On the forecourt of the Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Garden is an artwork celebrating the heritage of Indigenous culture.
Artists Susan Grant, Natalie Valiente and Codie Leed Evans developed artwork installed in 2023 after the conceptualisation and design work. The images were sandblasted into the concrete on the Herbarium forecourt. The work was supported by the New South Wales Government.
The artwork Life Blood has been sandblasted into the concrete forecourt of the Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, NSW (I Willis, 2023)
The artwork celebrates the Cumberland Plains Woodland that once covered the Cowpastures. The work directly connects science, the natural world, and the heritage of the local Indigenous peoples, the Dharawal, Darug, and Gundungurra.
The central concept and motif in the artwork is the eucalyptus tree, which becomes the Life Blood of the Indigenous peoples.
The artists were inspired by looking at a eucalyptus tree under a microscope and viewing the veins in the leaves.
In the work’s development stages, the artists held workshops and information sessions seeking input.
The site of the Australian Botanic Garden was a meeting place for the Indigenous peoples and was considered an appropriate location for the artwork.
Susan Grant writes:
We have a spiritual connection whenever we are in the botanical gardens, which influences our design and artwork, connecting us back to the land.
Reference
Susan Grant and Natalie Valiente 2023, ‘Artwork ‘Life Blood’ at The Australian Botanic Gardens’. Camden History, the Journal of the Camden Historical Society, Vol. 5 no. 5, March, pp. 225-233.
Ferguson’s Nursery at Hurstville, Mittagong and Sylvania
During the post-war years, Ferguson’s Nurseries continued to be located on Sydney’s urban fringe as the metropolitan area expanded into the rural surrounds.
Hurstville nursery prospered then closed, another opened on the urban fringe at Sylvania, a cold-climate nursery opened at Mittagong, and the Camden nursery closed.
In the mid-1960s, the family sold the business to new owners who continued to use the Ferguson nurseries as a trading name.
Significance
The importance of the colonial legacy of Francis Ferguson is emphasised in July McMaugh’s Living Horticulture. She only lists four New South Wales 19th colonial horticulturalists of significance, one of whom is Ferguson.
The Camden Nursery site remains quite significant in the history of the Australian nursery industry. Morris and Britton maintain that the site is
A rare remnant of an important and influential colonial nursery from the late 1850s and includes a collection of 19th century plantings and is a landmark in the local area. (Morris and Britton 2000)
Camden Nursery site
The Camden Nursery on the Nepean River stopped operating in the immediate post-war years, and the nursery headquarters relocated to Hurstville.
In 1937 Camden Municipal Council rejected an offer from Ferguson’s nurseries of 100 rose bushes for planting in Macarthur Park. The council did not want the nursery to take cuttings from the park’s rose bushes. (Camden News, 13 May 1937)
In the 1930s, the Camden press reported that Ferguson’s nurseries had purchased the property of W Moore between the Old Southern Road and the Hume Highway (Camden News, 11 April 1935). This was in the vicinity of Little Street. (Cole, CHS, 1989) This is likely the 1937 outlet fronting the Hume Highway in Camden and still operating in 1944. (Camden News, 18 February 1937, 17 February 1944)
The Camden Nursery outlet had stopped trading by 1946. The Camden press reported an application to connect the electricity supply to RB Ferguson’s property at the ‘the Old Nursery’. (Camden News, 19 December 1946, 27 November 1947)
Hurstville Nursery
By the mid-1950s, the nursery was trading as F Ferguson & Son, headquartered at Hurstville with branches at Sylvania and Mittagong. (Sun Herald, 13 September 1953)
Operations for Ferguson’s Nurseries were centralised at the Hurstville nursery in the post-war years, and the area around the nursery became known as Kingsgrove.
There was growth in the area following the opening of Kingsgrove Railway Station in 1931. Sydney’s residential development followed the development of suburban railway lines.
There was increased growth in the Hurstville area in the post-war years, with increased housing and rising land values.
The NSW Housing Commission built over 200 homes on the Ferguson Nursery Estate at Kingsgrove. (St George Call (Kogarah) 21 September 1945)
In the 1957 Plant Catalogue, the nursery indicates that the business had a Kingsgrove address and had branches at Sylvania and Mittagong (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
1957 Plant Catalogue
In the 1957 Plant Catalogue of 54 pages, the nursery listed a Kingsgrove address and branches at Sylvania and Mittagong (Ferguson Nursery 1957). The catalogue listed plant stock for sale with advice for the gardener to achieve the best results.
Cover of Ferguson’s Nursery Trade Catalogue for 1957 trading as F Ferguson & Sons (Camden Museum Archives)
The catalogue listed for sale: fruit trees; Australian trees and shrubs; flowering plants including roses, camellias (51 varieties), azaleas, hibiscus; conifers; ornamental trees; palms and cycads (varieties from California, Canary Islands, Siam, South America, India, China and Japan).
Amongst the fruit trees, the catalogue listed apples, apricots, citrus (cumquats, oranges, lemons, mandarins, grapefruit), nectarines, passionfruit, peaches, pears, plums (English, Japanese), prunes, quinces, as well as almonds and walnuts.
Roses were a speciality and included novelty roses for 1957, standard roses and others. The catalogue advised gardeners to achieve the best results with roses, particularly with planting and pruning. (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
Under Australian trees and shrubs, the catalogue stated:
Australia is endowed with of indigenous Trees and Shrubs that are entirely different and considered by many far superior to anything else in the world. Nothing is more useful for Parks, School Grounds, etc, that some of out Native Flora, and certainly nothing is more hardy or topical. (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
Fergusons offered a landscaping service to
assist and advise you in the correct formation and setting-out of Lawns, Drives, Shrubberies, also in the correct selection of suitable Shrubs, Roses, and all kinds of Flowering Plants, so that the ultimate results will be charming. (Ferguson Nursery 1957) (Ferguson 1957)
Sylvania Nursery
111 Port Hacking Road, Sylvania
In the post-war years, Fergusons Nurserys followed Sydney’s urban fringe and established a new nursery south of Hurstville in the Sutherland Shire at Sylvania.
Sutherland Shire was growing in the late mid-20th century. McDowells opened a department store at Caringbah in 1961, Miranda Fair Shopping Centre opened in 1964, the new Sutherland District Hospital opened in 1958, and the Sutherland Daily Leader was launched with its first edition on 29 June 1960. (Sutherland Shire Library)
The first mention of the Sylvania nursery in the Sydney press was in 1955 when Fergusons placed an advertisement for contractors to provide a quote to build a fibro cottage on the nursery site at 111 Port Hacking Road. (SMH, 1 October 1955)
The nursery opened for trading in 1961. A story in the Sutherland press about the history of the Ferguson Nursery group. (Sutherland Daily Leader, 26 April 1961)
Nurseryman Rex Jurd conducted the management of the Sylvania nursery. (McMaugh 2005:252) (McMaugh 2005)
Nurseryman Jurd recalled that Francis Ferguson’s granddaughter, Nancy, and her husband lived on the site. He said, ‘It seemed to Rex that they had little interest in the business’.
‘It was run down, and he spent two years there fixing it up and replacing all the plant material’, wrote Judy McMaugh.
The Sylvania Nursery extended from Port Hacking Road to the waterfront on Gwawley Bay (now Sylvania Waters) (McMaugh 2005: 252-253). According to Jurd, the nursery was not clearly visible to on-coming traffic and was on the low side of the road and suffered from ‘few customers’.
Jurd, a fellow student with well-known Sydney nurseryman Valerie Swain at Ryde School of Horticulture, left Fergusons in 1959 and started working for Smart’s Nurseries at Gordon. (McMaugh 2005: 252-253)
The Sylvania Nurserywas sold to the Pike family in 1966 and became part of Ferguson Garden Centre Pty Ltd. The new business retained the Ferguson name as part of the sale. (Sutherland Daily Leader, 16 May 1966)
The advice page for gardeners who purchased roses from Ferguson’s Nursery for their care and maintenance of roses. Trade catalogue for F Ferguson and Sons (Camden Museum Archives)
Mittagong Nursery
Hume Highway (then Old Hume Highway, then Ferguson Cres) Mittagong
Ferguson’s Nurseries developed a cold-climate nursery at Mittagong in 1939 and developed under the management of nurseryman Arthur Carroll.
According to nurseryman Bill Starke, Arthur Carroll ‘was equipped with a draught horse, a cross-cut saw, and an axe, and basically cleared the property by hand’. (McMaugh 2005: 105)
Mr Carroll was away on active military service during the Second World War and returned in 1946 as manager of the nursery, which traded as F Ferguson and Son. (Southern Mail, 10 May 1946)
An advertisement placed in the Southern Mail newspaper for F Ferguson & Son (Southern Mail, 17 May 1946)
Bruce Ferguson sold the Mittagong nursery to the Pike family in 1970. (McMaugh 2005:363)
This is the signage for Ferguson Cres (formerly the Hume Highway, then Old Hume Highway) at the intersection with Bowral Road, Mittagong. The street was named after the old Ferguson Nursery, located further north along what is now Ferguson Crescent. (I Willis 2022)
The former site of Ferguson’s Nursery on Ferguson Crescent (formerly Hume Highway, then Old Hume Highway) at Mittagong. This aerial view shows the remnants of the Hazelwood Garden Centre, which in 2022, is a housing development site called Ferguson Estate. (CRE 2021)
New ownership and the Ferguson name continues
Bruce Ferguson sold the Sylvania Nursery in 1966. (Reeve 2017)
Jack Pike of Pikes Nurseries Rydalmere and Arch and Alan Newport of Newport Nurseries Winmalee (Springwood) were new owners. (McMaugh 2005: 320) The new ownership arrangement was incorporated in 1966 as Ferguson’s Garden Centres Pty Ltd. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October 1967).
The Pikes were innovative businessmen, and the Sydney press ran a story in 1967 that promoted the nursery as Sydney’s new ‘supergardenmarket’. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October 1967).
In 1970 the business purchased the Baulkham Hills Garden Centre and re-named it Ferguson’s Baulkham Hills Garden Centre. By 1973 the Newports had sold out to the Pike family interests. (McMaugh 2005:320, 366)
In 1974 outlets opened at Narrabeen, Warringah Mall, and the Sydney CBD. (McMaugh2005:365-366)
By the 1980s, many centres across the Sydney metropolitan area, including Baulkham Hills, Sylvania, Bonnyrigg, Narrabeen, Guilford, Mittagong in the Southern Highlands, in Victoria the Mornington Peninsular and on the far-north coast at Alstonville. (McMaugh 2005:366)
The Baulkham Hills Centre traded as Ferguson’s Garden Centres Holdings Pty Ltd and was incorporated in 1981. The nursery ceased trading in 2018, and the site was developed for residential units in 2019.
References
Ferguson, F. (1957). Ferguson’s Nursery Catalogue. Hurstville, F Ferguson & Sons.
McMaugh, J. (2005). Living Horticulture, The lives of men and women in the New South Wales nursery industry. Sydney NSW, Nursery and Garden Industry NSW & ACT.
Morris, C. and G. Britton (2000). Colonial landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden, NSW: A survey of selected pre-1860 cultural landscapes from Wollondilly to Hawkesbury LGAs. Sydney NSW, National Trust of Australia (NSW). 1 & 2.
Reeve, T. M. (2017). “‘Rawson’, Condamine Street, Campbelltown, a private residence, formerly known as ‘Marlesford’.” Grist Mills 30(2): 25-32.
Updated on 13 May 2023. Originally posted on 16 January 2022.
In 1883 the Double Bay outlet of Ferguson’s Australian Nurseries at Camden was described in the Sydney press as a ‘well-ordered establishment…covering three acres…laid out in a most systematic manner’. (Illustrated Sydney News, 14 April 1883, page 3)
The Double Bay nursery was part of the Ferguson horticultural enterprise, which started in the 1850s at Camden. Sales encouraged opening a second nursery at Campbelltown later moved to Double Bay. The 20th century brought more changes and, eventually new owners.
Ferguson’s nursery and William Macarthur’s Camden Park nursery were part of a British imperial horticultural network that satisfied the Victorians’ insatiable demand for plants. The industry was driven by plant hunting expeditions and a Victorian fetish for orchids, ferns, palms and other new plants.
The burgeoning colonial nursery industry in the Cowpastures was integral to British imperialism and the settler-colonial project. The Enlightenment notions of progress and development were good for business and reinforced the dispossession and displacement of the Dharawal people from their country.
Nurseryman Francis Ferguson
The Camden nursery was established in 1857 by Englishman Francis Ferguson on a 50-acre site fronting the Nepean River. Francis came out to New South Wales as an assisted immigrant in 1849 on the John Bright after working at Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire and other English estates. Initially, he worked for Sir Thomas Mitchell, laying out his estate at Parkhall (later Nepean Towers, St Mary’s Towers) at Douglas Park. (Morris and Britton 2000)
Historian Alan Atkinson describes Ferguson as ‘a man of education, some capital and mercurial habits’. (Atkinson, 1988)
Signage at the entry to Ferguson Lane, the location of the former Ferguson’s Australian Nursery at Camden (I Willis 2021)
Ferguson was head gardener at Camden Park Estate for William Macarthur (later Sir William) from 1849-1856 and could be styled as a Macarthur protege. (Reeve 2017) The Camden Park website maintains that William Macarthur ran one of the most important nurseries in 19th-century New South Wales. According to visiting English nurseryman John Gould (JG) Veitch, Macarthur was well known in Europe. Veitch Nurseries were reportedly the largest family-run plant nurseries in 19th-century Europe.
Ferguson remained indebted to the patronage of William Macarthur (Morris and Britton 2000) and his experience at Camden Park and acted on Macarthur’s behalf when he was not in Australia. (WCL 2021)
In 1864 a 25-year-old JG Veitch (Financial Times, 27 September 2014) led a plant hunting expedition to the ‘South Seas’ and delivered several Wardian cases to Australian colonial contacts. While in New South Wales, he visited William Macarthur’s Camden Park nursery and Fergusons Australian Nursery, which impressed him. For a time, Ferguson acted as an agent for James Veitch and Sons nurseries. (Morris and Britton 2000; McMaugh 2005)
Fruit trees, camellias and roses
Francis Ferguson opened the Camden nursery sometime in 1857 (Nixon 1991; Little 1977; Farmer and Settler, 8 July 1937, 15 July 1937), and it became the centre of a growing horticultural enterprise that extended well beyond the area.
The Ferguson nursery was located on the left bank of the Nepean River at the Macquarie Grove river-crossing on the northern boundary of Camden Park estate. The nursery site had an east-west alignment with a 600-metre river frontage along its northern boundary ending at Matahil Creek to the east, with the Ferguson homestead on the rise to the southwest.
The homestead had ‘a fine view’ of the Camden township to the northeast with the spire of St John’s Church and allowed a ‘glimpse of Camden Park house in the distance’ to the southeast. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)
According to Alan Atkinson, the Australian Nursery specialised in ‘trees “peculiarly adapted to the requirements of Australia”, together will shrubs and native seeds’. (Atkinson, 1988)
According to an 1880 Sydney press report, the nursery was about eight acres in extent with ‘a long avenue’ terminating at a ‘large gate’ below the house ‘making a very nice carriage drive’. There were ‘very well laid out walks’ throughout the nursery, surrounded by ‘gigantic pines, araucarias, and poplars’. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)
Remnant Araucarias that were on the southwestern boundary of Fergusons Australian Nursery. They made up the grove of trees that lined the driveway entrance to the Macquarie House next door to the nursery. (I Willis, 2021)
Reports indicate that in 1879 Fergusons sold over 60,000 fruit trees and 5,000 camellias (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68). The nursery plant stock comprised over 6000 camellias and 100,000 hawthorn seedlings. (Ferguson 1871)
In 1871 issued, a series of five trade catalogues listed plant stock for sale. The catalogues were:
New and Rare Plants
Hardy Trees, Shrubs and Conifers
Fruit Trees, with directions for forming the orchard.
Roses
Bulbs and Tubers. (Ferguson 1871)
The ‘Catalogue of New and Rare Plants’ listed over 950 individual plants and was a mixture of native plants from the Australian continent and exotics from worldwide. The catalogue listed numerous popular flowering plants, including roses, camellias, azaleas, pelargoniums and chrysanthemums, fuchsias, carnations, and dahlias. Utilitarian plants included ‘trees for avenues’ and ‘hawthorn for hedges’. Under the heading of ‘trees and shrubs’, details listed the plants’ ‘scientific name’, ‘native country’, ‘height in feet’, and price. (Ferguson 1871)
Cover of Ferguson’s Trade Catalogue of New and Rare Plants for 1871 (NLA)
The Ferguson catalogue provided practical advice for the colonial gardener and a plant description. For example, ‘Araucaria Bidwilli – The Queensland Bunya Bunya, forming magnificent trees as single specimens’. Camellias were a favourite but hard to grow in the colonial climate, and details on how to look after them were provided. The hawthorn was a ‘favourite English Hedge Plant [and] thrives remarkably well in all parts of Australia, forming, undoubtedly, the best defensive hedge’. (Ferguson 1871)
Ferguson’s also offered advice on new and rare plants in the press. In 1876 the nursery published advice on the ‘rare’ Jacaranda mimosifolia described as ‘a singularly beautiful and rare flowering tree’. The report stated, ‘the Jacaranda mimosifolia is perfectly hardy in all but the coldest districts of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.’ (Australasian (Melb), 6 May 1876)
Ferguson’s sold extensively across the colonial garden market in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand, supported by 14 agents in locations ranging from Auckland to Wellington and Wanganui in New Zealand’s North Island and to Dunedin in the South Island. In Queensland, agents were listed at Warwick and Darling Downs, while those in New South Wales ranged from Bega to Mudgee and out to the Liverpool Plains. Ferguson claimed that there was an increasing demand for ‘Australian Timber Trees’ in Northern India, California, Southern Europe, and New Zealand. (Ferguson 1871)
Campbelltown Nursery
Condamine Street, Campbelltown
By the late 1860s, increasing demand and the distance from the Campbelltown railway station encouraged Ferguson to establish a nursery outlet at Campbelltown. (Ferguson 1871)
The Camden nursery was nine miles from Campbelltown Railway Station, and it took Mr H Ferguson in a buggy with a ‘fine stepper’ and an hour to get there. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)
The firm opened the Campbelltown nursery in 1869 on Condamine Street, close to the convict-built water supply reservoir. (Reeve 2017) It was stocked with 50,000 ‘well-grown healthy plants’ to supply growing demand from ‘up-country and adjacent Colonies’. (Ferguson 1871)
From 1874 the Campbelltown outlet was managed by Francis John (FJ) Ferguson, Francis’s son, who had returned from five years with English firm Veitch Nurseries at Chelsea, and the firm now traded as Francis Ferguson and Son. (Reeve 2017)
Double Bay Nursery
Manning Road and New South Head Road, Double Bay
The business continued to prosper, and FJ Ferguson moved the Campbelltown outlet closer to Sydney. A site was chosen at Double Bay on a former market garden in 1876 and opened in 1878. (WCL 2021) (Reeve 2017)
The Double Bay Nursery site had ‘a large frontage’ on New South Head Road with ‘rich deep alluvial’ soil in a low-lying area that drained into Double Bay. (Illustrated Sydney News, 14 April 1883)
By 1887 the nursery had two propagating glasshouses with impatiens and lasiandras, a bush house that accommodated a mixture of pot plants, including camellias, bouvardias, magnolias, conifers and tree ferns. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)
This is an engraving of Ferguson’s Nursery in Double Bay that appeared in the Sydney press in 1883 (Illustrated Sydney News, 14 April 1883, p. 17)
In 1885 the nursery opened a shopfront in Sydney’sRoyal Arcade, which ran between George Street and Pitt Street and had been designed by Thomas Rowe in 1881. Herbert Ferguson successfully managed the nursery shop and specialised in plants, seeds and cut flowers. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)
The Fergusons also ran a small nursery near Ashfield railway station to supply the Royal Arcade shop with cut flowers. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)
Ferguson Lane is near the former entrance to the Ferguson Australian Nursery. The lane is lined with African Olive, which is remnant vegetation with the regrowth of an Araucaria emerging from amongst the grove (I Willis, 2021)
The 20th-century beckons
The beginning of the 20th century brought more changes for the Ferguson nursery business and, by the late 1960s, new owners.
References
Atkinson, Alan (1988). Camden, Farm and Village Live in Early New South Wales. OUP, Melbourne.
Ferguson, F. (1871). Catalogue of new and rare plants, hardy trees, shrubs, conifers &c. Camden NSW, Ferguson’s Australian Nurseries. (NLA)
Little, S. (1977), Correspondence to CHS 19 February, MSS, Camden Museum Archives
McMaugh, Judy (2005). Living Horticulture, The lives of men and women in the New South Wales Nursery Industry. Nursery and Garden Industry NSW & ACT, Sydney
Morris, C. and G. Britton (2000). Colonial landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden, NSW: A survey of selected pre-1860 cultural landscapes from Wollondilly to Hawkesbury LGAs. Sydney NSW, National Trust of Australia (NSW). 1 & 2.
Nixon, RE (1991). Camden Rose Festival. Typescript, Camden Museum Archives.
Reeve, T. M. (2017). “‘Rawson’, Condamine Street, Campbelltown, a private residence, formerly known as ‘Marlesford’.” Grist Mills 30(2): 25-32.
Walking around Camden streets, you will see the current flush of purples, mauves, lilac and lavender along Argyle Street, Broughton Street, John Street, and Macarthur Park.
Jacaranda tree in bloom in Argyle Street Camden outside colonial Commercial Bank building (I Willis, 2020)
Jacarandas cause excitement amongst locals (Macarthur Chronicle, 5 November 2013)
Blooming jacarandas are regularly featured on the front page of local newspapers. (Macarthur Chronicle (Camden Edition), 5 November 2013)
Blooming jacarandas provide a purple carpet after a November shower and, in 2006, caused an unholy fuss in the local press.
What is all the fuss about?
The Camden Chamber of Commerce proposed removing and replacing 33 jacaranda trees in Argyle Street with Manchurian pear trees in 2006. The chamber suggested that shopkeepers ‘take responsibility for their maintenance’. (Macarthur Chronicle, 24 October 2006)
The Argyle Street jacarandas, planted in 1927, showed the effects of age, pollution, compaction and other problems.
The Camden mayor, Chris Patterson and Deputy Mayor David Funnell wanted to know if the community supported their replacement. He posed the question in the press: Should Camden Council replace Argyle Street’s jacaranda trees?
The answer was loud and swift.
Mayor Patterson said, ‘People stopped me on the street, rang the council and my mobile phone, to give me their views’.
‘The overwhelming response has been the jacarandas should stay, but people want the council to give them some more love and care’.
Jacaranda blooms in Argyle Street in November (2019 I Willis)
A flood of letters
The Camden press was ‘flooded with letters’, and 90% of ‘our internet poll’ wanted to trees to stay.
Letter writer M Goodwin felt the removal of the trees was ‘frivolous and unnecessary’, and Ian Turner did approve of their removal. Bob Lester had mixed views; Mrs B Thompson said the council should attend to their health, and Kylie Lyons agreed. The sentiment of many was best summarised by L Jones of Cobbitty, who said, ‘The jacaranda trees are stunning in full bloom and should not be replaced’. (Macarthur Chronicle, 31 October 2006)
Camden resident Irene Simms started a petition, and the council commissioned a report on the state of the trees by arborist David Potts. Maryann Strickling felt that the trees were part of the town’s cultural heritage and wrote, ‘The jacarandas in Argyle Street are integral to retaining the heritage of Camden’s landscape’ (Camden Advertiser, 7 November 2006).
The letters in the local press kept coming, and a letter from Elizabeth Paparo was headed ‘Purple rain is a part of our history’ and felt ‘When the bloom of the Jacaranda tree is here, Christmas time is near!’. (Macarthur Chronicle, 14 November 2006)
The Potts report was presented to the council in 2007 and stated that the trees were ‘expected to live long and healthy lives’. (Camden Advertiser, 15 August 2007)
The fuss over the trees has continued on and off, and in 2018 several local business people organised the Jacaranda Festival, which has gained considerable attention in the media.
What is the appeal of jacarandas?
The appeal of the mauve-coloured jacaranda was best summarised by the 1868 correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald.
This most beautiful flowering tree is a native of Brazil, and no garden of any pretensions can be said to be complete without a plant of it. The specimen in the Botanic garden is well worth a journey of 50 miles to see. Its beautiful rich lavender blossoms, and its light feathery foliage, render it the gem of the season. (SMH 5 December 1868)
SMH 5 December 1868
The jacaranda first appeared in Sydney around the mid-1860s. The Guardian newspaper has provided a quote from the Sydney Morning Herald of 1865
An account of the Prince of Wales’ birthday celebrations in the Sydney Morning Herald from 10 November 1865 describes admirers observing well-established trees: “Many enjoyed a stroll through the botanic gardens, which show the beneficial effects of the late rain; some of the most beautiful trees are now in luxuriant blossom, in particular the lilac flower of the Jacaranda mimosifolia is an object of much admiration.”
Jacaranda trees in bloom in Macarthur Park (I Willis 2017)
Sydney’s love of Jacaranda mimosifolia
Sydney Living Museum curator Helen Curran writes that the specimens of Jacaranda mimosifolia, the most common variety in Sydney,
was collected and returned to the Royal Gardens at Kew, England, in about 1818. One early source gives the credit to plant hunter Allan Cunningham, who was sent on from Rio de Janiero to NSW, where he would later serve, briefly, as colonial botanist.
Sydney Living Museum curator Helen Curran writes that the popularity of the jacaranda in the Sydney area owes much to the success of landscape designer Michael Guilfoyle ‘solved the problem of propagation’. He gave a paper at the Horticultural Society in 1868 and outlined the lengths he went to solve the problems around growing trees in Sydney. Guilfoyle’s Exotic Nursery at Double Bay supplied jacarandas to the ‘city’s most fashionable gardens’ and ‘many gardens in the Eastern Suburbs’. The trees became particularly popular during the Interwar period and flourished in harbourside gardens across Sydney.
One story credits November’s purple haze to the efforts of a hospital matron who sent each newborn home with a jacaranda seedling. A less romantic explanation lies in the fact the trees were a popular civic planting in the beautification programs of the early 20th century and interwar years, right up to the 1950s and 1960s.
A host of Sydney Living Museum properties featured a purple and lilac haze in November, including Vaucluse House, Elizabeth Farm and Nowra, Meroogal.
Parts of Sydney attract considerable visitors when the local jacarandas are in bloom.
The Guardian claims Australia’s love of the jacaranda was unlikely. The ultimate expression of love for the jacaranda is in Grafton NSW and the annual Jacaranda Festival.
the first jacaranda was planted in the city gardens in 1864 by Walter Hill. He says, ‘Plants grown from seeds [or] seedlings from this tree were later sent to Rockhampton and Maryborough Botanic Gardens (Queens Park).
Jacaranda trees in bloom in Menangle Road Camden (I Willis 2017)
Cultivation
Cultivation of the jacaranda is relatively easy in the climate of Eastern Australia. Wikipedia states
Jacaranda can be propagated from grafting, cuttings and seeds, though plants grown from seeds take a long time to bloom. Jacaranda grows in well-drained soil and tolerates drought and brief spells of frost and freeze.
This genus thrives in full sun and sandy soils, which explains their abundance in warmer climates. Mature plants can survive in colder climates down to −7 °C (19 °F); however, they may not bloom as profusely. Younger plants are more fragile and may not survive in colder climates when temperatures drop below freezing.
Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) species is native to Argentina and Bolivia but can survive and perform well in most temperate parts of Australia. Jacarandas are readily grown from freshly fallen seed and can be considered weedy in some areas.
Yet a word of warning about the lovely and famous purple tree.
In Queensland, the jacaranda can escape into the bush and become a weed. It out-competes local native plants and forms thickets below planted species.
Brisbane City Council has listed Jacaranda mimosifolia as one of the top 200 weeds in the city area. In Queensland, it was considered naturalised in 1987, escaping domestic gardens.
Jacaranda mimosifolia is considered a weed in many parts of New South Wales and is hard to eradicate once established in an area.
The future of the Jacaranda
University of Melbourne botanist Gregory Moore argues that the Jacaranda has a rosy bluey, indigo, or purple future in urban Australia. Jacaranda mimosifolia is likely to do particularly under the influence of climate change as it gets ‘warmer and drier in place’. He just urges a little caution in rural areas where they have the potential to become ‘weedy’.
Updated 6 June 2023. Originally posted on 18 November 2020 as ‘Camden’s purple haze’
Camden History Notes 
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