Home › Garden Collections › Cultivar Collection › Victorian Flower Garden
Victorian Flower Garden
Explore | View images of this garden
In the Victorian Flower Garden there are really two themes. Firstly, the garden and Greenhouses featuring plants bred for colour and curiosity; and secondly, a 19th century garden in the English gardenesque tradition. This kind of design does not seek to emulate nature. Instead it is a display of the skill of the gardener, for example, in the care of exotic plants or the perfectly clipped lawn. | |  |
Read more
In some respects this garden could equally be considered one of the Paradise Garden Collection but its location and form have evolved from the existing garden features that were largely developed in the early 1960's. This included many of the elements typical of the gardenesque tradition such as greenhouses, 'smooth' lawn, some novelty specimen trees, formal bedding, mixed borders, shrubbery, and curved gravel walks. From the late 19th century till the 1960's municipal parks generally preserved the Victorian gardenesque style but since the 1960's many have been lost to changing tastes and the pressure to reduce maintenance. While the Bunya Bunya is the only element of notable value that must be preserved, examples of this style of garden will become increasingly rare and worthy of preservation. | | Background When Hamilton Gardens was officially opened in 1960 it consisted of the four acres that currently make up the Victorian Flower Garden and the Hammond Camellia Garden. Over time the Hamilton Gardens site expanded, but the original four acres were left much as they were when originally laid out. Little Bull was installed in 1965. |
