Reviewed by John Dwyer, QC, PhD This book is disappointing in a number of ways. Its intent was ‘to revive the work of late 19th century landscape photographers that shaped the environmental attitudes of settlers in the colonies of the […]
The West Australian Branch is pleased to announce that Historic Gardens of Perth: European Settlement to Modernism is now available for purchase. With approximately 200 hundred pages of historic photographs, maps, plans, artworks and text, Historic Gardens of Perth: European settlement to Modernism, […]
Caroline Ball, A Splendour of Succulents & Cacti: Illustrations from an Eighteenth-Century Botanical Treasury (Oxford, 2023) reviewed by Clive Probyn, OAM In Henry Handel Richardson’s now classic Australian autobiographical novel, The Getting of Wisdom (1910), the novelist looks back at […]
Stuart Read reviews Becoming a botanist, by Carrick Chambers, with Claudia Chambers, hardback, limited edition, 2022 Available from the Friends of Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, RRP $50 + postage, proceeds go to Wollemi pine research. Email, using subject: ‘botanist book […]
Poppy Fitzpatrick reviews The Plant Thieves: Secrets of the Herbarium (NewSouth, 2023) by Prudence Gibson. This book takes us on a journey of unexpected discovery. What begins as a seemingly simple interrogation of the collecting and cataloguing of plants within […]
Trevor Nottle reviews John Glover, Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australia Landscape by Ron Radford, Ovata Press, Launceston, 2023 John Glover’s painting A View of the artist’s house and garden at Mills Plains, van Dieman’s Land, 1835 brings to […]
Karen Pyke reviews The Hidden Horticulturists: The untold story of the men who shaped Britain’s gardens by Fiona Davison, Atlantic Books, 2019 (paperback 2022) When Fiona Davison began work at the Lindley library, the main library of the Royal […]
In something a little different for the book blog, below is an article on mangoes, reproduced with the kind permission of the Queenslander House | House Histories | Queensland, a website about Queensland’s vernacular architecture and suburban history. It’s high […]
‘Colour, light, space and texture were essential to Margo Lewers’ art and design philosophy’. Tempe Beaven reviews Margo Lewers No Limits, Grasstree Press, Mosman NSW, 2022 contributors: Tanya Crothers, Glenn Harper, Darani Lewers, Virginia Mitchell, Gina Plate and Catriona Quinn. […]
The UK Garden Trust’s journal Garden History was first published by the Garden History Society in 1972. It quickly became a highly respected source of original research for the emerging discipline of garden history. Now the Gardens Trust have published a […]
Peter Good was one of a remarkable team assembled by Joseph Banks for the voyage of the HMS Investigator, captained by Matthew Flinders, to survey the coast of New Holland in 1801–03. Though a man of humble origin, Good […]
Max Bourke, AM reviews The Sacrificial Valley – Coal’s Legacy to the Hunter, by John Drinan, Bad Apple Press (2022); available from sacrificialvalley@gmail.com The author of this book is first and foremost a ‘Hunterian’, his family having lived in the […]
RAMBLINGS OF A RARE PLANT HUNTER by Marcus Harvey Reviewed by Trevor Pitkin I often wonder when I come across the phrase ‘rare plant hunter’ whether the adjective ‘rare’ applies to the hunter or to the plants they seek. It […]
Rosemary Simpson, a member of AGHS since the beginning, has written the story of her gardening life. Rosemary Simpson (née Turnbull) was born in Melbourne in 1929 to Ernest and Joyce Turnbull. In 1936 the family moved to Sydney, and […]
Clare Gleeson reviews AGHS member, Bee Dawson’s beautiful history, Ōtari Two hundred years of Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush, The Cuba Press, 2022. As a Wellingtonian who lives near Ōtari and walks there regularly, I am delighted a history of this very special New […]
Miss Willmott’s Ghosts by Sandra Lawrence, Blink Publishing, 2022 Reviewed by Clare Gleeson Who could not be fascinated by the story of Ellen Willmott? An eccentric gardener, with what were seemingly endless resources, she made not one but three magnificent gardens […]
Goronga is a farming property in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, 55 kilometres from Melbourne on the territory of the Kulin nation, its traditional owners being the Boon Wurrung people. In their language, Goronga translates as ‘the big camping […]
Review by Rosie Mackinnon, co-chair, Tasmanian branch of AGHS This is an historical account of how the agricultural and maritime economies were shaped in Gippsland, Victoria and southeast Tasmania in the 1800s. Risks were immense – storms, droughts, negotiating shipping […]
Tim Entwisle, Evergreen. The Botanical Life of a Plant Punk, Thames and Hudson, 2022, review by Max Bourke, AM Full disclosure: Tim Entwisle is a person I admire, a phycologist [from the Greek phŷkos, meaning seaweed] on the road to […]
No! Neither the pen nor the trowel is mightier; instead, both are needed for understanding gardening and recording garden history. So concluded those who attended the AGHS’s winter webinar on 10 July, having listened to Clive Blazey, Julian Raxworthy and […]
Eds Jean Fornasiero, John West-Sooby, ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’, Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science, Wakefield Press Reviewed by Dot Evans This volume of 15 essays aims to explore the ways in which Francois Péron […]
Book review by Max Bourke AM I seem to be making a habit of this. Last year I got very excited about the wonderful book by Suzanne Simard Finding the Mother Tree and said so in a review for AGHS […]
The Maranoa Botanic Garden is a hidden gem in Balwyn not far from Melbourne’s city centre. Recently it become entitled to use the word ‘botanic’ in its title, in recognition of its importance in conserving plant specimens in a living […]
Garth Falconer, Harry Turbott: New Zealand’s First Landscape Architect, Blue Acres Publishing, 2020, ISBN 9780473 517496, 223 pages This is a ground-breaking book about New Zealand’s first qualified, teaching landscape architect, the first to establish a multiple-person landscape architecture office and […]
Here in Bundanoon, summer has been elusive. The sun has had to compete with mist and rain; the weeds are the happiest plants in the garden. That’s meant a bit more time for reading. Two novels I’ve finished are set […]
Common Ground – Garden Histories of Aoteoroa by Matt Morris, Otago University Press, 2020, 276 pages [Find an interview with the author at https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018774296] I lapped this up: a ‘bottom up’ re-look, re-write of New Zealand garden history that is […]
As a Melbournian, it was a pleasure to review this amazing book, Wonder 175 Years of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria by Sophie Cunningham AM and journalist Peter Wilmoth. Two authors could be problematic; however, Cunningham and Wilmoth write together seamlessly […]
SAFFRON: A Global History by Ramin Ganeshram (Reaktion Books, distributed by NewSouth) was reviewed by Dr Jacqueline Newling, historian and gastronomer in the July issue of Australian Garden History. We didn’t have room there to include a recipe the publishers […]
As editor of both Australian Garden History and the Professional Historians Association’s review page, I receive advice about a lot of books, some of which I think will interest members of both organisations. True to the Land: a history of […]
The Illustrated Plant Glossary (CSIRO Publishing, 2021, $69.99) by Enid Mayfield is a comprehensive glossary of over 4000 terms related to plant sciences, featuring many superb colour illustrations to aid understanding. AGHS Patron and Director, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Tim Entwisle […]