People and particular plants are the main subjects of the October issue of Australian Garden History. Not surprising really; these are, after all, the main ingredients of a garden.
Plants can reveal many aspects of our cultural landscape. Take Camellia sinensis, the source of all sorts of tea: green, black, oolong or white. Jane Lennon takes us back to the ancient tea forests of China before tracing the story of tea in Australia − for the first 150 years or so of European settlement, the nation’s most popular drink. Then there’s the common poppy, not just a bright spring flower but the symbol of the fallen soldier. John Dwyer relates the history of Papaver rhoeas. And Caroline Grant tells us about the Melia azedarach, known in her hometown of Perth as Cape lilac, and which has been an important street tree.
The people featured are an architect, a rose grower, an environmentalist and a gardener. Flavia Scardamaglia reveals Professor Leslie Wilkinson’s ideas about garden design in her discussion of the house he built in Vaucluse in the 1920s. Clare Gleeson introduces us to a passionate New Zealand gardener and champion of trees, Effie Douglas. And Max Bourke, in his review of a biography of John Büsst, eccentric and effective campaigner for the Great Barrier Reef, shows that conservationists come from across the political spectrum.
All these gardeners had to start somewhere, learning from parents or grandparents, or in formal or informal courses. For a while, Australia was part of the School Garden Movement. Sandra Pullman has researched the movement’s heyday from 1890 to 1920. Boys of the
Plympton State School in South Australia working in their vegetable garden in 1900 feature on this issue’s cover.
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Australian Garden History is the quarterly journal of the Australian Garden History Society (AGHS). It is available at https://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au/shop/ To arrange an interview with any of the journal’s authors, contact Francesca Beddie, editor@gardenhistorysociety.org.au or 0418 645 181.
The mission of the Australian Garden History Society is to promote awareness and conservation of significant gardens and cultural landscapes.
