Western Australia

Historic Gardens of Perth

The West Australian Branch is pleased to announce that Historic Gardens of Perth: European Settlement to Modernism is currently out of stock.

With approximately 200 hundred pages of historic photographs, maps, plans, artworks and text, Historic Gardens of Perth: European settlement to Modernism, is the first publication to deal solely with the history of gardens in Western Australia.

Recent events

Christmas Party at Sloan’s Cottage

Christmas Party 2024 attendees at the front of Sloan’s Cottage (Image: Leon Tang)

On Sunday 1^st December AGHS members were welcomed by Simon Halling who has been working at Sloan’s Cottage for four years. After a brief history and walk around the vegetable garden it was time for beverages, tasty treats and the Chairman’s Annual Quiz. Once again it was hotly contested with two groups winning even after two tie breaker questions! It was lovely sitting in the shade of the gigantic carob tree. Fortunately, the trees at Sloan’s Cottage have not been affected by the Polyphagus Shot Hole Borer and we hope that continues.

Lyn Oliver

Visit to Wanneroo Botanic Gardens

AGHS West Australian Branch members and friends recently visited Wanneroo Botanic Gardens. Created by landscape architect Theo Pruik and his wife Hanneke it has been enjoyed by visitors forty years and includes a popular mini golf course and wedding venue.

WA Landscapes at Risk – Advocacy Issues

Kings Park Cable Car

The Proposal to run a cable car from Elizabeth Quay on the foreshore of the city, across the Mitchell Freeway and Mounts Bay Road and then up and into Kings Park was presented in 2014 by Planning Minister John Day, as part of the Elizabeth Quay development. The topic has been regularly in the local papers with Tourism WA actively promoting this construction as a way to bring more people into the historic landscape of Kings Park. The concept has been rejected by Chairman of the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority, Richard Simpson noting that this would threaten the aesthetics, values and fabric of the Park. For more information please read the article in the AGHS WA Branch Autumn 2020 Newsletter.

The West Australian Gardener Magazine - Data Base Project

The West Australian Gardener was published by the Horticultural Council of Western Australia and launched in 1932 being the first monthly gardening magazine produced in WA. Prior to that, gardening information was through the newspapers and a regular weekly gardening column in the Western Mail.

Besides providing gardening advice it was also the official organ of the Horticultural Council of WA containing a directory of horticultural societies.

In the early 1990s, the national body of the Australian Garden History Society commissioned Richard Aitken to coedit The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens. The WA branch discussed the possibility of producing a data base from the West Australian Gardener as a separate project for its members. As the magazine contained information appropriate to the garden history of WA through its articles and advertisements, it was deemed a worthwhile project to involve branch members.

The results of this project have now been compiled into an invaluable reference/index to the articles in the West Australian Gardener.

To find out more about the project and how to access the magazines, please click below:

To save the West Australian Gardener magazine reference data base, please click below:

2013 AGHS & UWA Tree Forum papers

Papers presented at the WA Tree Forum 2013.

 Table of Contents

• Trees as Markers in the Cultural Landscape – Professor Jane Lennon (Melbourne University, ICOMOS expert)
• Valuing and Maintaining the Urban Forest – Dr Greg Moore (University of Melbourne)
• Australia’s Public Trees – Adjunct Professor Craig Burton (University of Western Australia)
• The Norfolk Island Pine, Araucaria heterophylla: an historical perspective – John Viska (AGHS WA)
• The Urban Forest: Tuart, the Tree and the Forest – Greg Keighery (Department of Environment and Conservation)
• The Emergence of Green Space in Town Planning – Don Newman
• Challenges to Establishing Urban Tree Cover in the 21st Century – Peter Ciemitis
• Tree Success Stories and Strategies – NSW and elsewhere – Stuart Read (AGHS NSW)
• Streets as Open Space – Professor Tony Blackwell (University of Western Australia; Blackwell and Associates)
• Beautiful TREES: An Interactive Tool to Safeguard Our Urban Forest – Simon Kilbane (University of Technology, Sydney)

Further papers presented include:

• Trees and Commemoration – Honour Avenues in WA – John Stephens
• Alternate approaches to sustainable urban vegetation management – Dr Paul Barber Director, (ArborCarbon, Perth, & Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Murdoch University, WA)
• The Southwest Australian Floristic Region as a biodiversity hotspot, with special reference to its trees (text, images) – Stephen D. Hopper AC (Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, and School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia)