Assessment and Management of Heritage Landscapes

The study of heritage landscapes is a wide field and includes urban, rural and coastal landscapes, and landscapes of cultural, historic, aesthetic, social and scientific significance. There is an increasing appreciation of the need for conservation and restoration of our significant gardens. We spoke to Dr Jan Schapper about the processes involved in dealing with such landscapes.

1. When approaching the task of restoring the garden of a historic building that has had a very long history, how do you go about choosing the time period that is most appropriate?

You must look at the whole picture and assess the significance of the whole property and the landscape. Why is it important? What was its most significant era? For instance, does its significance come from a particular person, era, use?

The significance may not be historical at all. It may be aesthetic, social or scientific - a plant collection perhaps. If you were restoring a typical cottage garden in a gold mining town, then the Gold Rush era would most likely be its most significant time. If however you were restoring the garden of the house in which Henry Handel Richardson lived, then the possible influence it may have had on her writing would determine its significance. If a garden is of scientific or horticultural significance then it may be era independent, though its continuity through time may be of great interest.

You must decide what are the key components of the landscape and what you are going to do about them. You have to decide which things you want to preserve and why. This will help to set the themes for the garden, but you still have to accept certain practicalities. If an historic tree dies, then it still a dead tree and may pose certain dangers and we may have to accept its removal. Sometimes we are able to replace the tree with it one of its offspring and so maintain that link to history. We did this with a much-loved Cussonia spicata at Melbourne Uni.

Is it important to choose "authentic" plants or is the restoration of the atmosphere of the era or place a more desirable objective?

Once again this depends on your assessment of the place and the value judgements you make about what is significant. When we are doing restoration and conservation work we base our decisions as far as possible on real, documented evidence.

Sometimes we go for great authenticity as far as plant material is concerned - a restoration of a site where a descendant of the Lone Pine stood for example, would make it essential that the plant used to replace the original tree would also have to be a descendant of the one that stood at Gallipoli.

However we also have to be realistic about choosing to restore the exact plants that were used in an original garden. If the garden failed for instance, because of poor plant material choices in the first place, then we are wasting our time. We also have to take into account the reality that the gardens we make have to suit the site and be sustainable in this era when environmental issues such as water conservation have to be considered and cheap manual labour is no longer available to provide the maintenance necessary. There are always exceptions, for example, the fernery at Ripponlea is of such significance that we supply intensive labour and water resources to maintain it, and it is justifiable in those circumstances.

Sometimes the decision is made to capture the atmosphere - the look and feel of a place - and that can be very hard to explain to people. It can be really important to let a place tell its own story and some of the discovery has to be the visitor’s own experience. It is really difficult to defend the symbolism or the psychology of a place, and the mystery of a landscape can so easily be destroyed - sometimes even by those who mean well.

3. How do you go about determining what garden plants were used in a particular era?

Some plants from early eras may still be there so you need to do a careful assessment of the site. Family records are really useful. These may take the form of letters, diaries, photographs, paintings, planting lists and seed catalogues. You can also access general plant and seed catalogues of the day, from historical sources in libraries. This helps you to know what plants and which particular varieties were actually available. Given the recent nature of European settlement in Australia is quite amazing to see the enormous variety of plants that were available to early Australian gardeners.

4. What are some of the major challenges in managing a constantly changing heritage garden?

The greatest challenge is to determine what is the value of the garden and decide how you are going to manage the expressions of that value. Garden conservation is an on-going thing - a work in progress. It is often a balancing act - for instance, having to make a decision to replace old vegetation with new vegetation. You must constantly make value judgements, but I think you can always return to the intent of the original designer or owner, or whoever it was who had the vision for the garden and who loved it best, to be your guide.

Dr Jan Schapper is a Senior Lecturer at Burnley College. She lectures in the subjects of Landscape Heritage and Management of Heritage Landscapes. She also supervises post-graduate students in this field and is a member of the Heritage Council of Victoria.

Dr. Schapper can be contacted by phone on (03) 9250 6871 or by email at
j.schapper@ landfood.unimelb.edu.au

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