Interview Recording
Interview Transcript
John Viska, interviewed 11 October 2018 by Patsy Vizents
Synopsis
John Viska is the current Chairman of the WA branch of the Australian Garden History Society and has held the position three times. He has been involved with the Society since the early 1980s when groups of interested gardeners and landscape architects formed a loose group of interested people who visited gardens. He, alongside Oline Richards, was part of the organising group who established the WA branch of the AGHS in November, 1988. John was the first Chairman of the WA branch. The oral history discusses the formation of the WA branch of the AGHS and the work carried out by the branch in connection with the national body.
His background of Greek and Albanian heritage through both sets of grandparents, introduced John to plants and gardening but he talks of how he found his own particular interests through collecting and observing seeds growing and exchanging plants with others who shared the same passion.
His working life has been as a teacher but he managed, through working in the Kings Park Education section, to turn his skills in teaching the primary curriculum to eventually teaching horticulture and history of gardening, especially in a WA context. This valuable background has been shared as part of his involvement with the Garden History Society.
