Planting a Nation
Australian History Gardening Botany Biography Environmental History Urban Planning Ecological Restoration
Planting a Nation (2001, hardback with dust jacket, ISBN 9781876473440) is the only full-length biography of the visionary gardener who turned the barren site of the new federal capital into the garden city we know today as Canberra. Georgina Whitehead’s meticulously researched narrative follows the life of Charles Weston, the English-born horticulturist who arrived in Australia in 1913 with a brief to “plant a nation” from scratch. Using Weston’s own field notebooks, official correspondence and early photographs, Whitehead shows how one man’s obsession with drought-resistant exotics and revegetation techniques transformed 8 000 hectares of windswept sheep paddocks into the tree-lined avenues and colourful arboretums that still frame Parliament House. The result is a book that doubles as a living history: every page explains why the eucalypts, Himalayan cedars and English oaks you see on a visit to the capital were chosen, and how Weston’s legacy survives in today’s urban forest.
Collectors prize this first edition because it is the only comprehensive account of Australia’s first large-scale ecological restoration project. Unlike government pamphlets of the period, Planting a Nation includes Weston’s propagation lists, rainfall charts and rare glass-plate images that never appeared in the National Archives—material that makes the book an indispensable reference for heritage gardeners, landscape architects and historians. Whitehead’s engaging style balances scientific detail with human drama: readers learn how Weston smuggled seed through quarantine, negotiated water rights with graziers and battled bureaucrats who wanted quick-fix flower beds instead of sustainable woodland. The hardcover volume is printed on high-grade art paper that still shows the subtle leaf-green tint of the original press-run, and the intact dust jacket carries the now-iconic 1914 photograph of Weston’s first plantings on Capital Hill.
This copy is in very good condition: the binding is square and tight, the pages are free of notes, tears or dog-ears, and only a faint impression from an opposing photograph plate hints that it has ever been opened. Because the print-run was small and most copies went to institutional libraries, clean first editions seldom appear on the secondary market. For anyone interested in Australian history, botany, or the story of how a capital city was literally grown from seed, Planting a Nation is a scarce and essential addition to the shelf.
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