Edna Walling - a new podcast

 

Sometimes it's good to simply listen. If you'd like to hear me talking for over 50 minutes (!) about the wonderful Australian Landscape Designer, gardener, architect, artist, photographer, author... well, all round fabulous woman - please go here for the podcast: 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/infinite-women/embed/episodes/Sara-Hardy-on-Edna-Walling-e2a2u32

The podcast begins with my introduction to Edna Walling (see below) - then it broadens into an in-depth discussion across many aspects of Edna Walling’s life. I am indebted to Allison Tyra and her ‘Infinite Women’ podcast for inviting me to be interviewed for her series celebrating extraordinary women in history.

Introduction: Edna Walling was a landscape designer, gardener, horticulturalist, journalist, photographer, author – and fine drawer and painter of her watercolour garden design plans. Born in England in 1895, Edna was a trouser-wearing, animal-and-Nature-loving, highly individual being. Her legacy has been lasting – literally embedded in the Australian soil: her self-designed village of Bickleigh Vale in Mooroolbark (east of Melbourne at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges) – retains its unique beauty, and many of her large-scale landscaped gardens have been well-preserved.

Her trademark garden-design features include: Fine flights of steps, well-proportioned pools, circular terraces, extensive pergolas, flagstone paths, low stone walls, dry-stone walls, outdoor ‘rooms’, and lawns with curved sweeping boarders that create beautiful vistas that then extend to wild Natural areas using native plants. Edna liked to surprise you and entice you – drawing you towards some half-hidden garden path… Even in very small gardens she could create the illusion of depth and space and beauty.

Her touch of genius was to combine her horticultural knowledge with her design knowledge to produce a style all her own. Her use of stone walls, in particular – terraced or circular – and stone steps - was innovative at the time and provided a distinctive ‘skeleton’ to the design which was then fleshed out with her inspired choice of planting.  She used exotics and/or native plants in her designs – these choices always depending on the literal landscape of the site, the soil, the architecture of the house – and of course the desires of her client (to a degree anyway!).

Edna Walling was forceful, determined, highly creative, unconventional – and fun to be with. She became passionate about ecology and conservation early in her career and was deeply concerned about safeguarding the natural beauty of the Australian landscape.

Edna was happiest wearing her workaday wear: jodhpurs, boots, shirt, plus a classy hat and necktie. She described herself as ‘odd’ - meaning that she never fitted into the restrictive feminine mould of her time. Her closest relationships were with women. She moved to Buderim in southern Queensland in later life, and died there in 1973 aged 77.

Edna Walling published countless articles, and 5 books: 1943 Gardens in Australia, 1947 Cottage and Garden in Australia, 1948 A Gardener’s Log, 1952 The Australian Roadside. And, after many publisher rejections in her lifetime, On the Trail of Australian Wildflowers was published in 1984. These publications included her own photographs and drawings.

There have been many excellent books about her life’s work – and one biography about the woman behind that work: The Unusual Life of Edna Walling (published by Allen & Unwin) is authored by yours truly – and is readily available as eBook and paperback; order from bookshops, online or ask your local library.

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/infinite-women/episodes/Sara-Hardy-on-Edna-Walling-e2a2u32



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