| Museum of Sydney | $5.00 - $10.00 |   |
Saturday 22 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Sunday 23 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Monday 24 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Tuesday 25 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Wednesday 26 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Thursday 27 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Friday 28 November 2008. 09:30 AM
Click here to see all dates
Analogised, weeded, sexualised and seeded. From the Biblical Eden to unfortunately named plants like shagbark, gardens have enlivened many an idle imagination.
Whether you're green fingered or wielding the scythe of horticultural death, gardens are exciting places. Landing in Botany Bay, settlers were met by the greatest garden of all - Sydney's bushland. New and exciting, the bush induced horticultural mania, and according to Lost Gardens of Sydney author and exhibition curator, Colleen Morris, "by the mid-19th Century gardeners... were gripped by a craze for ferns".
That's right, ferns. High on ferns and not shy of a linguistic embellishment, Victorian lah-de-dah ladies wrote startlingly Mills & Boons-esque horticultural records. With "tall, handsome shrubs", "richest crimson" and "magnificent festoons", it's enough to get any female's lady garden going.
Pruning through records, histories, art and language as flowery as its subjects, Morris' exhibition showcases 18 of Sydney's lost gardens. From humble rooftops to colonial grandeur, this exhibition digs up gardens that once housed plants from every continent - bar Antarctica, which only grows lichen anyway.
Exquisitely recapturing a paradise lost, this exhibition asks us to think how much more of our heritage we are willing to lose. Green-fingered or not, this exhibition really is a treasure.
