A celebration of Elwyn Swane’s life was held on Friday, July 8 at the Dural Country Club, New South Wales. Elwyn, who died on April 8, was the inaugural Treasurer of HMA NSW and a Life Member of HMAA.
Family and friends joined together to share memories and commemorate Elwyn’s and the Swane family’s many contributions to the nursery industry, to Australian plant production, breeding and export and to the gardening media. Tributes included a heartfelt contribution from Elwyn’s long-term friend and nurseryman, South African Keith Kirsten.
Elwyn was one of five siblings in the second generation of Swane’s nursery history. After the untimely death of her elder sister Valerie in 1993, Elwyn took over Valerie’s significant volume of media work, which included regular writing for The Daily Telegraph and the Australian Women’s Weekly, and a weekly talkback stint on ABC Sydney Radio 702. She also began working for the Nursery and Garden Industry NSW and ACT association (NGINA) and was responsible for the production of Grow Me Instead, a booklet that advised gardeners on environmentally appropriate alternatives to plants that had “Jumped the Garden Fence” to become weeds.
After she retired to the NSW mid-north coast in 2008, Elwyn and fellow horticulturist and florist Del Thomas began the ‘Delwyn and Elwyn’ weekly garden talkback show on local community radio. This entertaining and informative show continued for four years.
As Del said at the memorial: “Elwyn had an incredible memory, had travelled widely, loved to share her memories of visits to various famous gardens, the characters she had met and she could describe in detail not only the gardens, but the names of the garden designers and their head gardeners.
“She was always impeccably dressed, and very generous with her time, her knowledge and her spirit. She had a very broad horticultural knowledge, was a wonderful cook and entertainer and a great gardener. Her beautiful garden included sought after and often rare plants. It was amazing how many plants she could fit into a suburban block. Always a joy.”
