Clearings: Six Colonial Gardeners and Their Landscapes

by Paul Fox

The stories of six colonial Australian gardeners and their transformation of the Australian landscape are told in this revealing look at 19th-century botany, horticulture, and plant collecting. Original writings, illustrations, and photographs from this time period help to reveal the progress of the gardeners as they made clearings on land that they did not understand people still inhabited.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Paul Fox was born and raised in Yonkers, New York. His first story was published while he was in his teens, in The Smart Set under Menken and Nathan. He served in the US Navy during WWI and during the following years did a great deal of successful writing in motion pictures and the stage. His novel Sailor Town published in 1935 was judged by a London critic as "one of the six best novels to appear in the English language" in that year. He has lived in England and in the Balaeric Islands and Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Lynlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Australia’s fragile soils and indigenous forests have been flogged to death since settlement, when it was evident that practices were unsustainable and in spite of early warnings that it would all end in tears. A very interesting book about early forestry in Victoria and the establishment of several public and private botanical gardens.