Cirrus@Austlit

'Edna Walling, one of Australia’s best-known garden designers, lived from 1895 to 1973. Born in England, she moved to Australia in 1914 and graduated from the School of Horticulture, Burnley College, Melbourne, in December 1917. She was a household name from the 1920s to the 1940s, mainly due to her regular articles on gardening that appeared in the magazine The Australian Home Beautiful (1926–46). She was also known by reputation among her wealthy Melburnian clients, who included Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Dame Nellie Melba and Sir Frank Packer. As a pictorial collections librarian at State Library Victoria and the curator of the photographic content of the Edna Walling Website, I was privileged to catalogue the Library’s Edna Walling Collection, which comprises over 4900 of Walling’s photographs and 300 of her garden plans. This article features a small selection of the collection’s holdings to illustrate a discussion of her aesthetic roots: the drivers and influences which led to her picture-making.' (Introduction)