A family worth knowing

I recently came across a cheaply priced booklet at a book sale about the large and diverse Acanthus family. For those who like informative books about ornamental gardening without the bells and whistles this little reference will certainly delight. The author extols the charms of the many ornamental plants of the Acanthaceae family, a large tribe best known by the well-known cool climate Acanthus or oyster plant.

Apart from Acanthus, this family includes many brassy sub-shrubs, such as Justicia and Megaskepasma, that love frost-free warm temperate climates. While this booklet is aimed at a Sydney audience it will also appeal to gardeners in similar climatic locations around Australia. My only criticism of the recommendations was the lack of warning of the weed potential of some members of the Ruellia genus in this family.

With the exception of Acanthus most of Mowat's recommendations are generally not available at most plant nurseries as when young these plants lack flowering charm. The author suggests sourcing plants at the excellent Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens plant nursery in Sydney. It would have been helpful that other specialist nurseries selling these plants were listed. Despite a couple of minor gripes I highly recommend this booklet.

Meet the family Acanthaceae: easy going plants for Sydney gardens
By Deirdre Mowat [2012]
Self published
31 pages, softback, RRP $12 (including delivery) from authors website igarden.com.au/acanthus.jsp

Vintage views of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

An early 20th century view of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Many years ago I came across a book titled Postcards from Kew. This well illustrated work highlighted a collection of old postcards of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London. Inspired I decided to search for similar postcards showing views of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (RBG). Within weeks I had discovered a couple of dozen images dating from the early years of the last century. As a garden historian I was intrigued by these images and went in search of more at markets and postcard fairs. Within a couple of years I had a collection of several hundred cards. Clearly the botanic gardens in Sydney was just as popular with postcard collectors as was Kew.

In this beautifully printed German card we see a
 glimpse of Sydney Harbour from the Botanic Gardens

Several years ago I showed part of my collection to Judy Blood and Miguel Garcia of the RBG research library. Fascinated by these images they asked permission to scan the works for research purposes. Recently a series of these images have been printed by the RBG for sale at their bookshop. Many of thepostcards used come from my collection while others come from the album of RBG guide Jenny Pattison, a fellow postcard collector. The ‘Vintage Views’ cards sell for $1, and there are mounted prints which sell for a very reasonable $9.95. These images were recently used in an interactive walk in the gardens where the vintage views where set up at the same spot where the original photographs were taken.

In the back ground of this postcard
is the Chess Pavillion built in 1897

One of my cards being used in the Vintage Views
 self-guided walk at the Royal Botanic Gardens.
While the Chess Pavillion is still on site the ornamental
 fountain in the postcard image is long gone

Why we think of the brief text based message as correspondence from our time - think of  Twitter, SMS and e-mail - but the succinct message dates from the mid 19^th century when the telegram was invented. Later in the century the postcard was introduced. The collecting of postcards became a craze around the world from the 1890s to the time of World War One and many photographers and publishers produced cards with tempting images of people and places, including public parks and gardens.

Classically inspired statuary near the Levy Fountain

Swiss printed view of the Botanical Gardens
looking east towards the palm grove

While most of my postcard images are Sydney based I also have some fine views of other towns and cities in Australia and around the world. Every few weeks I will post some more postcard images from my collection.  Any requests?