Gardening in Australia reflects the different styles of Australian art, including influences from Roman, Islamic, Italian, French, and English gardens. Modern Australian gardening emphasize gardens and their surroundings, focusing heavily on both urban horticulture and landscape architecture.
There are many historical parks and gardens in Australia.
The first botanical gardens in Australia were founded early in the 19th century. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, 1816; the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, 1818; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, 1845; Adelaide Botanic Gardens, 1854; and Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 1855. These were established essentially as colonial gardens of economic botany and acclimatisation. [1] The Auburn Botanical Gardens, 1977, located in Sydney's western suburbs, are one of the popular and diverse botanical gardens in the Greater Western Sydney area. [2]
In 1942, Australia's prime minister John Curtin launched a "Dig for Victory" campaign as rationing, drought, and a shortage of agricultural workers began to affect food supplies. This encouraged homeowners all over Australia to grow crops to help the war effort. The campaign was well received by the media as well as the large populace, as many Australians were already self-sufficient in growing their own fruits and vegetables. The YWCA created "Garden Army Week" to advertise the newly created "Garden Army" which exclusively supported agriculture and crop production. The situation began to ease in 1943 as fear of invasion lessened; however, home gardens continued throughout the war. [3]
Colonial-style gardens are still popular, while understanding and use of Australian native gardening is becoming more widespread.[ clarification needed ] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
The first formal gardens were influenced by the aesthetics of British settlers who were unfamiliar with Australia and often sought to recreate aspects of where they had come from, such as the English country garden. This included the importation of plants from Europe, initially for food, and the landscaping of broader lands for the cultivation of agriculture, forestry and grazing (displacing maintenance by Australian Aboriginal peoples). Informal and ornamental gardens would be established at private estates, such as small cottage gardens and Mediterranean-climate gardens, while land around settlements would be reserved for future public use and the establishment of important botanical gardens. However, Australia's diverse climate, along with more growth and immigration, meant more diverse styles and philosophies of garden could be grown, such as Japanese gardens.[ citation needed ]
Over time, interest in rediscovering traditional knowledge and expertise of the uses of Australia's native plants grew. New Australian-style gardens are inspired by combinations of almost any style and are now found across Australia and some other parts of the world. They are usually specific to the particular area they are grown in, whether as private gardens, as parts of or as entire public parks (often emphasising botanical exploration and re-establishment of wildlife habitat), in revegetation programmes for wetlands and grasslands, and as rain gardens utilising smaller spaces on streets. Common features include stone gardens, artworks and shade structures, cultural and historical information, and edible gardens.
Some common plants are: [9]
Floriade is the largest flower festival in the Southern Hemisphere, with over 400,000 visitors each year. Almond Blossom Festival, Carnival of Flowers, Kings Park Festival, Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and Tesselaar Tulip Festival are some others.
A range of books, magazines [11] [12] and television programmes [13] are dedicated to the topic in Australia.
Epacris impressa, also known as common heath, is a species of plant in the heath family Ericaceae. It is native to south-eastern Australia. French botanist Jacques Labillardière collected the species in 1793 and described it in 1805. Four forms have been identified, but no subspecies are recognised. Growing in heathland, shrubland or open forest, it is generally a small shrub around 0.5 to 1 m tall, with small stiff leaves. The red, pink or white tube-like flowers appear from late autumn to early spring. Honeyeater birds, particularly the eastern spinebill, feed upon the nectar of the flowers. It regenerates after bushfire by seed or by resprouting.
A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden with a documented collection of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display, and education. It is their mandate as a botanical garden that plants are labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be glasshouses or shadehouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants that are not native to that region.
John Lindley FRS was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist.
Grevillea, commonly known as spider flowers, is a genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. Plants in the genus Grevillea are shrubs, rarely trees, with the leaves arranged alternately along the branches, the flowers zygomorphic, arranged in racemes at the ends of branchlets, and the fruit a follicle that splits down one side only, releasing one or two seeds.
The Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney is a heritage-listed major 30-hectare (74-acre) botanical garden, event venue and public recreation area located at Farm Cove on the eastern fringe of the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia.
Grevillea rosmarinifolia, commonly known as rosemary grevillea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia and naturalised in other parts of the country. It is usually an erect, compact to open shrub with linear, narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong leaves with the edges rolled under, and loose clusters of pink to red flowers.
Joseph Henry Maiden was a botanist who made a major contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, especially the genus Eucalyptus. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Maiden when citing a botanical name.
John Stanley Beard was a British-born forester and ecologist who resided in Australia. Beard studied at the University of Oxford where he completed his doctoral thesis on tropical forestry.
John Cronin was an Australian botanist and horticulturist active in Victoria. He directed the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne until his death.
The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan is a 416-hectare (1,030-acre) botanical garden located in a hilly area of the southwestern Sydney suburb of Mount Annan, between Campbelltown and Camden, New South Wales. It is the largest botanical garden in Australia, specializing in native plants, with a collection of over 4000 species. Officially opened in 1988, it was known as Mount Annan Botanic Garden, until 2011.
This is an alphabetical index of articles related to gardening.
Sydney is well endowed with open spaces and has many natural areas. Many of these exist even within the compact city centre. These include the Chinese Garden of Friendship and Hyde Park. The metropolitan area contains several national parks, including the Royal National Park, the second oldest national park in the world, which occupies an area of 132 square kilometres. Completing Sydney's wide array of green spaces, the leader is the Royal Botanic Garden, with its large amount of green spaces, lush plants and colourful flowers.
A Colonial Revival garden is a garden design intended to evoke the garden design typical of the Colonial period of Australia or the United States. The Colonial Revival garden is typified by simple rectilinear beds, straight pathways through the garden, and perennial plants from the fruit, ornamental flower, and vegetable groups. The garden is usually enclosed, often by low walls, fences, or hedges. The Colonial Revival gardening movement was an important development in the gardening movement in the United States.
Desmond Andrew Herbert was an Australian botanist.
Thistle Yolette Harris, was born as Yolette Thistle Harris, but mostly known as Thistle Stead, was an Australian botanist, educator, author and conservationist.
Jean Galbraith was an Australian botanist, gardener, writer of children's books and poet.
Roger David Spencer is an Australia horticultural botanist who was born at Alfreton, Derbyshire. He has an honours degree in botany from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Melbourne and a technical certificate in gardening and turf maintenance from Oakleigh Technical College, Melbourne. He is currently horticultural botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne where he works in the Plant Identification Service, contributing locally and internationally to the study of cultivated plant taxonomy.
Myall Park Botanic Garden is a heritage-listed botanic garden at Myall Park Road, Glenmorgan, Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia. It was founded by grazier David Morrice Gordon who made the first plantings on his Myall Park sheep station in 1941. He expanded the garden in the 1950s with the help of gardeners Len Miller and Alf Gray and nursery buildings were built by Harry Howe. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 November 2012.