March in the Garden - Trisha's Meanderings
Visiting Edna Walling designed Markdale Garden
What an absolute delight it was to visit one of Australia’s most acclaimed landscape designers’ gardens on the weekend. Edna Walling designed the wonderful country garden of Markdale, west of Goulburn near Binda, in 1947. It was one of her later gardens, designed before she left Victoria to move to Buderim in Queensland.
Edna’s clients were loyal to the end and, in a number of instances, she designed several gardens for the same family or for different members of the same family. After designing Markdale for Geoff and Janet Ashton, she went on to Millamalong at Mandurama to create another garden for the polo-playing Ashton family.
Edna Walling's Portrait taken by Daphne Pearson | Photography State Library Victoria.
The Spirit of a Garden
When gardens change hands, they can easily lose their essence. Thankfully at Markdale the new owners have had the wisdom and sensibility to embrace Edna’s philosophy. They have employed a highly experienced gardener who, rather than wanting to leave his own mark on the garden, has respectfully bowed to Edna’s genius and the original plan.
Instead of introducing a whole new palette of plants, he simply digs plants from one part of the garden to fill in another. In doing so, he has preserved the gentle harmony of the garden and its signature Walling plantings.
The Vision of Edna Walling: Garden plans 1920 - 1951
Gardens to Be In
Edna Walling truly changed the nature of gardening in Australia from the 1920s onwards through her designs, her writings, her beautifully crafted plans and her photographs. She moved Australian gardens away from “look at me” displays and instead created gardens that people wanted to inhabit.
Gardens to relax in, to sit in, to share meals and drinks in, to lie on the lawn, to wander through, explore and find peace and tranquillity.
‘Downderry’ cottage in Edna Walling’s Bickleigh Vale. This cottage was built in the early 1920s. (Photography: Erik Holt)
To achieve this, she used simple plants, with green and grey as the dominant colours. In cooler climates she chose plants with interesting berries, hips or crabs such as medlars, spindle berries, crabapples and rugosa roses. She also loved the trunks of trees such as eucalypts, silver birch, aspen and Chinese elms.
Let Nature Be Our Teacher
“Let nature be our teacher” was her guiding philosophy. Although English-born, she wholeheartedly embraced the native plants of Australia and foreshadowed many of the ecological principles that have become central to landscape design in the latter half of the twentieth century.
GARDEN WITH LE SAC
In her country gardens she loved the idea of “borrowed landscapes” — glimpses, views and vistas into the countryside beyond the garden boundary.
This is beautifully evident at Markdale, a large grazing property where old stone and corrugated iron buildings have been converted into guest accommodation. It is now possible to spend a weekend there wandering through the garden, far from the madding crowd.
Trisha x
The Vision of Edna Walling by Trisha Dixon and Jennie Churchill book features major work and designs by Edna Walling
