Gladioli envy and the Melbourne Botanic Gardens' native plant project

摘要

Between 1949 and 1957 an experiment to improve and develop Australian plants was conducted at Melbourne Botanic Gardens ahd this ultimately unsuccessful project raised many issues around the horticultural use of Australian plant species during the immediate post-war years. In the aftermath of Depression and a second world war many in Australia held the view that 'life needed to be different'.2 Change was needed across the board—from updating primary industry to upgrading living standards—with the expansion of suburbia seen as a key to the nation's development.3 The ultimate aim of the experiment at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens during 1949-57 to improve and develop Australian plants was to popularise them for use in ordinary domestic gardens.4 Thebenchmark for success in this venture was the garden variety, non-native Gladiolus. Success proved elusive, but the project is instructive. It reveals attitudes held within the Melbourne Botanic Gardens to Australian plants as garden subjects at a certain moment in history. In particular, in its use of Gladiolus as a yardstick, the project demonstrates the extent to which understandings of horticultural Australianness held within the institution were fashioned by the mores of suburbia as well as influences derived from elsewhere.