ABSTRACT
The experimental and imagined Australian natural gardens of the 1950s to the 1970s were spaces in which new understandings of national identity, a sense of place, and a sense of place-in-time could flourish. National identity theory asserts that formulating understandings of national identity must contend with both geographical and historical context. Attention to the historical dimensions of national identity formulation in the context of the post-war Australian natural garden represents an under-researched area of Australia’s garden history. Landscape and garden designers promoting natural garden design in post-war Australia manipulated history to legitimize their new conceptions. Katie Holmes describes the post-war use of Australian plants in gardens as ‘a radical rethinking of the garden aesthetic then dominant in Australia’. Bruce Mackenzie justified his promotion of indigenous landscape themes by referring to them as the means ‘for establishing a tradition’ in Australian landscape design.
