March 19, 1935 – July 14, 2026
Noelle Weatherley OAM has prepared this heartfelt tribute to her friend and colleague, Neil Williams, who died on July 14 in his 92nd year.
“I’ve never known anyone with such a propensity to get into trouble, nor anybody with a greater ability to find an escape hatch…”
These words were written in the 1970s by the late Ted Brown, a former president of the Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria (RHSV). Ted was one of the many mentors Neil Williams had along his journey through life.
Ted’s quote begins Neil’s own memoir:
“The more I thought about Ted’s words, the more I thought that his quote really sums up my life in so many ways, and so I decided to use it as a foreword to the collection of memorabilia of my life…and the many friends and acquaintances who have played a part in my life.”
And what a life it has been! I am fortunate to be one of the ‘safe keepers’ of Neil’s life story, a Word document that runs to almost 200 pages – and it isn’t anywhere near finished. He never did trust computers or really figure out how they worked!
Neil’s working life began in the State Savings Bank of Victoria (gobbled up some years ago by the now behemoth Commonwealth Bank of Australia), where he worked for more than two decades. It was during those years that Neil honed his skills as a writer and communicator via stints with the marketing and PR departments of the bank.
His love of gardening took off when he bought his first family home in the late 1950s in the outer reaches of Melbourne’s eastern suburbs at Glen Waverley. Although just over 20km from the CBD, back then it was a scrubby, rural area just starting to be developed. The only way he would have a garden was quite literally to learn on the job and do it all himself. What started as a necessary chore became a labour of love.
Over following years, Neil became a stalwart of the Waverley Garden Club, producing its newsletters and finally nominated as an honorary life member, an award in which he had great pride.
I first met Neil in early 1979, when I was the garden editor of The Weekly Times and the Melbourne Herald, after he cold called me one day at work and invited me along to a meeting of the executive committee of the Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria. At the time he had just been appointed as the inaugural Executive Director of the recently formed Secretariat of the RHSV, which had been re-constituted to become the peak body of garden clubs and specialist societies in Victoria. Seed funding had been made available under former Premier Dick Hamer’s Garden State program, the RHSV office had just been set up and he had recently employed long-time friend, Jo Lidgerwood, as his secretary.
And so began our long-standing friendship and working relationship. Over the years, we worked together on many projects including the first edition of the Australian Home Gardener’s Diary, the original RHSV Newsletter and later its magnificent magazine Gardening News, which ran for many years.
In all, Neil spent 15 years with the RHSV before resigning in late 1992. He had slowly been moving into private consulting work in the horticultural industry in his last years at the RHSV as well as, in 1986, taking on the part-time role of associate editor with the new trade magazine Greenworld.
At some point in the late 1980s, Neil and I with a small number of other Melbourne-based garden writers, were invited by Colin Campbell to Kooyong Tennis Club. This gathering was to discuss the pros and cons of starting a garden writers’ guild or similar in Australia along the lines of those in the UK and the US. Colin was a member of both.
Some time passed without anything much happening. Then, in early 1992, representatives from most states and territories were invited to Adelaide during the national nursery industry conference, to discuss in greater detail establishing a horticultural media association. The photo from HMA News titled ‘Where it all began’ was taken at that meeting.
Back in Victoria Neil, with his mate Kevin Heinze, took the bit between his teeth and organised a small get together to formulate a plan of action and then a general call-out to all garden media-related people. The first general meeting included some 30 plus interested parties, and so HMA was born, with Victoria forming the first official association.
When communication with members was raised as an issue, an informal newsletter started. This was followed pretty quickly by HMA News, with Neil appointed in 1997 as editor and his life partner Jo Lidgerwood the advertising manager. Together they successfully produced HMA News until 2005, raising the profile of HMA (as it was then) nationally while also assisting the Victorian branch to accumulate a handsome surplus that helped fund other activities.
Somewhere around 1997, Neil negotiated with Scotts Australia to set up a home gardener advice phone service, principally to help consumers needing information about Scotts’ products and how best to use them. It soon became obvious he needed some assistance with this and so began his engagement of a number of members of the then HMA Victoria in part-time roles, among them Kay Gee (dec), who set up HMAV’s first website, and Jan Chamberlain. When Kay became unwell in 2008, Neil engaged me thus continuing our working relationship into the 21st century.
Neil remained with Scotts (now Evergreen Garden Care) until 2020, when he finally retired at the age of 85. How many people do you know who are or were still working at that age?
Neil retained his deep interest in plants and home gardening long after his active gardening days were over. In recent years he had written a regular column, Plant Notes, for the Waverley Garden Club monthly newsletter. His Notes were also emailed to an extensive list of friends, WGC members and others who shared his love of gardening.
Many HMAA members have been invited to contribute the names of four or five of their favourite plants to keep his column going long after Neil had run out of his own long list of top picks! I’m sure Neil had already prepped at least the next edition, ready to send out to later in July to his email group and the WGC newsletter editor, when he sadly passed away on Tuesday, July 14.
Rest peacefully, Neil. I’ll think of you every July when my old luculia, which you so admired, is covered in flowers.
