The Queensland Garden

Decorative cottage garden, date unknown (John Oxley Library)

Like the house itself, the Queensland garden developed according to trends that were sometimes national, sometimes local.

Ideas for early Australian gardens were derived predominantly from English fashions and writings. Styles were imported yet modified in response to Australian conditions and available plants. The tropical climate in Queensland brought great difficulties to gardeners trying to grow any of the popular temperate plants. The early landscape of Brisbane and most of the coastal towns did not have the leafy green character of now, even some years after establishment.

Queensland gardens have exhibited a number of styles, such as:

• the Geometric or Squared Style
• the Picturesque Style
• the Gardenesque Style
• the Federation Style
• the Bungalow Style
• the Mediterranean Style
• the Bush Garden.

A Federation garden, Paddington, 1992 (Catherine Brouwer)

The most significant alteration to our garden traditions and design has been the change that has come with the modern lifestyles – that is, the use of the garden as part of the everyday living space.