Edna Walling designed gardens for the Murdoch and Packer families, and remains Australian gardening royalty
One of Australia's most influential garden designers, Edna Walling created gardens to "live in". (Supplied: State Library Victoria)
Edna Walling's influence over the Australian garden cannot be overstated.
If you've ever walked through a garden with low stone walls, mossy boulders and meandering paths, it's likely thanks to her influence.
During the 1920s, a period when women were expected to remain in the home, Walling cultivated her own path, designing gardens for notable clients like Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Sir Frank Packer.
"When [Edna] burst onto the scene, gardens back in the 1920s were, 'look-at-me gardens' and so many of them would even have a map of Australia in the front lawn," writer, photographer and tour guide Trisha Dixon tells ABC Radio National's Big Ideas.
Walling's garden designs were largely architectural, often incorporating stone walls, pergolas, colonnades and paths. (Supplied: State Library of Victoria)
Instead, Walling encouraged people to create gardens to "live in", Dixon says.
"It was all about discovery and the mystery of gardens."
Walling designed around 300 gardens across Australia. Those that remain today include Markdale in Central NSW, Cruden Farm in Frankston and Mawarra in Sherbrooke.
And Walling's influence can be observed in many of the best landscape design practitioners working today.
A trailblazer
Walling was born in 1896 and grew up in the village of Bickleigh, Devon, in England.
When she was 14, her family emigrated to New Zealand. Then four years later, they moved to Melbourne.
"The family went to New Zealand initially because they were seeking a new life … after their shop burnt down. They used to live over their ironmonger shop and it was full of tools which Edna loved to play with. She liked to hammer and saw, not needle and thread," biographer and playwright Sara Hardy explains.
Walling's parents always encouraged their daughter's many practical pursuits.
"They were both brilliant; they saw her as she was and accepted it and encouraged it, which was most unusual for Edwardian times," Hardy says.
However, her parents drew the line at nursing, when Walling expressed an interest.
According to Hardy, Walling was "hauled out of that by her father" and he insisted that she take up an outdoor profession.
Instead, Walling's mother encouraged her to enrol at Melbourne's Burnley School of Horticulture.
"Her mother dragged her off and said to the head principal of Burnley, 'You know, Edna loves gardens', and she's sitting there thinking, 'I don't'," Dixon says.
Then she saw a dry stone wall and it "changed everything".
Walling was drawn to the architectural aspect of gardens.
"That's why [her gardens have] survived all those years … Gardens are ephemeral and they disappear when the creator goes but hers, because they had that really strong architectural framework, have survived," she says.
Successive owners of the Bickleigh Vale properties continue to stay true to Walling's original vision. (ABC RN: Claire Slattery)
In December 1917, Walling received a certificate of horticulture from Burnley. Three years later, she started her own landscape design practice.
Then in the 1920s, she created Bickleigh Vale, a 10-hectare village in Mooroolbark on the outskirts of Melbourne, which she named after the English village she grew up in.
"It had wild plant-filled gardens. It had gates that connected the gardens and the community. It was well before its time," Ross says.
She also hand-built her own stone cottage, named Sonning, as one of the first buildings in the village, with lovely gardens.
"There's no such word as 'can't' in Edna's lexicon. The birth of an idea called for immediate action, no hesitation and no doubts about the outcome," ABC TV's Gardening Australia presenter, Millie Ross says.
In 2004, Bickleigh Vale was given heritage protection under the Victorian Heritage Act. Today, the gardens are occasionally open to the public.
Walling's key design principles
Ross says Walling's designs were often described as English cottage style but she doesn't see this as an accurate depiction of the garden designer's vision.
"I find that a bit uncomfortable because we're not in England," she says.
Dixon agrees.
"Edna said, 'If we want to garden the Australian way, we have to learn from the landscape. She wasn't a purist, that we had to [only] have Indigenous plants, but she learned the way that they actually grew."
Yet, the English countryside was undeniably a major influence
"She had a great depth of understanding of where she'd come from, the landscape that really she had in her heart and that she lost. She was wrenched out of it like a sapling and half her roots stayed there," Hardy says.
Walling summed up her design principles in this famous quote:
"I love all the things most gardeners abhor: moss in lawns, lichen on trees, more greenery than 'colour' (as if green isn't a colour!), bare branches in the winters and root-ridden ground. I like the whole thing to be as wild as possible, so that you have to fight your way through in places."
Walling despised order and regiment in gardens, so her method for planting was simply throwing bulbs and seeds, Dixon says.
Large native and non-native trees were a key component of Walling's gardens. She described treeless gardens as "dull". (Supplied: State Library of Victoria)
Yet, the layout and architecture of the garden was crucial.
"They were really gardens to explore and it didn't matter if it was the tiniest town garden, there'd be rooms in that garden, so there's no way you would see it all at once," Dixon says.
Conservation and awareness
Walling was ahead of her time in many ways, but her attitude toward water conservation was key.
"She didn't water," Dixon says.
This philosophy of water conservation was one that she tried to instil in others. She planted drought-tolerant plants, used dense ground covers, and mulched frequently.
Also, while the concept of rewilding is a relatively new term, Dixon says it was at the core of Walling's design.
"Even now, there's King Charles saying a lawn should not be a monoculture and everything's all about rewilding," she says.
Walling also got involved in local conservation efforts.
"She was always writing letters to the paper, protests against the quarry, [and] she would write protests against the slaughter of historic trees," Ross says.
A prolific communicator
Throughout her career, Walling contributed hundreds of articles to The Australian Home Beautiful magazine.
She also published four books during her lifetime and a fifth was published posthumously. And she was a talented and prolific photographer, capturing images of her gardens and the natural Australian landscape.
Later in her life, Walling moved from Melbourne to Buderim in Queensland, where she had hoped to develop another village. (Supplied: State Library Victoria)
Ross describes Walling as an influencer well before influencers existed. Despite being a private person, she would invite readers into her garden and home via her articles.
"She understood the power of the language," she says.
Walling also attempted to shift people's attitudes and perspectives.
Walling took photos of her gardens which she used to illustrate her magazine columns. (Supplied: State Library of Victoria)
"She talked about how … it was a total disgrace that we labelled the tea tree as scrub," Ross says.
As a horticulturalist and presenter, Ross can relate to this type of work. She too tries to reverse people's attitudes toward elements of nature that have negative connotations, such as bogs or salt marshes.
"She was using [language] to grow the value that people saw in different landscapes," she says.
And Walling was doing this work more than half a century ago.
"I feel that Walling's voice is one that you could literally harness today to try and send those same messages out that many of us are screaming."