Menu
Boom & Bust: Gardens & Yards
In 1891, Mr. Soutter gave a lecture at St. Paul's School room on Bush-Houses and Cottage Gardening. He told the audience that:
a bush-house was simply a shade garden where tender plants could be grown that refused to exist in more exposed positions. The first half of his lecture was about the bush-house which was quite a modern innovation in Australia at the time, but was common in India. The second half of the lecture was about cottage gardens. He said the man who planted a hedge or sowed a patch of grass in front of his house laid a more certain foundation for enjoyment than the man who built a wall or made a road. “In a cottage garden, the speaker said, you cannot have an orchard, a vineyard, a vegetable garden, a flower garden, a lawn, and a shrubbery, of any extent, still you may have a little of all.” He suggested a few grape vines, three or four plum or pear trees, a few choice fruit trees, strawberries, cape gooseberries and rosellas and small plots of vegetables such as salads and herbs with a small border of flowers in odd corners for decoration.
In the 1890s people had the opportunity to enter their gardens in a cottage garden competition. In 1896, there were five entries in the best kept cottage garden section. The winner was Mrs. R. H. S. Mc Dowell for her flower-beds in the front of her house and the neatness of her vegetable plots in Grey Street.
In 1897, the Ipswich and West Moreton Agricultural Society met to consider the future working of the competitions. They determined that a cottage garden was no more than one acre of ground, and had to have a cottage on some part of it. Points were awarded out of 100: 25 points for vegetables, 20 points for flowers, 20 points for fruit, 20 points for taste, 15 points for cleanliness and health.
The following year, the judge of the competition, Mr. Gorrie commented that:
Real beauty in a cottage flower garden ought to consist of a selection of flowers, whose colours are well contrasted, and well blended, and which harmonise as perfectly as possible; and the whole effect ought to be pleasing and natural looking. Little beds laid out geometrically and surrounded with tiles and most of the plants tied up to stakes, and with the colors mixed anyhow are neither natural nor artistic.
