1
GARDENS AT THE FRONTIER:
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON GARDEN
HISTORY
Symposium, 29-31 January 2014
Hamilton Gardens, Hungerford Crescent, Gate 1 Cobham Drive, Hamilton,
New Zealand
HAMILTON
GARDENS
2
Registration
The registration desk will open at 8.30am to 9am on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It
will be located in the foyer of the Hamilton Gardens Pavilion.
3
Venue
The symposium will take place in the Rotary Lounge, Hamilton Gardens Pavilion.
Hamilton Gardens is located on Hungerford Crescent. Access is via Gate 1 or Gate 2 off
Cobham Drive, SH 1, there is plenty of free parking. For information about Hamilton
Gardens go to the website www.hamiltongardens.co.nz.
Directions
For directions go to maps.google.co.nz
For maps see: http://hamiltongardens.co.nz/74/map-of-hamilton-gardens
Accommodation
Albert Court Motor Lodge (1.5km, 18 minute walk to Hamilton Gardens)
Cnr Grey and Albert Streets, 29 Albert Street
Hamilton East
4
Tel: (07) 929 4047
www.albertcourt.co.nz
Prices per night:
Studio unit from $125 for single
1 bedroom unit from $175 for two people
2 bedroom unit from $240 for up to four people
Aspen Manor Motel (1.6km, 19 minute walk to Hamilton Gardens)
209 Grey Street
Tel: (07 856 9029
www.aspenmanor.co.nz
Prices per night:
Studio units (2 people) with kitchen from $135, sleeps up to 3
Business studio unit (2 people) from $130
1 bedroom unit (2 people) with kitchen from $145, sleeps up to 3
Family unit (2 people) with kitchen from $175.00 (sleeps up to 6)
Novotel Tainui Hamilton (5km, 8 minute drive to Hamilton Gardens)
7 Alma Street
Hamilton
Tel: (07) 838 1366
www.novotel.com/gb/hotel-2159-novotel-hamilton-tainui/index.shtml
For rates refer to the website
Ibis Hotel Hamilton (5km, 8 minute drive to Hamilton Gardes)
5
18 Alma Street
Hamilton
Tel: (07) 859 9200
ibis.com/gb/hotel-6690-ibis-hamilton-tainui/index.shtml
For rates refer to website
Emergency
In the event of an emergency, please phone 111.
Public Transport
For information about bus routes go to http://www.busit.co.nz/hamilton-routes/
Hamilton Taxis
Tel: 0800 477 377, (07) 847 7477, or [email protected]
Airport Shuttle
Shuttle transport is via Super Shuttle. This is a door to door service. Tel: 0800 748 885, 09
522 5100, or via the website www.supershuttle.co.nz
6
PROGRAMME
WEDNESDAY
8.30-9.20
Registration & coffee and chats
9.20-9.30
Introduction & Welcome
James Beattie
9.30-10.10
Session 1: Bringing Back Biodiversity
Bruce Clarkson & Catherine L. Kirby
10.10-12.00
Guided Walk
Dr. Peter Sergel, Director, Hamilton Gardens
12.00-1.00
Lunch
1.00-3.00
Session 2: Plants, Identity and Culture
Jo Bishop
Christina Dyson
Stuart Park
3.00-3.30
Afternoon Tea
3.30-4.50
Language, Imagination and the Garden
Jacky Bowring
Sharon Willoughby
Drinks in garden bar
6.00-7.00
Keynote: Richard Aitken
The Art and Craft of Garden History
7
THURSDAY
8.30-9.00
Registration
9.00-10.20
Session 1: Heritage, Culture and Designed Landscapes
Amy Hobbs
Susette Goldsmith
10.20-10.50
Morning Tea
10.50-11.30
Session 2: Garden Culture, Design and Interpretation
Ruth Morgan & Richard Aitken
11.30-1.00
Lunch
1.00-2.30
Field Trip: Beale Cottage
Jo Bishop
2.30-3.00
Afternoon Tea
3.00-4.20
Session 2: Garden Culture, Design and Interpretation (cont.)
Ian Henderson
Peter Sergel
Louise Beaumont
John P. Adams
4.30-5.30
Book Launch:
Lan Yuan: A Garden of Distant Longing
6.30-
Conference Dinner
Good George
8
FRIDAY
8.30-9.00
Registration
9.30-10.50
Session 1: Gardens as Cultural Spaces and Cultural Capital
Duncan Campbell
Richard Bullen
10.50-11.20
Morning Tea
11.20-12.00
Session 1: Gardens as Cultural Spaces and Cultural Capital
(cont.)
James Beattie
12.00-1.00
Lunch
1-2.10
Session 2: Parks and Ornaments
Mike Roche
Ian Duggan
2.10-2.40
Afternoon Tea
2.40-3.30
Roundtable: Themes, Contexts and Publishing
3.30-c.4.30
Tennis Ball Cricket on the Rhododendron Lawn
9
ABSTRACTS
Session 1: 9.30-10.10
BRINGING BACK BIODIVERSITY
Chair: Ian Duggan
Paper 1:
Bringing indigenous biodiversity back into Hamilton and other New Zealand
cities
Bruce D. Clarkson (presenting author)
Catherine L. Kirby
New Zealand's 20 largest urban centres vary considerably in terms of their extant indigenous
biodiversity resource in the built up matrix (<1% to 9% cover) and in their approach to
protecting and enhancing it. To achieve a universal target of 10% cover, urban ecosystems
dominated by indigenous species will require a range of approaches from restoration of
existing remnants to reconstruction of ecosystems. Ecological barriers to overcome include
altered soil conditions and processes, rapidly shifting and often warmer microclimates, and
novel species assemblages. Despite these limitations, there are unique opportunities to
conserve indigenous plants and animals within these urban environments that are not
present in extensive wildland tracts. For example, grazing by farm animals can be completely
controlled and predators such as weasels and stoats are less abundant in city environments,
also the volunteer worker is nowhere more abundant and capable of being mobilised.
Perhaps the most significant challenge to achieving the 10% target, however, is to coordinate
action between management agencies so that regional or catchment scale ecosystem
processes and function are restored. Further, a convergence of many skills including
engineering, landscape architecture, arboriculture, horticulture and ecology is needed to
undertake successful restoration in city environments. Examples will be drawn from
Hamilton and other North Island cities to illustrate how coordination, convergence and
integration can assist in bringing indigenous nature back into the city and reconnecting
urban dwellers with their natural heritage.
Biographies
Professor Bruce Clarkson is Director of the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) at the
University of Waikato. He led a government funded research programme determining the
best methods to restore indigenous biodiversity in cities from 2005 to 2012. His research has
been applied in numerous restoration projects including Hamilton gullies, the
Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park near Hamilton Zoo and the New Plymouth coastal
walkway.
10
Session 2: 1.00-3.00
PLANTS, IDENTITY, AND CULTURE
Chair: Jacky Bowring
Paper 1:
Medicinal Plant Use in New Zealand‟s Settler Medical Culture, 1860s-1920s.
Jo Bishop
This paper examines the role medicinal plants played in botanical and medical investigations
in colonial New Zealand, and more specifically, in the exchange and legitimisation of
medico-botanical knowledge. The movement and exploitation of natural resources,
including plants, was integral to the European colonisation of New Zealand and the search
for plant-based medicine continued to be major impetus for European botanists and
botanical enquiry well into the nineteenth century. In British colonies, including New
Zealand, plants previously unknown to European science were examined and their medicinal
value was assessed. Although New Zealand‘s settler medical practices relied primarily on
introduced medicinal plants, a developing and profitable international pharmaceutical
industry prompted entrepreneurs, healers and government employees to experiment with
New Zealand‘s native medicinal plants during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Such
investigations relied heavily on observations and interactions with Māori, processes in
contrast to contemporary attitudes towards indigenous medicine.
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pharmaceutical developments were
slowly changing clinical medical practice. Practitioners of all types increasingly claimed
scientific validity and accusations of quackery and incompetence passed between doctors,
herbalists and manufacturers of patent and proprietary medicines. This paper examines
research by New Zealand doctors on the medicinal properties of native plants as well as the
use of native medicinal species by herbalists, and lay healers, investigation of which
underlines the fluid and contested nature of science during this period.
Biography
Joanna Bishop is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Waikato, supervised by
Dr. James Beattie. Her doctoral research exploring the role medicinal plants played in New
Zealand‘s settler medical culture 1850s-1920s combines her background in botanical science
and medical anthropology with medical and environmental historical research. As a keen
gardener, Joanna is also designing and reconstructing an historical medicinal garden at
Hamilton‘s oldest house, Beale Cottage, former home of Militia Surgeon, Dr. Charles
Bernard Beale.
11
Paper 2:
'Planting identity: a multidisciplinary understanding of post-WWII
Australian gardens and nationhood'
Christina Dyson
This paper discusses post-World War Two Australian plant and natural gardens, which bring
together landscape and national identity, to explore the temporal and theoretical frontiers in
the history of gardens and designed landscapes. The first frontier examined is the scant
critical appraisal of these physical places and associated cultural activities from the recent
past. Researching the recent past poses serious challenges mostly related to accessibility of
archival documents. This paper argues that there are also advantages to researching the
recent past, principally through the use of oral history. Oral testimony of central figures in
the native plant movement and key characters related to particular case study sites is
valuable for presenting a nuanced understanding of the stories underpinning how gardens
are created.
This paper demonstrates how using oral history requires particular mechanics and also
cautions about using reminiscences shaped by personal experience, time, and space. In
pushing the theoretical frontier of garden history, this paper develops a framework for
analysing the complex ways in which national identity is formulated through the Australian
plant garden and natural garden. This paper suggests that such a framework requires a
synthesis of national identity theory, environmental history, social theory, art history, and
popular culture. It also draws inspiration from spatial analysis applied to the geographies of
science, drawing inspiration from Livingstone (2003) and Secord (1994). Finally, this paper
explores what a synthesis of these approaches can offer for tracing the nuances in
formulations of national identity in Australian plant gardens of the recent past.
Biography
Christina Dyson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of
Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, supervised by Dr.
Andrew Saniga and Dr. Peter May. The title of her thesis is ‗National identity, Australian
plants, and the natural garden in post-WWII Australia, 1945 to 1985‘. In 2013 she won the
Mike Smith National Museum of Australia Student Prize for History of Australian Science or
Australian Environmental History. She is also co-editor of the journal, Australian Garden
History.
12
Paper 3:
New Zealand Plants in Australian Gardens
Stuart Read
New Zealand-raised plant lover Stuart Read was perhaps hard-wired to notice kiwi plants in
(his adopted) Australia's gardens and parks. Over time he's pieced together patterns—waves
of fashion in their importing, promotion, planting and popularity. These reflect scientific and
horticultural expansionism, commercial and familial connections and more. Stuart will
examine a range of New Zealand plants found in old and young Australian gardens, teasing
out how they got here and why they remain popular. Or even incidental: oddly, many
Australian gardeners appear not to realise how many kiwi plants they continue to use and
enjoy.
Biography
Stuart Read was fortunate to win an overseas fellowship from the Pratt Foundation/
International Specialised Skills Institute to travel through Spain for 3 months in 2005
studying the management of change in historic and new parks and gardens. He also led a 3
week tour of Spanish gardens for the Members of the Historic Houses Trust of New South
Wales (NSW), in 2010. Trained in science, horticulture and landscape architecture, he has
specialised in working on Australian World, National and now NSW heritage areas, striving
to gain acceptance of landscapes as an equally valid type of heritage place worth managing
more sensitively. His particular passions are learning lessons from historic gardens, finding
old trees, the lost diversity of plants from the nineteenth century and more holistic
management of cultural landscapes as part of our future identity and economy.
13
Session 3:
3.30-4.50
LANGUAGE, IMAGINATION AND THE GARDEN
Chair: Richard Aitken
Paper 1:
On Loanwords and Calques: the Appropriation and Replication of
Geomorphological Features in Gardens
Jacky Bowring
Languages of contact encounter both tensions and creative hybridisation, and there are
strong parallels with the ways in which the language of design interacts with the language of
context. In the same way that words or phrases cross between languages, creoles and pidgins
can form where a design language adopts and adapts to a new context. A cultural language of
design encounters a natural language of place, and from this stems new hybrids. Loanwords
and calques are characteristics of languages of contact, are provide useful parallels for
probing how this encounter between design and the givens of place can be expressed.
Loanwords are appropriated from one language into another, and in English there are many
examples such as words loaned from Italian (pizza, plaza) and from French (chef, fierce). A
calque is literally a ‗tracing,‘ and involves taking a literal translation of a word or phrase from
the encounter language such as the term ‗blue blood‘—a translation from the Spanish sangre
azul, which indicates noble birth. In a garden context, Christchurch Botanic Garden‘s Pine
Mound (a remnant sand dune), and Prospect Park‘s glacial features are ‗landscape
loanwords‘. They take landscape features from that place and appropriate them into the
newly designed landscape. ‗Landscape calques‘ occur when existing features are translated
by the colonising design language into new features, mimicking natural landscapes. The
Pulhamite constructions of stone at Battersea Park in London, or the microcosmic landscape
of Yorkville Park (Canada) both create seemingly natural elements as features of artificial
landscapes.
Biography
Dr. Jacky Bowring is Associate Professor and Head of the School of Landscape
Architecture at Lincoln University, Christchurch. Jacky is the editor of peer-reviewed journal
Landscape Review, and is the author of A Field Guide to Melancholy (2008). She has
published widely in international academic and professional journals. Her key areas of
interest are design history, design critique, design theory and landscapes of memory. Jacky is
a registered landscape architect, and has had success in a number of national and
international design competitions, including as a member of the winning team, NZ Wood,
for the 48 Hour Design Challenge for the Christchurch Rebuild, and a finalist in the
Pentagon Memorial Competition. She also won the Holy Trinity Memorial Garden
competition, and her garden has now been built at the cathedral in Parnell, Auckland.
14
Paper 2:
Palimpsest: The Environmental History of the Imagined Garden
Sharon Willoughby
The Landscape Historian and Theorist John Dixon Hunt makes a case in his 2004 book, The
Afterlife of Gardens, for the use of reception theory, borrowed from the study of literature, in
order to understand gardens from the perspective of the people that the gardens were built
for—the visitors. This is an interesting approach with the potential to tell us much about how
gardens grew, changed and developed a life of their own beyond the stylistic intent of their
creators or the hagiography of designers.
If Hunt is making a case for the afterlife of gardens then in this paper I am making a case for
the study of gardens from the perspective of their ‗dreamers‘, for the time before they came
into being, before they were built or visited, for the longer and richer history of the ‗imagined
garden‘.
The case study that I will use to explore this frontier is the development of the Royal Botanic
Gardens Cranbourne. In the public record there survives a succession of forgotten maps, site
plans, management plans and master plans for the Cranbourne Gardens that have recorded
the shifting organisational and individual ‗dreaming‘ of this site and project since the land
was first acquired in 1970—a treasure trove of ‗never built‘ gardens. Each new dreaming of
the garden redefines the role of botanic gardens and the shape of botanic science and
provides a window into an era that sought to conserve nature through the Garden State.
Biography
For the last decade I have worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne as part of
Landscape Planning Group for the Australian Garden Project. In my role as Manager of
Public Programs I have been responsible for the development and delivery of the
Information, Interpretation, Art and Education Plan for this new Botanic Garden (IIA&E). In
a nutshell, my role has involved exploring how to tell stories about Australian plants, peoples
and landscapes with the aim of influencing how Australians garden. I see my current
research in Environmental History as a deepening of that exploration. I am interested in how
the exploration of gardens and garden making can tell us about shifting perceptions of the
Australian environment.
15
Keynote & Public Lecture
6.00-7.00 P.M.
The Art and Craft of Garden History
Richard Aitken
This keynote address explores some of the issues posed by an examination of garden history
at the frontier. It does this using the vehicle afforded by my long-term and ongoing research
on Scottish landscape gardener and garden architect Charles H.J. Smith (1810–1895). Smith
enjoyed a substantial career in Scotland during the 1830s–50s, was highly regarded by his
contemporaries, emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1855, and is now almost unknown
in both his native and adopted countries. My attempts to give voice to Smith‘s career are
sited at the boundary of garden history, local history, cultural history, and heritage
conservation. My research techniques combine many approaches. The result will—I hope—
be part narrative, part biography, and part personal memoir. In doing so, I hope to breathe
life into a forgotten chapter of garden history in a way that is informative, thought
provoking, and enjoyable.
Biography
Richard Aitken is one of Australia‘s leading garden historians. He holds degrees in
architecture, and history and philosophy of science, and has been in private practice since
1978. In the field of heritage and conservation, he has undertaken work on many of
Australia‘s most significant buildings and gardens, including the botanic gardens of
Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, and the government houses of Hobart, Melbourne, and
Sydney. He was a founding member of the Australian Garden History Society in 1980 and in
2006 was awarded honorary membership of the National Trust of Australia for his advocacy
role in the identification and conservation of significant gardens and designed landscapes.
As an independent scholar, his work is widely recognised for its innovative scholarship,
based on meticulous research, wide comparative knowledge, a lyrical writing style, and the
linking of image and text in a seamless fusion. His books include The Oxford Companion to
Australian Gardens (2002), Gardenesque (2004), Botanical Riches (2006), Seeds of
Change (2006), The Garden of Ideas (2010), and Cultivating Modernism (2013). He is a
committed bibliophile with a major reference collection. His specialisation is in gardens and
design, with an emphasis on the period from the early eighteenth century to the present and
a particular strength in ephemera of the house and garden. He is strongly committed to the
interpretation of history and heritage, through exhibition design, publishing, and lecturing
aimed at a wide general audience.
16
THURSDAY
Session 1: 9.00-10.20
HERITAGE, CULTURE, AND DESIGNED LANDSCAPES
Chair: Ian Henderson
Paper 1:
Interpreting the Waikato War: Symbolism, Language and the Visitor
Experience
Amy Hobbs
How can written, symbolic and oral historic accounts inform a visitor experience project and
how are the outputs being interpreted and utilised by people from different cultures?
In January 2013, the Waikato War Interpretation and Education project was launched. This
was a collaborative project between New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga and
Waikato-Tainui in recognition of the conflicts spanning 1863-1864.
During the nineteenth century, land ownership was the most important political issue for
both Māori and colonial settlers. When the settlers arrived, Māori were already skilled and
experienced horticulturists and were quick to adopt new agricultural products introduced by
the settlers.
Expanding settler communities meant that the British needed more land from Māori. The
Government became increasingly concerned about Māori uniting under one king. This
movement was known as Kingitanga and was a response to the land related pressures from
17
the Crown. Māori had resisted the idea of land sales and unfounded rumours of Māori
invasion upon the settlers of Auckland had arisen causing further concern amongst the
settlers. On 12 July 1863, the British crossed the Mangatawhiri Stream, entering the
Kingitanga land and the Waikato War officially began.
This presentation will reflect on who was involved in the project team and how the research
and information gathering took place. I will discuss how written, symbolic and oral histories
were considered and assessed within the project and the challenges that arose. I will also
discuss the relevance of the project today and how it is being used and interpreted by
different cultures.
Biography
Amy Hobbs is a landscape architect employed by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust
Pouhere Taonga (NZHPT). Amy is the Heritage Destinations Manager for the Central Region
and manages a portfolio of 17 heritage properties between Waikato and Wellington. Prior to
joining NZHPT in 2010, Amy was a consultant landscape architect and has always had an
interest in New Zealand landscape and garden history. Amy comes from a horticultural
background and has also worked in London as a landscape architect. In 2011, Amy attended
the Australian Garden History Society Conference in, Maryborough, Queensland as a
participant and recently spoke at the New Zealand Archaeological Association Conference on
the Waikato War project.
Today Amy is responsible for the successful day to day operations of the heritage properties
as well project managing capital works projects to ensure the buildings and their grounds are
conserved and maintained for present and future generations. This includes developing the
visitor experience at the properties and providing opportunities for people to engage and
connect with the diverse stories embodied within the sites.
Given the theme of the Symposium, a study of key Waikato sites and how stories pertaining
to them have been assessed for the recently launched Waikato War Interpretation and
Education project seemed appropriate. Amy project managed the Waikato War
Interpretation and Education Project that was launched in January 2013.
18
Paper 2:
Turning Over Old Ground: an examination of garden heritage in Aotearoa
New Zealand
Susette Goldsmith
At its inception in the mid-twentieth century the premier guardian of New Zealand‘s
heritage—the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT)—focused largely on the
protection of archaeological sites and built historic heritage. Gardens do not feature among
its earliest priorities despite its being modelled on the English National Trust which
concentrated at the time on the conservation of country houses and gardens. In the twentyfirst century the NZHPT has significant garden responsibilities, largely through its
association with its protected buildings as heritage curtilage gardens. Working within a
broad framework of gardens as clearly defined cultural landscapes this paper explores how
they have been overlooked within the curtilage of historic places. It argues that the early
privileging of built heritage and a clean-up-the-grounds-but-save-the-trees attitude coupled
with persistent shifts of direction required of the NZHPT and lack of its financial support
have caused curtilage gardens to be neglected as a legitimate and valuable part of New
Zealand‘s cultural heritage. It discusses the 50-year development of Hurworth Cottage,
Taranaki, as a Category 1 historic place with these factors in mind and proposes a
consideration of heritage curtilage gardens that reaches beyond their own interpretation to
their potential ability to interpret historic places themselves. This examination of garden
heritage provides an academic contribution to critical heritage studies in New Zealand and
suggests a fresh approach for current heritage management practice.
Biography
Susette Goldsmith is an independent writer and editor and is currently studying for a
Master‘s in Museum and Heritage Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Her thesis is
an examination of garden heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of three books
of social history: Suzy’s: A coffee house history; Tea: A potted history of tea in New Zealand
and The Gardenmakers of Taranaki, and is the editor of a number of museum catalogues.
19
Session 2: 10.50-11.30; 3.00-4.20
GARDEN CULTURE, DESIGN, AND INTERPRETATION
Chair: Amy Hobhouse
Paper 1:
Garden Histories of the West: Balancing regional contexts
Ruth Morgan and Richard Aitken
The writing of garden history requires a careful consideration of scale. When dealing with
geographically-based studies, most writers have tended to frame their approach either
from local or national (or occasionally international) perspectives. Too much or too little
detail can often result, whereby local detail often lacks context, while many broader
approaches require greater substance. In the Australian context, many writers have
undertaken colonial or state-based studies, perhaps avoiding these extremes, while some
English historians have pursued garden history on the county scale. Although a colony, state,
or county may be a useful basis to examine a garden history, these scales can often
obscure other, equally significant regional factors. In this paper, we seek to explore
how regions might be defined in the context of garden making and how a regional approach
might contribute to the study of garden history. Drawing on the fields of cultural geography,
heritage studies, and environmental history, we will consider the place of 'region' in garden
history with particular reference to an ongoing project by the authors—Garden Histories of
the West—a history of garden making in Western Australia.
Biography
Dr Ruth Morgan is an environmental historian and historian of science at Monash
University. She undertook her doctoral studies at The University of Western Australia and
her first book, Running Out? Water in Southwestern Australia, will be published by
University of Western Australia (UWA) Publishing in 2014. She was a visiting fellow at the
Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University in early 2013, and her
research has appeared in Australian and international journals,
including Osiris and Australian Historical Studies. She has been a member of the Australian
Garden History Society since 2008, and has written several pieces for its journal, Australian
Garden History.
Richard Aitken is a Melbourne-based architect, historian, and curator. He has published
widely in the field of garden history and design. These writings include editing of The Oxford
Companion to Australian Gardens (2002), five books, several book chapters, and numerous
articles. His most recent book, Cultivating Modernism: reading the modern garden 1917–
71 (2013) is published by the Miegunyah Press in association with the University of
Melbourne Library. Since 2007 he has been co-editor of Australian Garden History,
quarterly journal of the Australian Garden History Society.
Ruth and Richard are currently contracted to UWA Publishing to produce 'Garden
Histories of the West', a substantial illustrated volume exploring the history of garden
making in Western Australia.
20
Session 2 (continued) 3.00-4.20
Paper 2:
Gardens, history and the designer: A more comprehensive interpretation of
the artefact
Ian Henderson
Questions whether gardens have or even can have meaning have occupied a number of
writers. A commonly voiced argument is that the gardens of the early 20th century
Modernist programme did not contain meaning because they were solely concerned with
form and social function. Rod Barnett has argued that the terms of reference for such a
stance were no longer relevant in an age of expanding plurality. Nevertheless, he maintains
the designers of these gardens continued to search for signification, even if in a less than
explicit way. However he suggests that the designers of these landscapes were not consulted
on their efforts.
This paper considers the contribution landscape designers might make to garden
historiography. Between feral landscape and a garden lies intent. Such intent is formulated
within a framework that includes client‘s desires, the site conditions, historical precedents,
and the designer‘s skill sets. These latter include: knowledge of relevant material (including
plant material) and engineering, the synthesis of spatial organisation, theories of perception,
how people experience gardens, making concepts manifest in concrete terms, and
prioritising a wide range of variables in a design process. Design thinking, especially of
landscapes, involves confronting complexity, ambiguity and uncertainties. Transposing these
to interpretations of historic gardens can add dimensions to their reading different from the
existing historiography.
Biography
Ian has been a landscape designer, educator and consultant for 25 years. He has taught at
Unitec Institute of Technology in the Department of Landscape Architecture for 16 years. His
major focus of teaching is in design studio. Ian was the founding President of the Garden
Design Society of New Zealand, and has been the Secretary to the Accreditation Board of the
Society for 11years. He was on the Editorial Board of Landscaping New Zealand from 2002 to
2005.
Ian‘s research interests include: designing with change in gardens; Japanese karesansui (dry
raked) gardens; the role of gardens as cultural artefacts, and the use of 'other' cultural
expressions as design generators; land and indigeneity in New Zealand; public/private
transitions; making gardens, installations and artefacts as both designer and maker.
21
Paper 3:
Reflections on the Design and Future Planning of Hamilton Gardens (10
minutes)
Peter Sergel
Paper 4: Poster Talk (10 minutes)
Heritage Values and Garden History Research: Christchurch Botanic Gardens
Louise Beaumont
In 2013 the Christchurch Botanic Gardens celebrated its 150th Centenary. Concurrent with
this, a conservation plan for the Gardens was completed to document the developmental
history of the place, identify and protect its heritage values, and guide its future
management.
In compiling the Gardens' biography a diverse range of sources were canvassed which
included postcard images and associated 'wish you were here' messages, newspaper copy,
poetry, oral histories, Domains Board minutes, artistic representations, aerial images,
herbarium sheets, maps, period photographs, survey field notebooks, Governmental reports,
contemporary Flickr images, newsreel archives and other historic promotional tourist
material.
Through the study of these textual and visual mediums, a number of main themes emerged
which proved to be consistent threads in the Botanic Gardens‘ lengthy and ongoing
development. This poster is a synthesis of these themes.
Biography
Louise Beaumont has an honours degree in landscape architecture and has undertaken
additional specialist heritage landscape conservation study at the University of Virginia /
Monticello Landscape Preservation Programme. As a self-employed consultant she practices
in the area of heritage landscape architecture preparing conservation plans, landscape
thematic studies and heritage inventories and assessments for territorial and regional
councils, private individuals and other heritage professionals.
She is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (NZILA), ICOMOS
New Zealand and the Professional Historians Association of New Zealand/Aotearoa
(PHANZA).
Some of her more interesting recent projects have included:
22

Landscape Conservation Plan for Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens,
Christchurch. Commissioned by Christchurch City Council.

Landscape Conservation Plan for Queen‘s Gardens, Nelson. Commissioned by Nelson
City Council.

Historical investigation and assessment of Cranmer and Latimer Squares,
Christchurch. Commissioned by Christchurch City Council.
Paper 5: Poster Talk (10 minutes)
“Endangered Gardens” a practitioners guide to New Zealand Garden History
John P. Adam
This presentation will illustrate some of the diverse historical sources and assess the
structure of the knowledge published about the New Zealand garden beginning with a review
of the British origins of Alicia Amherst/Lady Rockley, who published on garden history
(1890s) and who visited New Zealand in the 1930s, writing Wild Flowers of the Great
Dominions of the British Empire (1935). Robert Nairn‘s important 1903 lecture ‗The Early
Horticulture in New Zealand,‖ followed.
New Zealand Annual Banks Lectures by Robert Nairn (repeating that of 1903 in 1932), Dr GS
Peren (1945), Dr RC Cooper (1971) and Barbara Matthews and Conon Fraser, Gardens of
New Zealand (1975, 1983), were ‗placed on the record‘ as ‗authorative‘ period histories.
Margaret Robinson (1950s) used both newspaper and radio programmes expressing fears of
the physical loss of local gardens.
Enter the Conservation Plan in the early 1990s, adopting multiple specialist disciplines that
described the ‗significance‘ of buildings and associated gardens. Case studies adopting this
process that the author‘s business has worked on include: Albert Park, Te Aroha Domain,
Waitangi Treaty House grounds, The Elms, The Pah farm, Western Park and Whare Tane
will be reviewed."
Biography
John P. Adam has been a self-employed landscape historian since 1998, and runs
Endangered Gardens. He has worked with New Zealand‘s leading heritage consultants on
projects, including thematic studies on site specific Conservation Plans from Dunedin to
Auckland. He graduated from the University of Auckland in 2000 with a Graduate Diploma
in Arts in Anthropology. In December 2002 he was jointly awarded, with Matthew Bradbury
of the landscape architecture programme at UNITEC, Auckland, a New Zealand Fulbright
Fellowship to pursue a joint research project on the American career of landscape architect,
Fred Tschopp (1905-1980). In 2006 he was awarded a grant with Louise Beaumont a Stanley
Smith Horticultural Trust (UK) to research the history of medicinal gardens and plants in
nineteenth-century New Zealand and their links to Australia, USA and UK. He received the
Garden History Medal this same year from the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture.
23
4.30-c.5.30
Book Launch
24
From 6.30 p.m.
Conference Dinner:
The Good George
http://www.goodgeorge.co.nz/
Phone: 07 847 3223
32A Somerset Street, Frankton, Hamilton
25
FRIDAY
Session 1:
9.30-10.50; 11.20-12.00
GARDENS AS CULTURAL SPACES AND CULTURAL CAPITAL
Chair: Ruth Morgan
Paper 1:
Reading in the Garden: the Little Mountain Hall Collection as Case Study
Duncan Campbell
The late imperial Chinese private library, more often than not, was found within the walls of
a secluded garden in one or other of the urban centres of Jiangnan. As part of a larger project
to do with the history of the private library in China and through the reading of the available
documentary evidence, this paper will discuss the vicissitudes of one particular collection,
that of the Qi 祁 family of Shanyin, as items from this library made their way from Qi
Biaojia‘s 祁彪佳(1602-1645) Library of the Eight Principles of Book Acquisition (Baqiu lou 八求
樓) in his Allegory Mountain (Yushan 寓山) into that of Zhao Yu 趙昱(1689-1747) in Hangzhou,
his Little Mountain Hall (Xiaoshan tang 小山堂) in the Garden of the Spring Grasses
(Chuncao yuan 春草園).
In doing so, I will propose a reading of the private garden of the Qing dynasty (1368-1644)
(and the libraries within these gardens especially) as a critical ―contact zone‖ wherein the
newly installed (and foreign) ruling Manchu elite adopted and appropriated Han literary and
artistic culture. Methodologically, I will seek to bring into dialogue the disciplines of book
history and garden history.
Biography
Duncan M. Campbell, a Wellingtonian, has taught aspects of traditional Chinese culture
and thought, late imperial Chinese history, classical Chinese language and literature, and
translation at the Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Auckland,
and Victoria University of Wellington. His research focuses on the literary and material
culture of the late imperial period, with specific areas of interest including: gardens and their
literary and pictorial representation, letter writing and diaries, travel and travel writing,
aspects of print culture, the history of the late imperial private library, and biographical and
autobiographical writing.
26
Paper 2:
The Japanese Tea Garden: a site of cultural negotiation
Richard Bullen
The custom of preparing and drinking powdered green tea in Japan had its source in the
dominant cultural power of China, instigated by Myōan Eisai who returned to Japan with
green tea from study of Chan (Jp. Zen) in China, in 1191. From then until the age of the
masters attributed with crystallising the practices of the ‗Tea ceremony‘ (chanoyu) in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and through to the present day, the rules and
conventions which define the customs have evolved through the negotiation of powerful
cultural ideas developed in China, and the cultural satellite‘s own ‗indigenous‘ norms, as well
as ideas from the Korean peninsula and the West. The gardens in which buildings designed
for the practice of the Tea ceremony are set are a complex site of the meeting of cultures—
where the foreign is selected and adapted to Japanese cultural norms and preferences. This
paper examines the sources of Tea gardens‘ designs in aesthetic and spiritual ideas
developed in China, and Japanese spiritual and cultural norms, with their manifestations
and encounters in the gardens.
Biography
Richard Bullen is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the University of
Canterbury, where he teaches Japanese art history and aesthetics. In 2009, he curated an
exhibition of ukiyo-e at the Canterbury Museum, and edited an accompanying publication,
Pleasure and Play in Edo Japan. He has published in international fora on the Tea
ceremony and its aesthetics. In 2013, he and Dr. James Beattie were awarded a Marsden
Grant to undertake research on the Canterbury Museum‘s Rewi Alley Collection of Chinese
artefacts.
27
Paper 3:
Thomas McDonnell‟s opium: Circulating Plants, Patronage and Power in
Britain, China and New Zealand, 1830s-1850s
James Beattie
...it seemed to me exceedingly peculiar that a man should love flowers as well as
opium—and yet I see now that there is no contradiction in this, for are they not
perhaps both a means to a kind of intoxication? Could it not even be said that one
might lead inevitably to the other? Certainly there could be no opium without
flowers—and what else do dragon-chasers dream but of gardens of unearthly delight.
Amitav Ghosh, River of Smoke
The British Empire was an empire of botany as much as it was an empire of trade and
conquest. Eventually stretching from Asia to Africa, North America to New Zealand, Britain‘s
Botanic Empire—both informal and formal—satisfied the addictive pleasures of gardenmaking and plant collecting enjoyed by countless individuals, including by Thomas
McDonnell (1788–1864) in 1830s-1850s New Zealand. This paper examines how opium
trading and Empire provided McDonnell with the stimulus, means and opportunities of
feeding an intoxicating botanical addiction to the flora of India and China. Taken together,
his garden-making and plant collecting in New Zealand illustrate the myriad ways in which
the natural world could be consumed as scientific text, as botanical specimen, as living plant,
and as part of a garden.
More specifically, this paper demonstrates how garden plants and natural history specimens
could take on different and sometimes competing values through circulation in different
cultures. If in New Zealand McDonnell‘s reputation derived from access to exotic plants,
then in Britain, this paper argues, his image as an explorer and plant collector rested solely
upon easy access to New Zealand plants growing beyond the boundary of his garden. Plants
and animals, otherwise worthless in their natural setting in New Zealand, attained new
value—and meaning—when collected and prepared as ‗scientific specimens‘ and sent to
Britain.
Biography
James is Senior Lecturer, University of Waikato, where he is the inaugural Director of the
University‘s Historical Research Unit. Fascinated by the different cultural meanings given to
plants and gardens around the world, James also writes on environmental change in the
British Empire and is especially interested in its interactions with East Asia. Forthcoming coedited works include Eco-cultural Networks in the British Empire: New Perspectives on
Environmental History (Bloomsbury) and Climate, Science, and Colonization: Histories
from Australia and New Zealand (Palgrave Macmillan US). He is also co-editor of the new
―Palgrave world environmental history book series.‖ He is presently working with Richard
Bullen on a biography and exhibition of the Chinese art collector, W.H. Youren, and with
Richard and Duncan Campbell on a Royal Society-funded project on Chinese art and cultural
diplomacy.
28
Session 2:
1.00-2.10
PARKS AND ORNAMENTS
Chair: Bruce Clarkson
Paper 1:
W.W. Smith and the Transformation of the Ashburton Domain „from a
wilderness into a beauty spot‟ 1894 to 1904
Michael Roche
A domain comprising public gardens and playing fields was included in the original 1861
plans for Ashburton, a town located centrally on the Canterbury Plains. The district, in the
1860s, was covered in low tussock grass and the rural economy dominated by extensive
pastoral farming. The town expanded as a rural service centre, after the growth of a
refrigerated lamb export trade in the 1890s. Although development of the Ashburton
Domain commenced somewhat haphazardly in the 1870s some of the defining efforts
awaited the curatorship of W.W. Smith (1894 to 1904). A Scots trained gardener, previously
foreman gardener at Burghley House in the United Kingdom, Smith was also an
accomplished natural historian. His time at Ashburton Domain presents an interesting
interplay between his efforts to recreate picturesque landscapes on European lines, with
limitations on the availability of plants, and his own emerging engagement with the
indigenous fauna and flora. The latter interaction gained fullest expression in his curatorship
of Pukekura Park in New Plymouth (1908 to 1920), but his time in Ashburton, immediately
before he served on the Scenery Preservation Commission (1904-06), merits closer attention
because this was his first public role, because local town folks applauded his efforts for
creating beauty out of a wilderness, and with variations this settler encounter with the New
Zealand environment was replayed with variations in towns and cities across the country.
Biography
Michael Roche is Professor of Geography in the School of People Environment and
Planning, Massey University, Palmerston North. An historical geographer, he has written on
forestry and the timber industry in New Zealand and the expansion of colonial forestry to
Australia and New Zealand. Other recent research has included the WWI soldier settlement
scheme in New Zealand and the history of university geography in New Zealand. He has
contributed to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Historical Atlas of New Zealand,
Te Ara, and Environmental Histories of New Zealand.
29
Paper 2:
The Cultural History of the Garden Gnome in New Zealand: From Theft to
Celebrity, 1930-1996
Ian Duggan
Garden gnomes—long ignored by garden historians—are now starting to gain academic
attention, particularly in England. However, little is known of their usage and popularity
elsewhere, including New Zealand. This paper will address this lacuna, by examining their
introduction and cultural significance in New Zealand.
The first purpose-built gnomes constructed for outdoor use globally date to around 1840,
from Germany, and were exported across Europe and to America by 1860. Popular in
English stately homes by the late 1800s, they fell from fashion after WWI due to their
German association. By the 1930s, popularity of gnomes in England again increased,
although they now occurred primarily in suburban settings. Widespread availability of
gnomes in New Zealand coincided with this English resurgence. Important in New Zealand
initially were terra cotta figures made by German manufacturers. These were likely to have
been unaffordable to many at this time, with prices ranging from 29s.6d., for a modest 12inch gnome, to 99s.6d for a 29-inch gnome.
The major theme in published records of gnomes in New Zealand is of ―theft‖, with
advertisements appearing in newspapers as early as the mid-1930s pleading for their return.
Yet their persistence and importance in New Zealand culture is indicated by the hosting of
the ―First International Gnome Convention‖ in Christchurch in 1996. At this time, the
earliest surviving gnome from England— ―Lampy‖, from the Lamport Hall collection of the
late 1800s, and regarded as the world‘s most famous gnome—visited New Zealand.
Biography
An ecologist and invasion biologist, Ian is Senior Lecturer in Biology at the University of
Waikato. He has published many papers on aquatic invasion biology, and has a research
interest in marine environment history. His research has also included the examination of
botanical gardens as sources of non-native zooplankton, and the mechanisms and
motivations for transporting them into New Zealand. He has a keen interest in garden
gnomes.
30
Session 3:
2.40-3.30
ROUNDATBLE:
THEMES, CONTEXTS, AND PUBLISHING
A discussion focused on conference themes, future research directions, and possible
publication options arising from the symposium.
31
Session 4:
3.30-c.4.30
BACKYARD CRICKET WIND-DOWN (Weather permitting)
As is now traditional with symposia organized by James, you are cordially invited to drinks
and a spot of tennis ball cricket on the Rhododendron Lawn, Hamilton Gardens (11b on your
map).
THANKS TO:
Peter Sergel, Amanda Graham, Hamilton Gardens
History Programme, University of Waikato
Kylie Nichol, FASS, University of Waikato
Jo Bishop, History, University of Waikato
Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Contestable Research Grant