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Author Topic: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley  (Read 4212 times)

Hillview croconut

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Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« on: December 31, 2014, 08:58:55 PM »
Hi again guys,

 I am going to beg your indulgence. Ashley has asked through Maggi for stories about a certain Miss Essie Huxley, some may know of her through the snowdrop of the same name, and some of you on this forum knew her. I knew her well and I want to make this next post to and for her.  If it's too long for you or you're not interested then just skip it. If people like these things I have a wonderful story about her and her waratah which I will post sometime. As Tim Ingram said on another thread, we need to keep our stories and this is one way to do it.
Cheers, Marcus

Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2014, 09:00:38 PM »
ESSIE AND ME

Essie Huxley gardened on rock. Every grain of soil was hard-won from composting ANYTHING that came her way, including marauding possums and wandering wallabies. She lived on a high ridge at a place called Camp Hill near Longley, south of Hobart all her life. She was 5 foot nothing, always wore a hat, and was generous and direct if she liked you. She had many friends, they and her plants were her family.

She gardened nearly all of her long life, I think she was 92 when she died, and the last words she said to me were, "I'm not going to get that telegram from the Queen". I can speculate that she was brought to gardening by tragedy because at 18 she developed apopecia, all her hair fell out never to return. She locked herself in the house for a year, learnt handicrafts and hoped .... but to no avail. Gardening became her solice, her balm, and gradually her life, but later she blossomed into a bit of a garden celebrity and was feted everywhere she went.

She got to enjoy the limelight, dressed up to "the nines" and wore a very extravagant wig. But she never lost her common touch, her straightforward approach and her openess. Her philosophy, "I treat people as I find them and will do until they otherwise change". I must have been one she was suspicious about when I turned up at 30 with dyed blond hair and an earring because she waited 1 long year before she invited me into her home despite many circumnavigations of her garden accompanied by the chant of latin names of her plants which were delivered like a sermon. Sometimes she'd forget one, staired middle distance, as if she was waiting for it to drop like a miracle from the sky. I never intrrupted because once when I did, she narrowed me with her gaze and called me "a smart arse". I was suitably chaised. We became good friends and we shared much. She never drove so I chauffeured her here and there, but she never took it for granted, and despite my protestations, she always managed to slip money in pocket or turn up with a book, or a plant that I would have died for.

My best memories of her are from her garden, just me and her, kneeling over some little treasure, taking in it, and maybe not a word between us. There were the epics, the searches out the back of Scotts Peak for a pure yellow Xmas Bell, Blandfordia punicea, into the Hartz Mts to show me where to find Milligania densifolia and how to collect its seed. Clever woman knew that every last stick went into the hungry maws of the "roos" and the only place we'd find it was where it trailed just above the water, the old roo didn't like getting wet!

When she got older, she'd still come with me but she couldn't walk it, she'd sit patiently in my car, reading, or "jawing" some hapless passerby. I was sent out with maps drawn on scraps of paper and shonky directions to do the doings. Trowels were pressed into my palms, if I resisted, I'd get that steely gaze. She was a "digger". She "sooled" me up the broken ridges along Mt Anne, up the sharp pins of Mt Sprent, I was her eyes and her legs, but I saw them in all their glorious, wild abundance, Geum talboltianum, with its great wide bowls of snowy white, the strange, otherworldly maroon stars of Isophysis tasmanica, and that moonscape ridge above the tarn "grazed" by those vegetable sheep.

Its the time now, they're at the peak, and she'd be up there and we wouldn't need to speak.

« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 11:57:26 PM by Hillview croconut »

Jupiter

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2014, 09:11:41 PM »
Thank you for that Marcus. A lovely insight into the history of Australia's gardening intelligentsia for a newcomer like myself.

happy new year.
Jamus Stonor, in the hills behind Adelaide, South Australia.

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Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #3 on: December 31, 2014, 09:31:25 PM »
Hi Jamus,

Happy New Year and may we see many more of your beautiful images on this forum again.

You are a wizard with glass.

if you are interested there is a very cool article in the current issue of the Alpine Garden Society of Victoria, The Journal, on Otto Fauser's life with plants. There is a piece by yours truly about the rainbow dracunculus on Crete, and a profile of another founding member family of the AGSVG,  the Maxwells.

You may have already seen it? If you haven't then drop  Fermi or maybe Viv an email.

Sorry for using this lovely platform to promote another!

In case people here don't know it, a couple of years ago, Otto Fauser was awarded the William Pascoe Fawkner award for his services to ornamental horticulture in his state of Victoria. One of the highest honours in that field. Not bad for a bloke with one tiny greenhouse!

M
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 11:59:43 PM by Hillview croconut »

Tim Ingram

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2014, 11:06:20 PM »
Marcus - I will read your blog :) :D I could wish I had met her (and also Ken Gillanders) when I was in Tasmania for such a short time in the 1980's. I did walk in the Hartz Mountains and found a wonderful plant of Milligania densifolia below Mt. Gould in the Cradle Mtn/Lake St. Clair reserve (and have grown this from seed from Jack Drake). She sounds to be a thorough soulmate of Kath Dryden. Plants-people have an impact on one another which probably hard for a lot of other gardeners to understand, unless as you say we write about them. Good wishes for the New Year to those in the sunny south.
Dr. Timothy John Ingram. Nurseryman & gardener with strong interest in plants of Mediterranean-type climates and dryland alpines. Garden in Kent, UK. www.coptonash.plus.com

Maggi Young

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2014, 11:31:50 PM »
I've made a new thread to honour Essie Huxley - it seems fitting as a new year arrives to remember a great plantswoman.

......" it was in January of 2008 that Essie Huxley died - so nearly seven years since she passed away. The news was broken to me by Derek Bacon, an old English  friend of hers" http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=1117.msg28718#msg28718 

The dear lady has been mentioned often in the forum as being one of the foremost plants people of Tasmania - She is clearly still sadly missed by many -thank goodness there are still many who are lucky enough to have plants from her in their gardens.   There will be "southerners" who will be better able to explain her significance.



Marcus- you got the name of that award to Otto  muddled - it's the John Pascoe Fawkner Medal.....
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9139.msg247916#msg247916

For new members here ,  Otto is respected throughout the world as a plantsman - even beinghonoured with a crocus named for him - Crocus fauseri- honours don't come much better than that,eh? !!
« Last Edit: December 31, 2014, 11:36:18 PM by Maggi Young »
Margaret Young in Aberdeen, North East Scotland Zone 7 -ish!

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Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2014, 11:55:39 PM »
Hi Maggi,

Thanks!

I shouldn't have done got that name wrong because he came from Tassie to found Melbourne! He and his fellow privateer,  John Batman, were probably breaking the then "law". Private ventures,  read invasions,  were at government level, discouraged.  It was  a gold rush, a land grab. They "bought" the land from the natives with blankets and knives and a few other bibs and bobs.

Hi Tim, yes, they are similar, maybe Kath was a bit gruffer. They might have irritated each other but they would have been pleased to have found each one. Both had the same kindness, the willingness to help. I think Kath would sum it up, as she did for me about Otto. "She's one of us".
« Last Edit: January 01, 2015, 01:33:36 AM by Hillview croconut »

ashley

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2015, 08:02:13 AM »
Many thanks Marcus for this vivid account of your friendship with Essie; much appreciated. 
We look forward to further anecdotes perhaps ;) because it's clear there's much to tell ;D and you write so well.

Thanks too Maggi for initiating this thread, the first of a series I hope.
And warm congratulations to you Otto; delighted to hear that your great contribution (not least here on the forum) is formally acknowledged.

Happy New Year and Happy Growing to all.
Ashley Allshire, Cork, Ireland

Maggi Young

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #8 on: January 01, 2015, 11:17:49 AM »
Quote from Otto about Miss Essie -  copied from the 'Flowering now' thread :

Happy New Year to all from Olinda
 
Marcus  , your vivid recollections of your friendship with Essie in her garden and in the mountains of Tasmania also bring back fond memories of my encounter with Essie . As far as I can remember she only came across to Melbourne on three occasions and staying with me on two . She was extremely generous sharing her most treasured plants with me and there are still some of these growing here : some Petiolaris Primulas and the bigeneric hybrid  x Brigandra caliantha 'Salisbury'. Marcus do you remember her two large pots filled with extremely happy plants of Shortia uniflora  ?  She gave me small plants of it on several occasions which grew here for a number of years . But every few years we get a few days in summer when the temperature climbs to 40 degrees or above which was the end of my Shortia .
Margaret Young in Aberdeen, North East Scotland Zone 7 -ish!

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Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2015, 01:06:10 PM »
Hi again,

This brings back memories of that damn water tank. I think she kept ALL her heat-sensitive plants there including the shortia. Or maybe it was her hidey hole? Otto's reference to 
x Brigandra "Salisbury" maybe I can add to. Some will remember Tinneys Nursery, in England, owned by Gerry Mundey? I think she had this from him, as well as other gesneriads.  I still have Haberlea rhodopensis from her but all the ramondas have gone the way of god. I also have the strain of Cyclamen rhodium ssp peloponnesiacum (those days under repandum) she obtained from him. Large,  bright green lobes so spattered with cream and white it looked for all the world like someone had shaken a paint tin on it. She'd say, "Oh, he only had the best".

That cyclamen brought the "green eyes" in every gardener,  even the genteel had to turn their eyes away. The clomping thing just grew and grew, and spat seedlings to and fro. We'd stab them while we be digging bulbs and she'd just chuck em back as we go. Such nonchalance, such derring do, but they only reached a chosen few!


( minor edit by maggi requested by  Marcus - whose tablet won't let him scroll!;) :D
« Last Edit: January 01, 2015, 02:14:28 PM by Maggi Young »

Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #10 on: January 01, 2015, 06:33:24 PM »
Hi Ashley, 

I didn't respond to your early post.  Thanks there is a lot to say but its not my place to say it all.  I am glad Maggi quoted Otto's comments here. I will post the waratah story though because in some ways thats the key to it all going the way things did.  But I'll do that later.  I know Rob knew her pretty well and Viv certainly earlier on. Lesley would have visited her. Maybe I took her there?
I know you spent some walking time in Tasmania. Did you come in early summer? And did you look for plants or was it more a ramble? I beieve you mentioned to me the South Cape/Lion Rock track as part of the much longer South Coast track which takes you all the way to Melaluca Inlet, or if you turn right to Lake Pedder.

Happy New Year to you and thanks for your help with other things, M
« Last Edit: January 01, 2015, 06:52:15 PM by Hillview croconut »

Maggi Young

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #11 on: January 01, 2015, 08:15:43 PM »
I think it would be lovely - not to mention very interesting  from the viewpoint of celebrating a departed plantswoman - if other members with knowledge of Miss Essie were to share their  memories of her when time allows.

Most mentions of her in the forum before now have been records of plants obtained from her - let's hear more about the lady as well.
Margaret Young in Aberdeen, North East Scotland Zone 7 -ish!

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rob krejzl

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #12 on: January 01, 2015, 09:58:47 PM »
Marcus,

My connection with Essie was only peripheral. The other Rob knew her much better, visiting her regularly as her GP. I know that when he's written about her, his love and admiration for her has shone through.

As for me, my late neighbour Les introduced me to Essie a little while after we moved to Tassie. Les' family farm was a little way up the road from her parents place and he'd known her since he was a child, well before he'd cleared the Gillanders block for them. He was impressed by her strength of spirit, selling stuff at the roadside to raise money and the way that she'd built up her place on her own despite hardship.

Visiting her there was the ritual of 'signing the book' as part of the tour of the garden, a process which had to be adhered to. I  remember my envy at the stands of F. imperialis, and at seeing the cyclamen that Marcus mentions in the garden (though I remember the phrase she used with it as "only have the best", which she certainly did). Finally I remember her openness - despite having had thefts from the garden she still enlisted me, a relative stranger, in a search for a pot of seedlings of a rare lily. She came to my plot once when visiting Les, she wouldn't have been impressed but she was very encouraging and helpful.  A lovely person.


« Last Edit: January 01, 2015, 10:41:36 PM by rob krejzl »
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vivienne Condon

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2015, 06:33:18 AM »
Lovely to read about Essie Marcus, I first met Essie in 1979, there were a crowd of us camped on Ken and Lesley Gillander's property, but only the gardeners went to visit Essie. She gave me an un-named Colchicum which is slowly multiplying and is still un-named. Such lovely memories. Thank you Marcus

Hillview croconut

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Re: Remembering Miss Essie Huxley
« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2015, 07:22:57 AM »
Thanks Viv, someone told me that you were there with rock star legend of that period,  Ronnie Burns. Is that right?

I think, in retrospect, I need to correct something she said to me. I dont think I ever heard her say a near swear word so she would have said to me, when I was trying to assist,  Smart Alec, not, Smart Arse.

BUT, she did have a slightly risque verse in her toilet which appeared completely out of character with her rather mannered self.

I think it went:

Some come here to sit and think
But I come here to sh..... and stink

Very out of character but manners permitted me an enquiry.

Sorry to lower the tone a notch or two!

M

 


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