Garden Within Weston Park

OUTER VIEW EXPANDED HEAD OUTER BACK PANEL WHEN FOLDED OUTER FRONT PANEL WHEN FOLDED • getting there• How to get there Find your way to Parkes Way Weston Park in the Northbourne Avenue Canberra suburb of Yarralumla. This map shows the location of the English Garden within Weston Park. the As you enter Weston by Weston as an Lake Burley Griffin Park from Banks Street in Yarralumla, experimental arboretum Lady Denman Drive Tuggeranong Parkway follow the road until english containing over 200 Lindsay Prior you see the sign English Garden different species of National Arboretum for the Yarralumla conifers, deciduous Westbourne Woods Alexandrina Drive Nursery. Turn left in the direction of the hardwoods and native Royal Canberra garden Golf Course Yarralumla Nursery. • yarralumla• Australian trees. You can Dunrossil Drive Start your walk at the visit Westbourne Woods Lady Denman Drive Banks Street English Garden wall and a younger trial area Parliament House plaque as shown on called the Lindsay Pryor Street Novar the track map in this National Arboretum brochure. which is located nearby, across the lake. The Adelaide Avenue location map opposite Cotter Road shows the location of these sites. Yarra Glen Seed and plant collection was another activity guide to walking conditions thank you which supported the A circular walk around the English Garden will take approximately This brochure was produced with the assistance of the work of selecting and 15 minutes to complete. The grade of the track is easy and mostly flat. ACT Chief Minister’s Department, Territory and Municipal producing plant material. The surface of the walking track is uneven however and is made up of Services and the ACT, Monaro and Riverina Branch of earthen trails. the Australian Garden History Society. The trial areas were one Source: National Library of Australia. source of propagation For information about guided walks around Westbourne Woods please District Map of Canberra. (nla.map-gmod81) make an enquiry via the Australian Garden History Society webpage material. Seeds and (ACT/Monaro/Riverina Branch) which can be found at cuttings were also collected from areas such as Goulburn, local www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au pastoral properties and from field trips to the coast. Established international seed and plant exchange networks were also used. Weston and later nursery directors took advantage of these networks by ordering seed and plant material from botanical gardens around Australia and the world. design by arda www.arda.net.au INNER FRONT PANEL WHEN FOLDED INNER BACK PANEL WHEN FOLDED INNER VIEW EXPANDED HEAD fence 6 nursery windbreak the B 5 KEY 4 4 Trees of interest english 7 A Former nursery public superintendent’s garden toilets cottage - Hobday’s 8 •yarralumla• cottage B Nursery windbreak C English Garden plaque The English Garden is one of Canberra’s historic and shocks of gardens. It was once part of the Commonwealth Source: ACT Territory and Municipalthe Services First World War. As an D Former nursery avenue nursery which produced millions of trees and shrubs indication of the difficult planting conditions planting for the creation of the new bush capital of Canberra. he sometimes hired a gelignite expert to Today the garden features many fine mature dynamite planting holes. trees which tell a story about the selection and 3 production of plant material for the new Australian Research was an essential part of the nursery’s capital city. plant selection program. Trial areas were N u r s e r y developed for the purposes of trialing new 2 carpark plant species. Further research by Weston A was also carried out on the hybridisation of Some history C Eucalypts. His letters to J.H. Maiden, then Canberra’s Commonwealth nursery was director of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, D 1 entry to established by Thomas Charles Weston in 1914. start English reflected his advances in this area. walk Garden to Weston came to Canberra with substantial here The mature trees planted in the English Garden Banks experience in garden, nursery and landscape Street management. He had years of training as a could be part of an early trial area. The area garden apprentice in the United Kingdom. He however does not show the same level of later migrated to Australia and took up positions Source: Canberra Times organisation as seen in other trial areas. We as head gardener at Admiralty House Sydney, Federal do know that this area was under planted with • trees• Government House Sydney and as Superintendent of the NSW azaleas and rhododendrons in the late 1950s and 1960s, by the Moore brothers, Percy and Jack. The area continued to be 11 Cupressus sempervirens 3 Quercus robur (English Oak): 5 Pinus torreyana (Torrey Pine): 66 Cedrus deodara (Deodar): State Nursery. stricta (Roman Cypress): Used Thought to have been introduced This pine is an extremely rare tree An evergreen planted for managed towards creating an English woodland garden theme. extensively in Canberra during the to Australia in pots, this tree is a threatened with extinction. The decoration and appreciated as a It was Weston’s task in the early years of Canberra’s development to By the 1970s, this theme was well established. The garden also 1920s and 1930s. Used in formal pastoral favourite with memories seed for these trees was collected lawn specimen. both create the plant material and plant the city’s landscape. The landscape treatments and in of England. Seed for these trees from Gungahlin Homestead became known as a popular demonstration site for horticulture particular for its accent properties. was likely to have been collected 77 Sequoia sempervirens map over the page shows the early nursery areas, a new lake edge gardens. The tree was used by students. It is interesting to consider that some of the trees within from surrounding homesteads. Thomas Weston for mass plantings (Redwood): A tree which can and the early intentions for this area to be developed as a zoo. 2 Pinus ponderosa (Western Yellow to create large windbreaks. These grow more than 100 metres in the English Garden are likely to be the genetic parents of many Pine): An evergreen survivor. 4 Quercus palustris (Pin Oak): windbreaks were an important its natural habitat, was selected When Weston and his staff started work on the development of Canberra’s mature exotic trees, especially those that have One of the most outstanding first stage of Weston’s planting by Walter Burley Griffin as a trees of Canberra. An Autumn character tree against the advice of the city landscape they were faced with a survived in the older areas of Canberra. programs providing shelter from favourite. A form of this tree the harsh winds. Haig Park in the of Thomas Weston. degraded and mostly tree less landscape. (Freefall variety) was developed Canberra suburb of Braddon is an Trial areas were designed to examine issues such as tree growth, as a low maintenance street tree 88 Caleocedrus decurrens Canberra at this time was also example of one of these major city (Incense Cedar): An evergreen maintenance and tolerance to frost and disease. Westbourne as the result of research by Robert windbreaks. quite remote and the new Boden. decorative specimen tree. Woods, which is now a part of the Royal Canberra Golf Club, Commonwealth government was is an example of one of these trial areas. This area was created struggling with the challenges continued over.

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