculpted as an elephant hedge), and a ha ha between
the stock paddock and garden.
Similarly Bentley is an old estate from 1829
by 1851 it had six miles of hawthorn hedges which
are such a feature of its landscape today. The
1879 homestead extended and modified forms
the centre of the garden which now encompasses
three lakes beyond the beautiful walls of local
stone commissioned by John and Robyn Hawkins.
Dolerite sculptures in the garden add close focal
interest in a landscape designed to enhance the
dramatic views to Captain Rolland’s mountain peaks.
At Perth on the South Esk River the Gibson family
still farm some 5000 acres including the estate
of Scone surrounding Eskleigh homestead and
the adjoining Native Point over the river. David
Gibson, a former convict from Perth, Scotland, was
given the ferry rights over the river by Macquarie
on his 1821 tour and from there amassed his
estate. His grandson William built Eskleigh in the
1870s planting the trees that are a feature today;
cedars, redwoods, maritime pines, Douglas and
true firs, alternating with English deciduous trees.
Restoration of trees along the drive into Eskleigh
is a project of the Tasmanian branch of AGHS.
Also in Perth is The Jolly Parmer Inn built in 1826
with a two-storey brick stable. It had five old trees
remaining in 1974 — plum, walnut, an ash, and two
sycamores — but since then a superb garden with
many shade-loving species under oaks, laurels.
The conifers of Eskleigh, at Perth, form a living testament to keynote speaker Gwenda Sheridan’s paper The conifer connection’.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
19
birches, almonds, and hazelnuts has been developed
and a walled vegetable garden.
The optional excursion on Monday cemented ‘the
Vision Splendid’. We visited Mount Pleasant (i86os)
in the company of Kenneth von Bibra, Henry Reed’s
great grandson, seeing the hilltop estate complete
with chapel and tomb ground and mature trees — a
tree commemorating the AGHS visit was planted. A
working sheep farm, Dunedin first granted in 1804,
was visited. It has been in the Scott family since
1878 and the current owner renovated the garden
from 1973 again removing 28 huge, overshadowing
macrocarpas and hedging the remainder for wind
protection while developing a sweeping garden with
wide beds including magnolias, chestnuts, birch,
sorbus, dogwoods in gorgeous pink flower, maples,
elderberries, and underplanting of euphorbias,
hellebores, peonies, hostas, lily of the valley, and
fritilarias. These are grown from seed in three
glasshouses. The rare, eclectic botanical collection
presented a harmonious garden but is was also
pleasing to see over the garden wall that the cultural
landscape sweeping down to the river valley still was
pastoral in character.
We lunched at Evandale in a large timber hall with
beautiful roof trusses — originally part of Fallgrove
estate, it was donated to the people of Evandale for
their agricultural show held on this site from 1869
until 1980. Warwick Oakman presented an excellent
lecture on John Glover, whose bronze statue stands
outside the hall in Falls Park.
But the highlight was then travelling to Mills
Plains nestled in the valley below Ben Eomond and
stopping at the spot depicted in Glover’s painting
of ‘My Harvest Home’ — the same flats, cattle, and
outline of wooded hills. Eittle had changed in 175
years except for a World War I memorial pine tree
on the distinctive Pinner’s Peak. At Patterdale,
Glover’s home farm, his son’s ‘Annotated panoramic
plan of “Patterdale” farm’ (1835) — constructed
with a Claude glass and camera obscura — allowed
for accurate topographical reproduction of house,
garden, and outbuildings. The beds from 1835
with their associated earthworks, paths, boundary
fence, gates, and sight lines survive intact and
complete. Eucalypts depicted in these paintings
remain as mature and over mature trees in the
landscape, especially the distinctive manna/
ribbon gum pattern. This place is of extraordinary
cultural significance to Australian painting and
garden-making due to its intactness and purity in
still presenting Glover’s art and landscape intent,
its rarity in escaping later redevelopment, and for
its record of continuity from the earliest colonial
settlement. Without statutory heritage protection,
the current owner is preserving the painter’s vale
by joining Patterdale and Nile Farm into one farm
in excess of 10,000 acres, rotating crops, removing
weeds from watercourses, and replanting recent
small logging areas. We visited Glover’s grave (1849)
at the Nile Chapel, a beautifully simple Greek
Revival structure said to have been designed by
Glover. It sits solemnly in the landscape below
ancient manna gums at Deddington.
The final visit was to Dalness where the two-storey
brick house, gardens, and curtilage are substantially
as set out in the 1830s and now feature the exotic
oaks, cedars, bunya pine, and other trees. The
entrance drive, hawthorn hedges, century old fruit
trees, and parkland have been renovated so that
the setting is maintained. The owners, Mackinnon
family, are the seventh generation providing a rare
unbroken 190-year chain of ownership.
Macquarie i 'Vision Splendid^
has survived: we are simply its
current custodians
National cultural values are protected through the
National Heritage Fist, as occurred in 2008 with
Woolmers and Brickendon, but these are the
only two such landscapes protected in Tasmania.
Many properties we visited are on the Tasmanian
Heritage Register. It is both the passion for and
love of these cultural landscapes by old families and
newcomers with the means and appreciation that
have maintained this heritage. The introduction
of extensive poppy fields and eucalypt plantations
needs to be carefully designed to sit in the
landscape. Freeways and housing estates could
bisect and/or otherwise sever the cultural links and
sightlines of these colonial estates. There is no State
planning policy to protect these cultural landscapes,
no local historic tree register. Design guidelines,
discussion, awareness-raising, further historical
research, and financial grants for restoration of
landscape elements like hedges, and willing workers
under supervision are needed. Macquarie’s ‘Vision
Splendid’ has survived: we are simply its current
custodians and must make the next generation
aware of this extraordinary inheritance and help
equip them to protect and husband it.
Dr Jane L. Lennon AM is a Brisbane-based heritage
consultant with long experience in the assessment and
management of designed landscapes.
20
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
32nd Annual National Conference,
Maryborough, Queensland,
19-22 August 2011
Maryborough is the location for the Australian
Garden History Society 32nd Annual National
Conference, to be held from 19 to 22 August 2011.
This beautiful city, on the banks of the Mary River,
is about three hours north of Brisbane by car. The
city has many fine nineteenth century buildings,
reflecting its importance during the period 1850 to
1900 when it was a busy port and an entry point
for immigrants to Queensland. Since then it has
continued as a regional centre sustained by sugar,
timber, and heavy engineering.
The climate is sub-tropical (the Tropic of
Capricorn runs through Rockhampton, about
300km north of Maryborough) and so the gardens
contain palms, crotons, cordylines, and many other
plants with coloured foliage. The buildings have
verandahs and hoods over the windows to exclude
the heat and light.
Queensland’s climate differs from the southern
states — it is hot, humid, and wet in summer, and
pleasantly cool and dry in winter. Settlers quickly
adapted their houses to these conditions and to the
building materials to hand, in most places timber.
Gardening was difficult, due to the need to grow
plants that were not familiar to people from Europe,
and the heat and rapid growth made maintenance
difficult, leading to simplicity in design and the
selection of hardy plants. Rapid growth can be
followed by rapid decay, and untended gardens are
quickly overgrown. Buildings too, especially those of
timber, are attacked by rot and termites in the hot,
wet climate, so good design and maintenance are
essential if they are to last a century or more.
There are gardens of interest in towns and in the
countryside which are worthy of inspection and
study. The conference will visit domestic gardens
in Maryborough both large and small, and there
will be opportunities to experience the ‘timber and
tin’ housing style of colonial and later Queenslander
houses. The conference will also take you into the
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
21
Maryborough hinterland to visit some cattle station
homesteads and gardens which tourists usually do
not see.
The conference will be organised into three
mornings of papers and three afternoons of garden
visits, plus the optional day. The papers will be
delivered in the Brolga Theatre, a large modern
conference venue on a beautiful site overlooking the
Mary River and next to Queens Park.
On the first day the papers will explore
Maryborough’s history and environment. Elaine
Brown will tell the story of the region’s settlement:
export of meat and wool from the hinterland, the
gold rush at Gympie, immigration, sugar, and
timber industries, and Walkers Engineering works.
Malcolm Wegener and Jane Eennon will present
the cultural landscapes of the sugar industry and
Eraser Island respectively, and a garden owner
will introduce some of the places we will see on
the garden tours — some of the grand houses and
gardens sited on the high bank of the River, and
Queens Park, one of ten Queens Parks created in
Queensland in the 1870s and 1880s.
On Saturday morning Jerry Goleby- Williams will
be the first speaker in a session which will explore
how Europeans adapted to the land and the climate,
especially in their gardens, but also in the design
of their houses. Don Watson will describe the
evolution of the Queenslander house and Stuart
Read will tell the story of John Came Bidwill (for
whom the Bunya pine. Araucaria bidwillii, was
named), who lived and worked at Maryborough.
Catherine Chambers will cover the social history
of the domestication of the macadamia nut, which
grows wild in the nearby ranges. Ken Brooks will
talk about the role of Brennan and Geraghty’s store
in supplying plants to Maryborough gardeners in the
nineteenth century — this store is a National Trust
property which we will visit in the afternoon.
Sunday’s papers will start with Jeannie Sim
discussing garden writing in Queensland, followed
by Anne De Eisle talking about the restoration of
Baddow Elouse and its garden, which we will visit in
the afternoon. The remaining papers will be about
garden plants — Bernadette Turner on Eangbecker’s
Nursery, one of the largest nurseries in Queensland;
Michael and Kyleigh Simpson on some old garden
plants that are well suited to the drier future we
face; and Glenn Cooke on Vida Eahey and her
choice of species in her paintings of flowers. In
the afternoon we will also visit Brooklyn House at
Howard, 30km north of Maryborough, which has an
engaging history and a reconstructed garden.
Monday’s optional day programme will take us into
the hinterland to see the gardens and homesteads of
three cattle properties, and a flying visit to Broweena,
an old sawmilling village. Catering will be by the
property owners so expect country hospitality and
cooking. The Queensland Branch looks forward to
welcoming you to Maryborough in August.
Fraser Island
If you are coming to Maryborough it is easy to go
on to visit Eraser Island, with its World Heritage
listed sand hills, forests, lakes, and beaches. The
Society has negotiated a tour for members after
the conference with Kingfisher Bay Resort on
Eraser Island. Travel by bus or your car from
Maryborough to River Heads on the morning
of Tuesday 23 August and catch the ferry to
Kingfisher Resort. The tour includes whale
watching on Hervey Bay and a trip to the tall
trees, Wanggoolba Greek, Eake McKenzie, the
ocean beach, and the wreck of the Maheno. The
price includes all travel, accommodation, tours
and meals (except for one lunch).
A booking form for the 2011 Annual National
Conference is enclosed with this journal — book
early to avoid disappointment.
22
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Victory for Mawallok— and for the
protection of historic gardens
Peter Watts
In April— May last year a Panel Hearing was
established by the Victorian Minister for Planning
under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to
advise him about the proposed Stockyard Hill Wind
Farm, 35 km west of Ballarat in Victoria’s Western
District. The proposal was for 242 wind turbines
over 156 sq km of rural land.
One of the key issues was the impact the proposed
wind farm would have on the northerly vista from
Mawallok homestead. Somewhere between 20 and
34 turbines, depending on the viewing point in the
garden, had the potential to impact the view. These
turbines were proposed to be a staggering 135m tall —
or the approximate height of a 35 storey building.
Mawallok is a significant house and garden, the
latter designed by William Guilfoyle in 1909.
Guilfoyle’s plan for the garden survives and shows
very clearly that the main organising principle
around which the garden was created was the
northerly vista to the Pyrenees Ranges, and in
particular Mount Cole, about 20 km to the north. As
a consequence there was a groundswell of support
to try and protect the vista critical to this important
homestead and garden. Mawallok has a particular
Australian Garden History Society connection
having been opened a number of times for the
Society and also having been the home to the first
AGHS Alembership Officer, Alathea Russell, and
later to AGHS Chair, Jocelyn Mitchell.
A number of people gave expert evidence or
oral presentations about this matter at the Panel
Hearing. Those arguing in favour of the removal
of all turbines in the primary vista included John
Dwyer QC in his capacity as Chair of the AGHS,
John Patrick, Dr Harriet Edquist, Bryce Raworth,
and myself We argued very strongly that the garden
This digital photographic simulation demonstrates the effect which the proposed wind turbines might have had on the on the vista from
Mawallok garden.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
23
Courtesy Scenic Spectrums Pty Ltd
was of such importance, in a national context, that it
deserved to have the vista preserved unencumbered
by wind turbines.
In my own evidence I described the view as
sublime, admitting this was a term I would rarely
use to describe an Australian garden.
John Dwyer, on behalf of the AGHS, noted in his
submission that:
This vista is the key element of Guiljoyle’s design,
enhanced by the addition of the lake, itself a
landscape element very much in the Guilfoyle
manner, with similarities to the lake in the Royal
Botanic Gardens Melbourne . The garden forms
part of and looks out over a significant cultural
landscape. Properly understood, the vista is part of
the designed landscape constituted by the garden. The
landscape values are of national significance.
He further noted that:
The AGHS is, of course, not opposed to wind farms .
It recognises that society must become less dependent
on coal-fired power generation wind farms, and
that wind farms are an important, perhaps even
necessary development. But wind farms should be
appropriately sited. It is simply not appropriate
to allow wind towers to be imposed as a dominant
feature into a significant cultural landscape. The
Panel should do what it can to ensure that the impact
on Mawallok is minimised.
The Panel completed its report in August 2010
and in late October the Minister advised he had
accepted its recommendations in relation to
Mawallok. This requires that ‘the 20 turbines visible
within the central viewing cone from the Mawallok
northern terrace be required to be deleted’.
Whilst we would have preferred the turbines to
have been removed from view from all parts of the
garden (rather than just from the sightlines from the
main terrace), it was, nevertheless, a very significant
concession.
In the words of the Panel:
It is our view that the importance of the Mawallok
house and garden and the nature and severity of the
erosion of the cultural significance of the place are
such that on balance this outweighs the benefits to the
community of the development of those wind turbines
which could have been seen in the central view
from the Mawallok terrace and in particular their
contribution to renewable energy.
This represents a huge victory for Mawallok. It had
been argued that, despite the fact that Mawallok
itself had heritage protection, this protection did not
extend beyond its boundaries. Critically the Panel
noted:
We arc conscious that the area affected by the view
is not included in any heritage control itself ...
We are not troubled by the absence of a statutory
control over the vista, however. Gonsideration of
the effects of use and development on one site upon
another site is a fundamental element of planning
decision-making and is supported in this case
by the decision guidelines relevant to wind farm
projects referring to the effects on views and vistas
as well as cultural heritage.
This has created an important precedent. It will
henceforth be much harder to argue that vistas from
important historic gardens can be ignored by those
proposing major infrastructure developments. This
represents a very significant victory, not just for
Mawallok, but for the conservation of important
historic gardens across Australia.
Peter Watts AM is a former Chairman of the Australian
Garden History Society National Management
Committee and author of the first comprehensive survey
of Victoria’s historic gardens (1980).
Mawallok wind-turbine victory
Jocelyn Mitchell writes thanking the Australian Garden History Society for its support in the fight to
remove wind turbines from the Mawallok garden vista. ‘Both John Dwyer for the National Management
Committee and Pamela Jellie for the Victorian Branch made written submissions and John additionally
made a submission before the Panel Hearing. It is clear from the panel report that John’s oral submission
made an impact on the panel and so was a significant input into its decision. A large number of AGHS
members also made personal written submissions and my family would like to thank them all. My son
and his wife will carry on the maintenance of the Mawallok garden, and, I am happy to say, will continue
to share it with garden lovers and the community. Heartfelt thanks to you all.’
24
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Notes from a hillside villa
Revisiting Villa Gamberaia
This morning I had the pleasure of pouring over a
beautiful folio edition of Giuseppe Zocchi’s Udute
delle ville della Toscana, e altri luoghi della Toscana
(1744) in the Bibliotecca Berenson — leather bound,
gold embossed, marbled endpapers, delicious. I was
seeking the view of Villa Gamberaia reproduced on
the villa’s entry ticket, one of fifty popular prints of
Tuscan villas made from Zocchi’s drawings. Such
books were essential reading for any eighteenth- or
nineteenth-century visitor on the Grand Tour.
Early twentieth-century, English-speaking travellers
on the other hand might have gathered inspiration
from elegant works such as Edith Wharton’s Italian
Villas and their Gardens { igog), the two-volume
Country Eife publication The Gardens of Italy
(1905) with photographs by Charles Eatham and
descriptions by Evelyn March Phillips, or Geoffrey
Jellicoe and John Shepherd’s Italian Gardens of the
Renaissance with several later editions) and
their Gardens and Design (1927).
Two twenty-first century publications have greatly
enhanced my recent visits to the Villa Gamberaia,
both edited by historian of the Renaissance, Patricia
J. Osmond. Both critically consider the same subject
matter yet offer different treatment relative to
the research they present. The first. Revisiting the
Gamberaia (2004), introduced me to eighteenth-
century prints and the twentieth century works
about the Gamberaia. The second is a special issue
of Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed
Landscapes (2002) focused on the Villa Gamberaia.
Revisiting offers a richly textured portrait of the
garden at the Gamberaia and a historiography of its
reception from the turn of the nineteenth century
to the 1 970s. A collection of visitors’ impressions,
observations, photographs, and drawings, with
each essay and author contextualised by Osmond,
the book is also a rather wonderful example of
interpretation. It brings to life the wider socio-
cultural context of a much-admired garden and the
fascination it held for a selection of its notable visitors
and neighbours. These members of an expatriate
Anglo-Elorentine community — ‘the well read and the
well bred’ as Katie Campbell neatly put it in Paradise
of Exiles: the Anglo-American gardens of Florence
(2009) — were linked by a shared passion for writing,
acquiring art, cultivating gardens, entertaining, the
pursuit of a country life of ease, and a desire (and the
means) to escape the modern world. Eucky them !
Other visitors included professionals and students
of architecture as well as the emerging academic
discipline and profession of landscape architecture —
Henry V. Hubbard, publishing in Eandscape
Architecture in 1915, and Jellicoe and Shepherd,
among them — whose works and, as a result, the Villa
Gamberaia have since occupied an important place
in studies of the history of gardens and designed
landscapes, including in Australia.
The special issue of Studies on the other hand
brought to light then-new research on the Villa
Gamberaia, from the iconography of its statuary, to
the reception of the garden by significant historical
figures, and the wider influence of the garden
on landscape design in North America. While
perhaps the suite of resources across both these
volumes might not be available for every significant
historic garden, the special issue of Studies offers
a constructive reminder about being open to the
prospect of new material coming to light — and
acknowledging the potential for this material to be
diverse and fragmentary in nature — no matter how
seemingly well-studied, and the value of questioning
received histories and opinions.
So, as I continue my informal studies in Italian
garden history, I plan to follow Georgina Masson’s
advice in Italian Gardens {igbi) and revisit the
Villa Gamberaia on a misty April day, ‘when the
fresh spring green provides the perfect foil for the
brilliance of the tulips, and again in the height of
summer with the pink oleander blossom silhouetted
against the brilliant blue sky’.
Christina Dyson
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
25
Christina Dyson
Review essay
Plants from old catalogues
Sooner or later garden historians want to know
answers to questions about plant availability: What
plants were available when? What should I replant
about my 1930s cottage/ 1850s homestead? Much is
available in contemporary accounts, published and
unpublished, but three recent Australian sources
make this task much easier to tackle. These are
the August 2010— launched Hortus Camdenensis
prepared by Colin Mills; the Colonial Plant
Database, prepared by Colleen Morris and Tony
Rodd; and the 2009 book by Margaret Brookes and
Richard Barley, Plants Listed in Nursery Catalogues
in Victoria 18^^— i88g.
Hortus Camdenensis is an illustrated online
catalogue of nearly 3300 plants grown by Sir William
Macarthur at Camden Park, south-west of Sydney,
between ^.1820 and 1861. It is by no means a
finished project: Colin Mills has worked on it for the
last decade and his research will continue. Emphasis
is on ‘illustrated’ — this website has luscious images
from (among other sources) Curtis’s Botanical
Magazine depicting contemporary horticultural
introductions and releases which caused a stir. These
are so sharp they’re still exciting.
Mills has patiently compiled this wonderful resource
using the extensive Camden Park records of plants
stocked and sold from its renowned nursery from
about 1840, and from garden records (including
letters, diaries, and notebooks) of the Macarthur
family from the 1820s onwards concerning other
plants in the extensive garden. These include Cape
bulbs and coral trees first hybridised at Camden —
some of if not Australia’s earliest hybridised garden
plants (see, for instance, Richard Clough’s article
‘Mr Bidwill’s Erythrina’, in AGH, 3 (4), 1992). Also
on the website are notes regarding nomenclature
(much changed since the 1820s); influential people
such as gardener Edmund Blake; essays by Mills,
for example on laying out an orchard in colonial
Australia, wine growing and production at Camden
Park, gesneriads, gloxinias, and fuchsias; and many
references (including many copyright-free images
which allow this Hortus to be so ‘visual’). The
database is at <www.hortuscamden.com> and is
hosted by Colin Mills and Nick Caldwell.
The broader Colonial Plants Database contains
over 11,000 plants available pre-1860 in New
South Welsh nurseries or key gardens. Available at
<www.hht.net.au/research/coloniaLplants> this
website is hosted by the Historic Houses Trust of
New South Wales. Key sources include primary
documentation relating to Sydney Botanic Gardens,
Alexander Macleay’s extensive Elizabeth Bay
garden, the nursery at Camden Park, and the
commercial Sydney nurseries of John Baptist, the
Shepherd family (Darling Nursery), and Michael
Guilfoyle (Exotic Nurseries). I use this source every
week — it allows rapid answers to questions such as:
‘When did weeping willows get to Australia?’, ‘What
conifers were available in the 1840s?’, or ‘Which
persimmon or pear was for sale in the 1850s?’ How
delicious to find that today’s dreaded lantana dates
from 1839 in Macleay’s garden, camphor laurels
were sent to Sydney’s botanic garden in 1827,
raspberries were enjoyed by Mrs Macarthur in 1816,
Pinus canariensis was for sale in 1 845 from Camden
Park, and so on. Clues are rapidly coming to mind
about who was donating plants, seeds, or cuttings
to whom: dates of introduction or cultivation giver
clearer ideas of links — interstate and local.
Clues are rapidly coming to mind about
who was donating plants , seeds, or
cuttings to whom
This database is also a work-in-progress —
progressive checking of listings occurs against
original sources, editorial additions (such as historical
and taxonomic notes) are systematically being
made, and where possible botanical illustrations
from contemporary publications are being included.
When this is complete, further listings will be added
from time to time. Vegetables and esculent plants
are current gaps and priorities. This depends on
additional research and editing being completed
and checked. Only a portion, for example, of the
Guilfoyle catalogue has been added. Similarly,
listings from John Baptist’s nursery, ‘The Market
Garden’, Bourke Street, Sydney (1861), and
Macleay’s horticultural notebooks have only been
partially completed.
Victoria too is well served in this area. A sell-out when
it was first published in 1992, Margaret Brookes and
Richard Barley’s Plants Listed in Nursery Catalogues
in Victoria i8§§— i88g has been recently republished
(2009) by the Garden Plant Conservation Association
of Australia. This substantial, spirally bound book
(ISBN 978 o 646 50551 o) lists plants sold by a
26
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
range of key nurseries (numbering 23 in all)
including Kardinia, Victoria Seed Warehouse,
Royal Nurseries (Hawthorn), and the St
Kilda Nurseries (Brunnings) — others such as
JJ. Rule (1855) add depth. The focus is on
the ornamental garden rather than on food
plants of the kitchen garden and agriculture.
Much updating of botanical nomenclature
has been since the 1992 edition, which itself
offered a wonderful list of synonyms and such
careful checking and cross-referencing is a
feature of this publication. It is both salutary
and rather discouraging to note whole pages
of ‘lost’ cultivars of petunias, pelargonia,
roses, bouvardias, fuchsias, and ferns. Fashion
has a lot to answer for today: the selection at
Woolworths or Runnings is a pale shadow of
our horticultural smorgasbord of a century or
century-and-a-half ago. Go ponder!
Using these regularly — in conjunction with
Margaret Hibbert’s wonderful, out-of-print
but still useful The Aussie Plant Finder (which
contains an A— Z of plant species and of
nurseries growing them) or the NSW Heritage
Branch’s Sources of Old-fashioned Plants
list (available online at <www.heritage.nsw.
gov.au/06_subnav_ 1 0.htm> and compiled by
your reviewer) — means that much can be
understood and still, to some extent, much can
be sourced and re-grown, ensuring authenticity
and past richness is available today. Make use
of these and chase a copy of both books.
Of course these point up the usefulness of
compiling parallel guides for other states. In
Tasmania, Gwenda Sheridan’s work on the
Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land and
the Launceston Horticultural Society show
the riches of these societies’ records. Botanic
gardens and early nurseries in Queensland,
South Australia, and Western Australia offer
similar potential — if ready volunteers emerge.
Stuart Read AM is a landscape architect,
horticulturist, and historian with particular
interests in the origins and movement of plants
around the globe. Trained in New Zealand, he
finds old gardens more interesting than new
ones, and full of useful lessons.
Margaret Brookes and Richard Barley’s Plants
Listed in Nursery Catalogues in Victoria i 8 yy—
i 88 g (2009) is available for purchase via the
AGHS website for $30.
R Renaissance
Tours
GARDENS, art
CULTURE
AROUND THE WORLD
A SELECTION OF OUR 2011 TOURS:
FOR DETAILED INFORMATION CALL 1300 121 095
OR VISIT www.renaissancetours.com.au
GREAT GARDENS
OF SCOTLAND
WEST COAST & SKYE
INVERNESS & HIGHLANDS
ABERDEENSHIRE
EDINBURGH & GLASGOW
Discover some of the world's most
famous gardens at the peak of the
summer bloom. Plus Scottish
history, heritage and hospitality.
04-20 April 2011
CHINA IN THE
SPRING
SHANGHAI & NANJING
SUZHOU & HANGZHOU
YELLOW MOUNTAINS
BEIJING
A thorough exploration of Chinese
gardens combined with the many
wonders of this extraordinary
country, ancient and modern.
12-30 May 2011
FROM THE VENETOI^ M|S^v
TO VIENNA ^
ITALY CROATIA - 1
SLOVENIA AUSTRIA L K H
Gardens, villas, art, music, food and -^ 2 - ’
wine! From Italy to Austria with ^ Lv - -s
Holly Kerr Forsyth via the Adriatic s '
Riviera and the Julian Alps.
Photo courtesy Holly Kerr Forsyth
June 2011 (15 days)
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
27
For the bookshelf
Alison Halliday & Joanne Hambrett,A Passion for
Place: gardens of the Blue Mountains, Bloomings
Books, Melbourne, 20 10 (ISBN 9781876473778):
242pp, hardback, RRP $59.96
(available from the AGHS for $44 plus postage
<www,gardenhistorysociety,org,au>)
This fine new book, realised with the support of the
Australian Garden History Society, celebrates what
is arguably the finest group of private gardens in
New South Wales, with a major public one (Mount
Tomah Botanic Garden) alongside.
The three mountain tops — Wilson, Irvine, and
Tomah — can be distantly glimpsed from Sydney,
part of the Blue Mountains to the west. Favoured
from the 1870s onwards as cool mountain retreats
from the heat of a Sydney summer, they were much
more than that: places of rich soil, better rainfall,
and real elevation, where plants requiring conscious
seasonal change could thrive.
The first settlers at Mount Wilson — who included
my in-law. Judge Matthew Henry Stephen — were
also entranced by the lush native forest that densely
covered the land, but quickly decided that they
needed to make their own mark, ‘civilising’ the
clearings around their houses with gravelled paths
and tiled borders, shrubs clipped to resemble plum
puddings, and the residual tree ferns entwined with
ivy to suggest strange bottle-like shapes.
Almost immediately, a serious commitment to
advanced horticulture came to the fore. It was a
time of the sophisticated amateur, so connections
with the Sydney Botanic Gardens and prominent
plant hunters were used to gain rare and unusual
plants which continue to give these mountain
gardens a special status.
we hear individual voices and points
of view, and these give a wonderful
personal dimension to the story
On reflection, it seems remarkable that this is
the first significant book on this topic. Alison
Halliday and Jo Hambrett’s depth of research
over many years means that this is an invaluable
record. Thoughtful introductions by Peter Valder
and Peter Watts set the scene, and Ian Brown’s
remarkable photographs convey the exquisite
nuances of the general landscape, and of each
garden. Garden photography is a very special
craft, and I don’t believe these images could be
bettered. Another aspect of the book I particularly
like is the quotations from the garden owners.
Through these we hear individual voices and
points of view, and these give a wonderful personal
dimension to the story.
Deep-down, real gardeners are almost universally
good people, pleased to share their pleasures and
successes with others. This comes across in the
book, where virtually everyone — doubtless charmed
and cajoled by Alison and Jo — were generous with
input and access. They have concentrated on the
focal points for, in truth, the gardens of the Blue
Mountains are rather more numerous and far-flung.
Deep-down, real gardeners are
almost universally good people,
pleased to share their pleasures and
successes with others
The book also represents an expression of the
growth of interest in serious gardening and garden
design over the past 35 years. I have fond memories
of working with Bruce Mackenzie in 1970, when
his was the only full-time landscape design office in
Sydney, and I also recall the wonderful, modest but
real, financial support provided by Dame Elisabeth
Murdoch which enabled the Australian Garden
History Society to get properly established.
Splendid entities such as this collection of fine
gardens only survive through ongoing private
enthusiasms and vigilance. Part of the wonder of
these mountaintops is that they remain remote
and have never been allowed to be suburbanised.
Hopefully the wild terrain and the extensive
National Parks will help preserve the special nature
of the place.
This book confirms the splendid qualities of these
three mountains and their gardens. A Passion for
Place represents a bench-mark in Australian garden
history for books covering regional gardens.
Howard Tanner
Howard Tanner, a Sydney architect, was an early
Chairman of the Australian Garden History Society
and wrote on the gardens of Mount Wilson in his book
The Great Gardens of Australia (1976).
28
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Recently released
Myles Baldwin, Ruro/Austro//an Gardens, Murdoch
Books, Millers Point, NSW, 2010 (ISBN
978 1 74 1 964707): 288 pp, hardback, RRP $89.95
Many old favourites in this survey along with some
less well-known treats, all beautifully photographed
by Simon Griffiths. Whilst the bounds of historical
knowledge are rarely challenged here, Baldwin’s
breezy prose and deft garden selections have plenty
of potential for future garden historians, capturing
a snapshot of early twenty-first century concerns
amongst a diverse group of highly motivated, rural
Australian gardeners..
Tony Hall, The Life and Death of the Australian
Backyard, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood,Vic.,
2010 (ISBN 9780643098169): I76pp, paperback,
RRP $69.95
The Australian backyard is taken for granted — its
historical origins here treated succinctly — yet this
environmental and sociological survey demonstrates
that its form, functions, traditions, and meanings
are under threat, its size shrinking (dramatically
demonstrated with aerial photographs) and its role
changing. Hall challenges our planning systems and
offers suggestions for future policy directions that
acknowledge the backyard’s significance.
Rebecca Jones, Green Harvest: a history of organic
farming and gardening in Australia, CSIRO Publishing,
Collingwood,Vic., 2010 (ISBN 9780643098374):
208pp, paperback, RRP $49.95
Commencing with the coalescence of interest in
the 1 940s of Australian growers in organic farming
and gardening methods, the author groups her raw
material around four themes — ‘Soil’, ‘Chemical
free’, ‘Ecological wellbeing’, and ‘Back to the
Land’. With a focus on personal stories rather than
public perceptions, each theme is represented by
a case study (from post-war farmer Harold White
to contemporary gardening author Jackie French).
Imaginatively researched and lucidly presented.
Michael Pearson & Jane Lennon, Pastoral Australia:
fortunes, failures & hard yakka; a historical overview
1788-1967, CSIRO Publishing in association
with the Department of the Environment,
Water, Heritage and the Arts and the Australian
Heritage Council, Collingwood, Vic., 2010 (ISBN
9780643096998): 232 pp, paperback, RRP $69.95
Australia’s garden history and her pastoral history
have enjoyed a long association, with the fortunes
of the latter impressing strongly on the former;
both thrived on water, settled land, and favourable
seasons. Pearson and Lennon — both experienced
heritage consultants — have undertaken a great
service in this thematic history, synthesising a vast
range of material in a comprehensive and truly
national framework.
Libby Robin, Chris Dickman, & Mandy Martin
(eds). Desert Channels: the impulse to conserve,
CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Vic., 20 1 0
(ISBN 9780643097490): 352pp, hardback,
RRP $59.95
This detailed survey brings together the work
of a large and diverse group of researchers,
managers, and custodians, all working towards the
conservation of a harsh landscape at the south-
west corner of Queensland, one of channels and
flood plains juxtaposed with immense sand dunes,
distant physically and mentally from the populous
eastern seaboard. The reader is left with a sense of
inherent complexity but also of hope for enhanced
understanding and prudent stewardship.
Clare A.P.Willsdon, /mpress/on/st Gardens, published
by National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh,
2010 (ISBN): available directly from the Retail
Department, National Galleries of Scotland
<retail@nationalgalleries.org> for £20 postage
inclusive (please mention Australian Garden History
to take advantage of this offer)
Based on a touring exhibition of the same name, this
beautifully illustrated book showcases Impressionist
garden paintings from the 1870s— 1910s (with a
selection of earlier and later works for context).
Although a strong art history case is presented
for the ‘Impressionist garden’, this book perhaps
unwittingly reinforces the need for further
garden history scholarship in a neglected area —
internationally as well as for an Australian context.
John Wrigley & Murray Fagg, Eucalypts: a celebration,
Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2010 (ISBN
978 1 74 1 759242): 352 pp, hardback, RRP $65
There’s a lot to like about this book from two
doyens of Australian flora: accessible presentation,
lively text, crystal-clear images, concisely presented
botanical information (sensibly grouped in an
appendix), and wide-ranging enquiry. The cultural
history presented is largely a story of appropriation
across a diverse spectrum, although the history of
garden usage presented here is diffuse, perhaps due
to the paucity of detailed research on this critical
question in Australian garden history.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
29
Jottanda
Australian convict sites
Eleven Australian convict sites have recently
been collectively inscribed as a cultural site on
the World Heritage List by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). Intended to represent Australia’s
convict heritage, the listing includes several gardens
and designed landscapes associated with convict
activities, including Old Government House and
Domain (within Parramatta Park), Port Arthur
historic site (including the Commandant’s garden),
the Tasmanian estates Brickendon and Woolmers,
Kingston and Arthur’s Vale historic area on Norfolk
Island, and Hyde Park Barracks (including the
forecourt and barrack yard). Vigilance is needed,
though, in the face of development pressures which
could adversely affect these outstanding significant
sites or their contexts,
whc.unesco.org/en/list
Documenting Hallgreen
In addition to organising the very successful
Launceston conference, AGHS Tasmanian
Branch members have also been investigating and
documenting the significant garden of Hallgreen at
New Norfolk. Read about this fascinating project
in the latest issue of Tasmania 40° Souths 58
(Spring 2010).
www.fortysouth.com.au
NSW Heritage Volunteer Awards
Congratulations to recipients of the recent New
South Wales Heritage Volunteer Awards. Amongst
those whose work involved garden and landscape
history we might enumerate Dr James Broadbent,
well known for his research and his work in
conserving Cox’s Cottage at Mulgoa; Emma Brooks-
Maher, a tireless worker in the recognition and
protection of Haberfield, Australia’s seminal garden
suburb; Kath Smith, a valued volunteer for the
Eriends of Eagan Park; Long Swamp Cemetery
Volunteers, whose dedicated work 50km south
of Bathurst has transformed this once-neglected
cemetery; the Bodalla 150 Committee, whose work
celebrates the sesqui-centenary of Thomas Mort’s
model dairy farm and village; and Penelope Pike, a
deeply committed and active volunteer at Eryldene.
Penny is an AGHS member and gave a collective
speech on behalf of all recipients, making a plea for
additional ‘small grant’ fund allocations by state and
local government bodies.).
Historic Gardens of Perth
In May 2011 the Western Australian Branch of
the Australian Garden History Society will hold a
photographic exhibition ‘Historic Gardens of Perth’
in the ground floor exhibition space of the Perth
Town Hall. The exhibition will run from 13 to 24
May.
‘Historic Gardens of Perth’ will cover a selection
of Perth gardens including plant nurseries, market
gardens, private pleasure gardens and public
parks, most of them within the city precinct. By
highlighting many largely unknown gardens, the
exhibition will provide an overview of horticultural
practice and changing trends that resulted from
the growth and development of the city. As well
as showcasing private gardens, it will look at the
role played by key public official and municipal
gardeners, who, in guiding plant selection and
garden design, laid the foundations of many current
city streetscapes.
The exhibition, which is being funded by the WA
Branch and the AGHS National Management
Committee, with generous assistance from the City
of Perth, will promote the importance of parks
and gardens in the history of Perth. Much of the
supporting research and material of this significant
part of the city’s cultural heritage has not been
viewed by the broader public, and will be brought
together for the first time. Held to commemorate
the twenty-first anniversary of the WA Branch, the
exhibition aims to raise awareness of the role and
work of the Society in the local community, and
will draw on the research and curatorial expertise of
John Viska, Lisa Williams, Elizabeth Hof, Gillian
Lilleyman, and Ruth Morgan.
After the exhibition closes, research and graphic
display material will be donated to the local studies
collection at the City of Perth Library, expanding
and extending the material’s accessibility to the
general public.
Curious Colony
Due to popular demand the exhibition ‘Curious
Colony’, curated by Newcastle Region Art Gallery
(catalogue reviewed in our last issue), is now on
view in Sydney at the S.H. Ervin Gallery until
20 Eebruary 2011.
www.nationaltrust.com.au
30
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Lorrie Lawrence (1938-2010)
Victorian Branch members were saddened to learn
recently of the death of Irma Lorraine Lawrence.
Better known to all as Lorrie, she was a keen AGHS
member with professional interests in garden design
and journalism. Her life and career are summarised
in Anne Latreille’s obituary, published in The Age,
28 December 2010.
Bellfield photographs
In the recent article on Bellfield by Carol Liston
{AGH 22 (i), 2010), we were pleased to include
Dialogue
Leach’s leaf morphology exposed
Richard Nolan writes from Adelaide following our
editorial on Sam Leach’s painting Proposal for a
Landscaped Cosmos {AGH, 22 (i), 2010): ‘I am
undertaking university studies for my graduate
diploma in art history, and am also professional
horticulturist, having had a career spanning twenty
five years with Botanic Gardens of Adelaide.
My immediate impression of Leach’s painting was
that it was atypically Australian. While the habit
and bark characteristics of the deciduous tree
depicted may have been similar to the Southern
beeches {Nothofagus sp.) with distribution from
Tasmania to South America, the leaf structure
and shape in his painting are not those of beeches
{Fagus and Nothofagus spp.) but that of European
oak {Quercus sp.) a genus confined to the northern
hemisphere.
While beeches and oaks are in the same botanical
family Fagaceae, it is obvious to me that Leach
has copied the oak leaf structure directly from
the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape work
by Adam Pynacker, Any art critic or judge unless
botanically trained or self taught may not pick
up the subtleties in the different leaf structure
and morphology between northern and southern
hemisphere flora, whereas I can ! The mountainous
landscape in Leach’s painting could at a glance be
representative of Tasmania, but the vegetation
depicted is definitely not Australian.
Deciduous beech {Fagus sp.) and oak, both
deciduous and evergreen {Quercus sp.) occur
across North America, Europe, Asia, and Japan,
while Southern beech, mostly evergreen and
some photographs taken by Daphne Kingston of the
property in the late 1990s. The co-editors apologise
that the image with the spiky agave on page 8 was
mis-credited and should also have acknowledged
Daphne Kingston. We thank Stuart Read for
reminding us of the value and breadth of artist
and author Daphne Kingston’s work in recording
aspects of western Sydney’s disappearing cultural
heritage — in particular slab farm buildings and
other vernacular architecture across the Cumberland
Plain — much of which might otherwise have
disappeared from the record.
semi-deciduous {Nothofagus sp.) occur in Chile, New
Zealand, Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales.
A single evergreen species Nothofagus moorei is
found in northern NSW and southern Queensland.
The best known of the Southern beeches
in Australia is the myrtle beech {Nothofagus
cunninghamii), so named because of its small, glossy,
myrtle-shaped, evergreen leaves. One species in
Tasmania is the much shorter and but shrubbier,
less common, deciduous Nothofagus gunnii, locally
known as ‘Tanglefoot’,
Thomas Shepherd’s sons
Richard Clough writes from Sydney: ‘I enjoyed the
July— September issue of the journal especially Carol
Eiston’s article. Shepherd’s two eldest sons came
with the party [i.e. to New Zealand in 1825
then to Sydney two years later] and were still about
when he drew up his will. It would be interesting to
find out what happened to them. He was, or rather
appears to have been, unusually hard on them.
There must be some story worth unearthing.’
Blue Gum
A number of interstate members have expressed
interest in obtaining copies of Blue Gum, the
newsletter of the Tasmanian Branch of the
Australian Garden History Society. Blue Gum
incorporates articles as well as programme
information and is produced in quality hard copy.
It is not on the web, but we plan to include a list
of contents of the AGHS web site. Copies can
be obtained for a small fee to cover production
and postage ($5) by contacting Ivan Saltmarsh at
<ivanof@bigpond.com> or (03) 6227 8515.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
31
Society news
Subscriptions
Although the National Management Committee
never likes to increase membership fees, the cost
of membership has not increased since 2007.
Membership fees cover the cost of producing
our wonderful journal but only a portion of
administration costs and we rely on profits from
conferences and tours to top up the cost of
administration. We do need to keep abreast of
the rise of the costs over the past three years and
therefore revised fees recently set by the NMG are
listed on page 2.
Your AGHS membership also supports the
important advocacy and research work this
respected organisation does on behalf of garden
history in Australia at both a national and branch
level. Members enjoy receiving and reading the
journal and having the opportunity to attend
stimulating national conferences and tours, and the
many and varied informative and social activities, all
of which the NMC and all local branches strive to
provide for members.
Packers for last journal
Thanks to those who assisted with packing our last
issue of the journal: Diana Ellerton, Fran and Mai
Paul, Anna Howe, Pamela Jellie, Jane Johnson,
Rosemary Kiellerup, Laura Lewis, Sandra Torpey,
Georgina Whitehead.
Continued from page 15
Flockton made several hundred quarto drawings
of Opuntia species from the plantation at the
Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Fourteen articles on
the opuntia, illustrated with her fold-out coloured
plates, were published in the Agricultural Gazette of
New South Wales (1911 — 17). Flockton was invited
to contribute botanical drawings to other projects
outside the Gardens, in Queensland, the Northern
Territory, and Victoria. She was, for example, one
of a group of botanical illustrators employed to
work in conjunction with Dr Ethel McLennan, the
distinguished plant scientist at the University of
Melbourne.^ She also painted wildflower borders
for studies of butterflies in Dr Riches in his Scenic
Gems of Australia. Another private endeavour was
her book of a series of twelve paintings of Australian
Wild Flowers published by the New South Wales
Bookstall Company in 1908. These images were
subsequently published as lithographs and postcards
in five or more formats for the next decade. An
unpublished album of delicate illustrations of lichen
is held by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. After
her retirement, Margaret Flockton wrote a series of
children’s stories, which although unpublished are
now held by Sydney’s Mitchell Library.
The name Margaret Flockton, once known to
only a few people outside the Sydney Botanic
Gardens, has now become widely known throughout
the world, thanks to the international Margaret
Flockton Award for Scientific Botanical Illustration,
an award initiated by botanical artists at the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. She is also justly
acclaimed throughout the world of scientific botanic
illustrators, artists, collectors, and plant lovers
and her published botanical drawings remain an
important resource for all lovers of Australian flora.
REFERENCES
1 For information on the Flockton family I am indebted
to Louise Wilson’s unpublished manuscript on her
family history.
2 ‘Margaret Lilian Flockton’, Dictionary of Australian
Artists Online <www.daao.org.au>, accessed i/i/i i.
3 J.H. Maiden to Under Secretary, 24 August 1909,
letter book A17, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
4 Helen Hewson, yoo Years of Botanical Illustration.,
CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Vic., 1999, p.i6o.
5 Norman Hall, Botanists of the Eucalyptus^ CSIRO,
Melbourne, 1978 (quoted in Hewson).
6 The Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service <http://
setis . library, usyd . edu . au/ oztexts/botany. html>,
accessed i/i/ii.
7 Joan Kerr (ed.), Heritage: the national women’s art book.
Craftsman House, Roseville East, NSW, 1995, p.178.
Pamela Bell is an art historian. After teaching art
history at the University of New South Wales she
became the first Curator of the University of Sydney
Art Collection where she also reinstated and ran the
University of Sydney Art Gallery. She is now an
independent curator and art valuer.
32
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
Diary dates^
FEBRUARY 20 1 1
Exploring Government House grounds
Victoria
Tuesday 8
An escorted walk and talk in the Government House
grounds, followed by a BYO picnic tea. Meet at the
gates in Government House Drive (Melway 2F, K 1 1)
at 6pm.
Soil fungi and microbial action
Sydney and Northern NSW
Thursday 10
Biologist Dr Peter McGee will speak about revitalising
degraded soils, for instance those in ex-industrial
sites becoming public parks. 6pm for 6.30— 8.30pm,
Annie Wyatt Room, National Tmst Centre. Cost:
$20 members, $30 non-members. Bookings essential.
For bookings and enquiries contact Jeanne Villani on
(02) 9997 5995 orjeanne@villani.com
New Holland from a botanical
perspective
West Australia
Friday 11
Lecture by Dr Michael McCarthy entitled ‘The
Exploration of New Holland: a botanical perspective’.
Details to be confirmed. For information contact
Caroline Grant via email on chhgrant@yahoo.com
Historic garden visits
Tasmania
Sunday 20
Historic garden visits including Marlbrook near
Pontville. Details to be confirmed. For further
information contact Liz Kerry via email on
liz.kerry@keypoint.com.au
Morning talk for armchair travellers
Victoria
Thursday 24
Committee members will share their garden discoveries
on their travels in 2010. Kathy Wright visited 27 small
gardens in public spaces in New York, Pamela Jellie
took a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in
Pennsylvania, and John Dwyer, whilst in the UK,
visited Snowshill Manor and a Baroque garden in the
Cotswolds. roam. Domain House, Dallas Brooks Drive,
South Yarra. Cost: gold coin donation.
MARCH 20 1 1
The Resource of Landscape forum
West Australia
Saturday 12
Landscape forum at The University Club of Western
Australia, entitled ‘The Resource of Landscape’,
which will include a presentation by Richard Aitken
on ‘The Garden of Ideas’. Details to be confirmed.
For information contact Caroline Grant via email on
chhgrant@yahoo.com
Flora of Sydney's Cumberland Plain
Sydney and Northern NSW
Wednesday 16
Talk by ecologist Dr Doug Benson on the diverse
and threatened flora of Sydney’s Cumberland Plain,
which he has documented over two decades and
which is facing both habitat loss and some revival.
6pm for 6. 30-8. 30pm, Annie Wyatt Room, National
Trust Centre. Cost: $20 members, $30 non-members.
Bookings essential. For bookings and enquiries contact
Jeanne Villani on (02) 9997 5995 orjeanne@villani.com
The Garden of Ideas
Queensland
Sunday 20
Lecture by author and curator Richard Aitken
showcasing the touring exhibition ‘The Garden of
Ideas’. Date, venue, and other details to be advised to
branch members closer to the event.
Tour of the Bulla and Sunbury region
Victoria
Sunday 20
Bus tour of the Bulla/Sunbury region, which will
include a visit to Woodlands Homestead, the Alister
Clark Memorial Rose Garden, and Rupertswood
Mansion. 9am, Victorian Arts Centre, St Kilda Road,
Melbourne. Cost: $85. Booking details are included on
a flyer enclosed with the journal.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
33
Gould's book of plants
Victoria
Thursday 24
A lecture on Gould’s book of plants by Associate
Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Eleanor Cave.
This lecture enthralled members at the Launceston
Conference so we are pleased to have it presented
again in Melbourne. 6pm for 6.30pm lecture in
Mueller Hall, The Herbarium, Birdwood Ave.,
South Yarra. Cost: $15 members, $20 non-members,
$5 students with student card. Enquiries to Pamela
Jellie (03) 9836 1881.
APRIL 201 1
Historic qardens around Campbell
Town
Tasmania
Early April (to be confirmed)
Historic gardens and houses will be visited in the
Campbell Town area, including Rosedale. Details to be
confirmed. Eor further information contact Liz Kerry
via email on liz.kerry@keypoint.com.au
Kokoda Track Memorial walk
Sydney and Northern NSW
Sunday 3
Walk among the ambitious plantings and memorials
commemorating Australian WWII service men and
women in Papua New Guinea, on the Kokoda Track
Memorial walk. Bedlam Bay Park, Concord West.
2-4pm, meeting place to be advised on booking. Cost:
$15 members, $25 non-members. Bookings essential.
Eor bookings and enquiries contact Jeanne Villani on
(02) 9997 5995 orjeanne@villani.com
Cottesloe Civic Centre
West Australia
Sunday 10
Talk by Ann Eorma on the Landscape Management
Plan for the Cottesloe Civic Centre. Details to be
confirmed. Eor information contact Caroline Grant via
email on chhgrant@yahoo.com
MAY 201 1
The Garden of Ideas
ACT /Monaro /Riverina
Thursday 12
Lecture by author and curator Richard Aitken
showcasing the touring exhibition ‘The Garden of
Ideas’. Venue: National Library of Australia; time and
other details to be advised to branch members closer to
the event.
Historic Gardens of Perth exhibition
West Australia
Wednesday 11-Wednesday 25
This exhibition featuring early Perth gardens will be
held in the foyer of the Perth Town Hall. Details to be
confirmed closer to the date. Lor information contact
Caroline Grant via email on chhgrant@yahoo.com
Historic Gardens of Perth exhibition
opening
West Australia
Friday 13
Historic Gardens of Perth exhibition opening at
Perth Town Hall. Other details to be confirmed.
Lor information contact Caroline Grant via email on
chhgrant@yahoo.com
Birchgrove walk
Sydney and Northern NSW
Saturday 21
Discover Mort Park and Ballast Point Park (both
former industrial sites, now two contrasting modern
harbour-side parks), and a couple of enchanting private
gardens in very diverse locations. 2— 5pm, meeting
place advised on booking. Cost: $15 members, $25
non-members. Bookings essential. Lor bookings and
enquiries contact Jeanne Villani on (02) 9997 5995 or
jeanne@villani.com
JUNE 201 1
Hawkesbury disappearing agriculture
day
Sydney and Northern NSW
Sunday 19
Discover UWS Richmond Campus’s Secret Garden and
Lederation era grounds on this self-drive afternoon tour
of Hawkesbury Harvest (farm gate) and Hawkesbury
Artists’ trails. 10.30— 5pm, meeting place to be advised
on booking. Cost: to be advised. Bookings essential.
Lor bookings and enquiries contact Jeanne Villani on
(02) 9997 5995 orjeanne@villani.com
Winter lecture
Victoria
Sunday 19
Diana Snape will talk on the history of the use of
Australian native plants in garden design and by garden
designers, many of whom are known to her, who
have promoted the use of native plants in designed
landscapes. 6pm for 6.30pm, Mueller Hall, The
Herbarium, Birdwood Ave., South Yarra. Cost: $15
members, $20 non-members, $5 students with student
card. Enquiries to Pamela Jellie (03) 9836 1881
34
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
‘Understanding Place: the resource of
landscape', Western Australian forum,
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Caroline Grant
Longstanding member John Viska recalls that
the Western Australian Branch of the Australian
Garden History Society was formed over 20 years
ago, around the time of Australia’s bicentennial
celebrations, and when John Sales (gardens advisor
to the English National Trust) toured Australia. To
celebrate its twenty-first birthday, an exhibition of
early gardens of Western Australia has been planned
with sponsorship from the City of Perth and the
AGHS National Management Committee. ‘Historic
Gardens of Perth’ will run from 11—25 May 2011 at
the Perth Town Hall.
At the same time that the WA Branch was planning
this exhibition, development pressure on Perth —
resulting from the minerals boom — was building.
New plans have created renewed concern about
the Swan River foreshore and conservation of the
historic plantings there. Our Society’s website states:
Formed in igSo, the Australian Garden History
Society brings together people united by an
appreciation of and concern for our parks, gardens
and cultural landscapes as part of Australia’s
heritage. The Society promotes knowledge of
historic gardens and research into their history.
It aims to examine gardens and gardening in
their widest social, historic, literary, artistic and
scientific context.
It could be argued that gardening in its widest sense
involves the treatment of whole landscapes. Feelings
about the broader landscape in Western Australia
were piqued recently, for instance, when a coal mine
was proposed for the Margaret River region. The
mine would rely on road transport of coal through
the vineyards to Bunbury for shipping, and many
local people are concerned about the effect of the
proposed mine on the water supply as well as the
amenity of the area. If Western Australia had a
sound landscape assessment system it is unlikely a
coal mine would be proposed for a landscape with
important scenic values, high economic values
(in terms of the wine produced), and the tourism
revenue that the area generates. The proposed mine
lies within the town’s water catchment, with all the
implications for surface water collection, interference
These two views of Kings Park, Perth (above and overleaf), encapsulate both the beauty and management challenges of designed landscapes — if
such well-known landscapes pose dilemmas for planners, how much more crucial are the myriad decisions about lesser-known places often
made in the absence of any rigorous planning assessment.
Australian Garden History V0I.22 N0.3 January/February/March 2011
35
Caroline Grant
with aquifers, and subsidence, that a coal mine
brings. Concerns about landscape protection have
been voiced by the National Trust and other
amenity groups in Western Australia including the
Guildford Society.
In September 2010 Heritage Victoria ran a
landscape forum supported by representatives from
the AGHS and Australia ICOMOS, and AGHS
Chairman John Dwyer has subsequently offered
national support to hold such an event in Western
Australia. The National Trust of WA has offered
support while Juliet Ramsay, chair of the National
Scientific Committee of Cultural Landscapes and
Cultural Routes committee of Australia ICOMOS,
also offered her services.
The landscape forum, ‘Understanding Place: the
resource of landscape’, to be held in Perth on
Saturday, 12 March 2011, will be opened by the
Vice-Chancellor of Western Australia and eminent
agricultural scientist Professor Alan Robson. The
forum’s objective is to create a multi-disciplinary
setting in which the concept of landscape can be
discussed, and issues relating to Western Australia’s
landscapes aired. A range of presenters and
audience participants with experience in considering
landscapes in a broad sense will be invited, to
help draw together a common set of values and
meanings. As the population of the state grows
and concentrates in the south west, and as housing
subdivisions and infrastructure infiltrate agricultural
areas, state planning initiatives and private
property rights are increasingly likely to conflict.
From a democratic point of view, it is important to
share information and perspectives to inform the
landscape management process.
Simon Lang and Marion Blackwell will inform
the audience about the natural history of Western
Australia; its geology, soils, and its special flora. Craig
Burton, Stuart Read, Juliet Ramsay, and Richard
Aitken will explore case studies and ideas elsewhere
in Australia which have dealt with natural history.
Aboriginal occupation, layers of European history,
heritage significance, and the political aspects of these
cases (including World Heritage listing). We will also
hear from Stephanie Clegg, Tara Cherrie, and Ruth
Morgan discussing local issues.
Apart from AGHS members and National Trust
members, it is hoped to draw an audience from
local government and the general public, including
farmers, land developers, and concerned individuals.
Updated information will be posted on the AGHS
website regularly.
AUSTRALIAN
GARDEN
HISTORY
Mission Statement
The Australian Garden History Society is the leader in concern for and conservation of significant cultural
landscapes and historic gardens through committed, relevant and sustainable action.
Phone: 03 9650 5043 ■ ToIIfree: 1800 678 446 ■ www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11