Sydney Parkinson’s plant drawings made on the Endeavour voyage
David J. Mabberley. Memoirs of The Peter Crossing Collection No. 1. 2024. 86 pages hardback without...
OUTBREAK: Polyphagus Shothole Borer (PSHB)
Mounts Bay Road, Perth after the removal of Moreton Bay figs infected with the polyphagus shothole...
July 2025 issue of Australian Garden History
The July 2025 issue of Australian Garden History is now available. Details of the articles appearing...
Another book for tree lovers
Andrew Darby’s new book, The Ancients: Discovering the world’s oldest surviving trees in wild...
Ticket to Ryde
Ryde College of Horticulture, 2021, photo Rowena Slater, an AGHS member, who has taught horticulture...
Attention tree lovers: here is another book for your library
Matthew Collins with Thomas Rutter, The Tree Atlas: the world’s most amazing trees and where to find...
Botany of empire
This review was first published on the Landscape Australia website in March 2025. One of the main...
Unforgettable gardens
When I was asked to review Unforgettable Gardens, 500 Years of Historic Gardens and Landscapes...
Cold words
This post alerts readers to Cold words (CSIRO, 2025) by Bernadette Hince, a former editor of...
Marianne North: botanical painter and plant hunter
I marvel at the way some women of the Victorian Age donned their button-up boots, picked up their...
Photo journeys among fungi
Funga Obscura (NewSouth, 2025) by Alison Pouliot is an extraordinary exploration of the hidden...
Consultations on Ballarat Botanical Gardens
The Draft Ballarat Botanical Gardens Master Plan, which sets out a 20-year vision for the Gardens...
Garden speak
Review of Enid Mayfield, Illustrated garden glossary, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, March 2025 The...
Recording the garden at Thrushwood in Bowral, NSW
Here I reflect on writing Thrushwood Garden Evolution and Thrushwood Garden and Collections, both...
Sharing Tasmanian Aboriginal knowledge of plants: a project being supported by AGHS
Image: pigface and wattle, Trisha Hodge The latest grant from the Australian Garden History...
Discover your weeds
Review of Weeds of the South-East, An Identification Guide for Australia, by F J Richardson, R G...
Twenty Tasmanian gardens
In Tasmanian Gardens (Thames & Hudson Australia, 2024) author Meg Bignell and photographer Alice...
‘Would you give your life for your plant seeds?’
That is the question at the core of The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: A True Story of Science and...
Last-minute Christmas shopping
The Secrets of Great Botanists and what they teach us about gardening, Matthew Biggs, Exisle...
Christmas gift ideas
A book is a gift you can open again and again. So said Garrison Keillor, that wry, wise American...
Townsend of the Ranges
Most Australians have heard of mainland Australia’s highest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko, but few know...
The Fairer Side of Buxton by Clare Gleeson
OUT NOW AND AVAILABLE AT THE AGHS ONLINE SHOP $65 (includes postage within Australia) Alfred Buxton...
Ross gardens in spring
One of the benefits of membership of Australian Garden History Society (AGHS) is the opportunity to...
A Short History of Flowers
Michaela Hill reviews A Short History of Flowers, The stories that make our gardens by Advolly...
AGHS Annual Report 2023-2024
The Australian Garden History Society is pleased to provide you with the AGHS Annual Report 2023-24...
Another lady plant collector: Annie Richards of South Australia
Roger Cross has brought into the limelight yet another wonderful Australian lady plant collector:...
Boulevard of broken dreams
Max Bourke, AM reviews Experts in the World Heritage Regime – Between Protection and Prestige by...
Winner of the QUT essay prize
The Australian Garden History Society is delighted to announce the winner of the essay competition...
Vale John Dargavel
The Australian forest and environmental history communities have lost one of their pioneering...
The colorful history of plant pathology in Australia
A special edition of Historical Records of Australian Science, edited by Andrew Geering (University...
A botanical wonderland in Hamilton, New Zealand
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Hamilton Gardens by Peter Sergel, photographs by Grant Sheehan Phantom...
Gardening bohemia – revisiting the Bloomsbury group
Members of the Bloomsbury Group during a stay at Garsington Manor. From left to right: Ottoline...
How to grow and process your own herbs
The Medicinal Garden, Treat, feed and soothe straight from your garden by Caroline Parker...
Walking in Burnley Gardens
John Dwyer reviews Burnley Gardens: Their Design and the People who loved them, by Michele Adler...
Tales of arboreal obsession
Amy Stewart, The Tree Collectors, Tales of Arboreal Obsession, Text Publishing, Melbourne...
Bob Crowder: a New Zealand organics pioneer
Stuart Read reviews Bob Crowder: a New Zealand organics pioneer, by Matt Morris, Otago University...
FUTURE DIRECTIONS DISCUSSION PAPER
This brief paper has been prepared at the request of the NMC at its meeting on 4 December 2023...
Read this book: it may just change your life as a gardener!
There is a lot of fascinating information contained in this book. Did you know that morning glory...
2024 Annual National Conference
44th AGHS Conference Hesperia: Looking West Bunbury, Western Australia Friday 18th, Saturday 19th...
Historic Gardens of Perth: a handsome first
John Viska & Lisa Williams (eds), Historic Gardens of Perth: European settlement to Modernism...
Food and travel
This week’s review comes to you from Dr Jacqueline Newling, an historian, gastronomer and...
Brave the Wild River
Rosemary Purdie reviews Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of...
Ancient Australian Wollemi pine growing in Ukraine
Australian Ambassador to Ukraine, HE Bruce Edwards (second from right), inspecting the Wollemi pine...
Napoleon’s Garden Island
Book review by Tim Gatehouse In Napoleon’s Garden Island – lost and old gardens of St Helena, South...
AGHS Annual Conference – Hobart and Ipswich session recordings
The AGHS Annual Conference is a highly anticipated event. While we wait for the 2024 National...
Eden unearthed: well worth a visit
Stuart Read reviews the Eden Unearthed: sculpture exhibition, Eden Gardens & Garden Centre, 307...
The World of Mab Grimwade
Sandra Pullman reviews Mab, The World of Mab Grimwade by Thea Gardiner (The Miegunyah Press, Imprint...
Fevered Planet – how disease emerges when we harm nature
Dr Kim Loo, general practitioner, and member of Doctors for the Environment Australia responds to...
Dr John Gray OAM – a remarkable ‘man of the trees’
Magna Carta Place, Canberra Parliamentary Triangle, one of John Gray’s landscape design...
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria scientist names new rhododendron species
A botanist at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Dr Alastair Robinson, has described a beautiful new...
Future directions of the Victorian Heritage Register – Invitation to have your say!
Since 1974, the Victorian Heritage Register has protected the heritage places and objects that are...
The crucial role of seeds in natural and human history
Fiona McMillan-Webster, The Age of Seeds, Thames and Hudson, 2022 Reviewed by Francesca Beddie...
Visions of Nature by Jarrod Hore
Reviewed by John Dwyer, QC, PhD This book is disappointing in a number of ways. Its intent was ‘to...
UPDATED! Call for proposals: National ‘Landscapes At Risk: Watch & Action’ List
‘Landscapes At Risk: Watch & Action’ List At National Management Committee meeting in June...
Historic Gardens of Perth
The West Australian Branch is pleased to announce that Historic Gardens of Perth: European...
Succulentomania
Caroline Ball, A Splendour of Succulents & Cacti: Illustrations from an Eighteenth-Century...
Baron Ferdinand von Mueller’s letters available online
Letters of love and love lost, and of exciting expeditions are among the letters that Baron...
Becoming a botanist – reflections by Carrick Chambers
Stuart Read reviews Becoming a botanist, by Carrick Chambers, with Claudia Chambers, hardback...
Personal stories of plants
Poppy Fitzpatrick reviews The Plant Thieves: Secrets of the Herbarium (NewSouth, 2023) by Prudence...
The history of early vineyards and viticulture in the Sydney basin
Vineyard, Parramatta, 1840 painting by Conrad Martens, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South...
University of Canberra Culture and Creativity Seminar – Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Practice: What’s in it (for me)?
Cultural landscapes, which in the field of heritage studies and practice relates to caring for and...
Replacement of Lombardy Poplars at the National Library of Australia forecourt
Considering community feedback, associated with the heritage values of the Lombardy Poplars in the...
A win for TROVE
The Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, has announced that the Government will provide the National...
AGHS statement opposing further encroachment on the Adelaide Parklands
We, the Australian Garden History Society, believe the South Australian Government’s intention to...
Catching the light
Trevor Nottle reviews John Glover, Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australia Landscape by...
Keep a diary, dear horticulturists
Karen Pyke reviews The Hidden Horticulturists: The untold story of the men who shaped...
Backyard Mangoes
In something a little different for the book blog, below is an article on mangoes, reproduced with...
A mid-century garden on the Nepean River
‘Colour, light, space and texture were essential to Margo Lewers’ art and design philosophy’. Tempe...
Fifty years of the UK’s Garden History free online
The UK Garden Trust’s journal Garden History was first published by the Garden History Society in...
Helping Ukrainian scientists
For the last nine months, AGHS member, Dr Greg Johnson, has been liaising with plant pathologist...
Kew’s gardener on HMS Investigator
Peter Good was one of a remarkable team assembled by Joseph Banks for the voyage of the HMS...
A Faustian bargain
Max Bourke, AM reviews The Sacrificial Valley – Coal’s Legacy to the Hunter, by John Drinan, Bad...
Memoir, plant compendium, poetry collection and more: the ramblings of a generous plant hunter
RAMBLINGS OF A RARE PLANT HUNTER by Marcus Harvey Reviewed by Trevor Pitkin I often wonder when I...
Rosemary’s Gardening Life
Rosemary Simpson, a member of AGHS since the beginning, has written the story of her gardening life...
AGHS launches its first climate change position statement
“It’s time those of us who care for gardens take a stand against climate change,” said AGHS’s...
New Zealand’s botanical heroes revealed in a history of Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush
Clare Gleeson reviews AGHS member, Bee Dawson’s beautiful history, Ōtari Two hundred years of...
Mothering in Crisis: Family, Disaster and Climate Change: FREE EVENT
“Mothering in Crisis” is a Melbourne Climate Futures CRX Project headed by Dr Carla Pascoe Leahy and...
UPDATED: Avenues of Honour and other significant plantings – Australia-wide list
Honour & Memorial Avenues / Roadside Plantings; Lone Pines / Arbor Day Plantings –...
The real Miss Willmott
Miss Willmott’s Ghosts by Sandra Lawrence, Blink Publishing, 2022 Reviewed by Clare Gleeson Who...
Goronga, a hill station garden
Goronga is a farming property in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, 55 kilometres from Melbourne...
Across Bass Strait. Inter-Colonial Trade in Meat and Livestock by Jane Lennon, Anchor Books Australia, 2022
Review by Rosie Mackinnon, co-chair, Tasmanian branch of AGHS This is an historical account of how...
The Mick Jagger of the plant world
Tim Entwisle, Evergreen. The Botanical Life of a Plant Punk, Thames and Hudson, 2022, review by Max...
Is the pen mightier than the trowel?
No! Neither the pen nor the trowel is mightier; instead, both are needed for understanding gardening...
Scientific gentlemen of the Baudin expedition
Eds Jean Fornasiero, John West-Sooby, ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’, Nicolas...
Winter webinar: Is the pen mightier than the trowel in garden history?
Have you booked yet for the winter webinar? Go to Is The Pen Mightier Than The Trowel In Garden...
Exploring the tree continent
Book review by Max Bourke AM I seem to be making a habit of this. Last year I got very excited about...
100 years of Australian native plants: the Maranoa Botanic Gardens Florilegium by Margaret Castle
The Maranoa Botanic Garden is a hidden gem in Balwyn not far from Melbourne’s city centre. Recently...
Harry Turbott: New Zealand’s First Landscape Architect
Garth Falconer, Harry Turbott: New Zealand’s First Landscape Architect, Blue Acres Publishing, 2020...
Summer reading
Here in Bundanoon, summer has been elusive. The sun has had to compete with mist and rain; the weeds...
Common Ground – Garden Histories of Aoteoroa
Common Ground – Garden Histories of Aoteoroa by Matt Morris, Otago University Press, 2020, 276 pages...
Wonder: 175 Years of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (Hardie Grant Books Richmond, Melbourne, 2021)
As a Melbournian, it was a pleasure to review this amazing book, Wonder 175 Years of Royal Botanic...
Eden Unearthed: Art in the Gardens
Stuart Read reviews a sculpture exhibition at Eden Gardens & Garden Centre, 307 Lane Cove Road...
Plants of the Simpson Desert
As a supplement to her article ‘Major plant collectors in the Simpson Desert, 1879–1979’, in...
Saffron
SAFFRON: A Global History by Ramin Ganeshram (Reaktion Books, distributed by NewSouth) was reviewed...
Hawthorn
Further to the article Putting hawthorn hedges to work: introducing a modern hedgelayer in the July...
Book review: a history of food
As editor of both Australian Garden History and the Professional Historians Association’s...
New book: Illustrated Plant Glossary
The Illustrated Plant Glossary (CSIRO Publishing, 2021, $69.99) by Enid Mayfield is a comprehensive...
Illustrations from an 18th-century botanical treasury
Do you want to know what a florilegium is, or a herbal, and would you like to acquire a piece of an...
Goronga plant list
In the October 2021 issue of Australian Garden History, Tim Gatehouse writes about the history of...
Remarkable Gardens updated: Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden
The latest addition to the Remarkable Gardens list is Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden, featured...
Plant hunting in the Pacific
Alistair Watt’s article, Charles Moore. Plant Hunting in the South Pacific. 1850. is...
Silent Space Movement
This article by Liz Ware, garden writer and historian, member of the Garden Media Guild and a former...
AGHS Advocacy
From its inception, the Australian Garden History Society set out to be a conservationist...
Finding the Mother Tree: book review
Simard, Suzanne, Finding the Mother Tree – Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the...
Spirit of the Garden: book review
Trisha Dixon has written an extraordinary book straight from her heart. Her beautiful descriptions...
Wandella Woods Arboretum: a year after the fires
In the early hours of New Year’s Eve 2019 a massive bushfire ravaged the town of Cobargo in...
Picconia excelsa in Australia and New Zealand
Palo blanco or Canary Island olive trees (Picconia excelsa) in Australia and New Zealand: to date 38...
Remarkable Gardens UPDATED April 2021
The AGHS is keen to find out from you which ten gardens in your region, state or territory – public...
National E-News
Latest issue July 2020 Previous issues April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December...
Dig In! with TROVE
Gardeners have long built and re-built communities. Great swathes of land and some important...
Flowers. Passion. Pain. Nation.
With a title such as that, surely an exhibition for our times. The April issue of Australian Garden...
Upgrade to Station Street, Bowral
The Southern Highlands Branch of AGHS has not gone into hibernation because of coronavirus. A...
More Oral Histories Now Online
See the latest additions to the AGHS National Oral History Collection! This is a very special...
Amazing trees on National Trust of Australia (Victoria) register
Jessica Hood was interviewed ABC’s 7.30 on 1 April 2019 talking about this and other amazing...
Council supports Australian Garden History Society
Armidale Regional Council has approved funding of $43,656 to the Australian Garden History Society...
ACT Branch: Planting Memories for the Centenary of ANZAC
The ACT Riverina Monaro Branch received an ANZAC Centenary Local Grant to honour all the men from...
Garden Restoration Project in the News
Montague Island Kitchen Garden Restoration was a recipient of the Society’s Garden Restoration...
CAL Payments
Many AGHS members have written articles for the Society’s Journal and other publications over...
Kindred Spirits Fund
On her death Lady Law-Smith bequeathed to the Australian Garden History Society the publication...
Heritage Gardens Queensland Survey
In Queensland an opportunity arose to carry out a state wide survey of historic gardens and assess...
ACT Branch: The ‘English Garden’ and Yarralumla Nursery
The ‘English Garden’ and Yarralumla Nursery The English Garden and Yarralumla Nursery are two of...
A National Review of Inventories of Historic Gardens, Trees, and Landscapes
In 2011/12 the Society commissioned heritage architect and planner Dr Timothy Hubbard and...
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