Flower power: George Smith, an Adelaide landscape gardener

Monday 17 June 2013

Flower power: George Smith, an Adelaide landscape gardener

Presented by Kate Walsh

Flower Power focuses on the life and work of an Adelaide Hills landscape gardener and nurseryman, George Smith. He was one of a band of gardeners and nurserymen who, through their passion for flowers and ornamental trees, transformed the physical, visual and cultural landscape of the hills into what we might refer to as a ‘re-created England’. In the decades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, George and other gardeners worked for members of Adelaide’s upper classes who built large mansions in park-like settings, in the style of grand English estates. He moved in a collaborative yet fiercely competitive world. Landscape gardeners took their flowers and their skills seriously.

Kate Walsh is a member of the Professional Historians Association (SA Branch) and our own BHS. From 1985 until retirement in 2008 Kate worked as an historian, curator and public programs manager for History SA, focusing on South Australia’s immigration history, and museums and collections management. She is currently working on a research project on early 20th century Adelaide’s destitute and mental asylums and the women in distress who came under their institutional care. She has also researched and published on aspects of the history of the Adelaide Hills.

Record of Meeting

View the record of all past meetings which details all talks given at meetings by guest speakers since our foundation in 1980. Most meetings since 1985 have been recorded.

No.*BTddocDateTopic, Speaker, Detail
361T17/6/2013

Flower power: George Smith, an Adelaide landscape gardener

Presented by Kate Walsh

Flower Power focuses on the life and work of an Adelaide Hills landscape gardener and nurseryman, George Smith. He was…

Legend

B: Burnside topic

T: tape

d: disc

doc: pdf document

*: on location

Disc and Tape recordings available in the Local History Room