Design by Potato

"One of the tricks she used to create this sort of natural woodland was to throw a bucket of spuds in the air. Everywhere a potato landed she'd plant a birch. Even if there were three together, she'd plant three birches in one hole."

I grew up in Melbourne's leafy outer-eastern suburbs in the shadow of the Dandenong Ranges (that area is now rampant brick-veneered suburbia) and my parents were inveterate gardeners. (My father still is). Every weekend would see mum and dad planting, pruning, trimming, fertilising and tending to our quite substantial suburban garden. We even had a larger than average block so more garden could be accommodated. Like many of the gardens planted at the time (the 60s) the plants were largely English, sometimes perhaps North American. Silver birches were a favourite at the time. Gums, wattles or banksias would sometimes be planted as a tacit acknowledgement of the original native surroundings.

Swept up in the rise of nationalism that accompanied Gough Whitlam's arrival as our (Labor) Prime Minister in the 1970s (amongst other things), Australian native plants began to populate our gardens – much moreso than before. Ellis Stones released his two seminal books on garden design that for many weekend gardeners revolutionised the Aussie garden. I clearly remember the weekends when my parents uprooted quite a few of the foreign plants in our garden and planted natives. Camellias, hydrangeas, rhododendrons and the like gave way to grevilleas, melaleucas, correas, hakeas and tufty grasses. Native plants, many of which were indigenous to our area, became the mainstay of our garden. These plants attracted honeyeaters, rosellas, spinebills, wattlebirds, lizards, orb-weaving spiders and possums aplenty. The garden became more than just a place for plants, it became a living, breathing entity, moreso than it's previous incarnation.

After one trip to a local native plant nursery, we unloaded the latest shipment of shrubs and grasses and my father walked over to a garden bed – they had become wonderfully scraggy, messy and unkempt. No longer were they neatly manicured – now they were designed to look 'natural'. My father picked up some rocks and threw them onto what was left of our lawn. We then proceeded to plant the shrubs exactly where the rocks fell. This seemed very haphazard and unthought-out to a young gardener-helper. Upon enquiring of what was going on, my father replied "this is nature telling us where to plant", which seemed like a reasonable response at the time. It was years later when I was reading about the career of gardening legend Edna Walling (a seminal gardening figure prior to Ellis Stones, chronologically speaking) that I realised that my father had used an approach devised by her. Walling used to walk onto a garden site and in order to get the creative gardening juices flowing (and to achieve a 'natural' look to her designs) she would toss potatoes onto the ground. And that's where trees, often the 'foundation stones' of many a wonderful Walling garden, were planted.

Excuse the strange segue, but, as 2008 is the International Year of the Potato (as decreed by the UN), it's perhaps timely to consider the work of Edna Walling. She, thankfully, was the first local gardening figure of note to promote the use of native vegetation in our gardens. She may also be the only prominent (garden) designer that has designed by the throw of a potato.

I've never heard of anyone else designing this way – and probably never will.

A few Walling-related links below:

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"It is really rather amazing that we have copies of the English style rather than Spanish and Italian because in this climate, protection from hot winds is essential to civilised living."

Extensive site on Walling at the ABC

Another Walling site

Quote at top from this description of a Walling garden

The rise of the Australian native garden

A prominent nursery's collection of Edna Walling-inspired plants