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.
I've always been intrigued by how the physical shape of the Australian continent is creatively and graphically repurposed. Whether it's cartoonists using the map of Australia as a head of the 'typical Aussie battler/everyman' (but what of Tasmania?) or used to symbolise Australian wine (an Aus-map shaped drop splatter or an Australia-shaped vine leaf), or even an Australia-shaped rock (the outback), the shape of our island home has an indelible graphic presence in our culture. I know other cultures do this a bit too, but we seem to do it quite alot (and I get a real kick out of it).
