Ellis Andrew Stones (1 October 1895 – 9 April 1975) was an Australian
landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...
of private and public gardens—many displaying naturalistic rockwork—and a conservationist whose work and ideas influenced approaches to public landscaping in Australia.
Based in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia, he was an early proponent of the use of Australian native plants
and one of the founding fathers of the Australian landscaping style.
Early years and family life
Ellis Stones was born in
Wodonga
Wodonga
(Pallanganmiddang language, Waywurru: ''Wordonga'') is a city on the Victoria (Australia), Victorian side of the border with New South Wales, north-east of Melbourne, Australia. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of ...
, Victoria. His father was Thomas James Stones a customs officer, born in Victoria. His mother was Hannah May, née Downs, also born in Victoria. He grew up in
Essendon, Victoria
Essendon is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Moonee Valley local government area. Essendon recorded a population of 21,240 at the 2021 census.
Essen ...
. After attending
Moonee Ponds West Primary School he worked with the Victorian Railways as an apprentice carriage builder. He married Olive Doyle in 1922. They had a son who died in his first year, and three daughters.
War years (1914–1918 and 1939–1945)
On
25 April 1915 he was a rower in the first boat of the second wave of the landing in the
Gallipoli Campaign. He took a bullet in his left knee,
an injury which was to cause him lifelong pain.
[
]
During World War II Stones worked in the
Volunteer Defence Corps and the
Civil Constructional Corps
The Civil Constructional Corps (CCC) was a civilian based labour force created in Australia during World War II, designed to organise military construction works. Over 53,500 members were gathered through a combination of conscription (manpowered) ...
.
Building
After WWI he returned to work as a carpenter and, later, a builder, eventually living and working at Avenel in country Victoria. The Depression brought him and his family back to Melbourne, where he took on whatever work he could find (including repairing broken window glass), and eventually settled in Ivanhoe. Working on a house in Heidelberg in 1934-35, he volunteered to build a stone wall for its landscape designer
Edna Walling
Edna Margaret Walling (4 December 1896 – 8 August 1973) was one of Australia's most influential landscape designers.
Early years and migration
Walling was born in Yorkshire and grew up in the village of Bickleigh in Devon, England, seco ...
.
Impressed by his natural aptitude she employed him again on many other jobs as he gradually established his own practice as a constructor and designer of gardens.
Landscape architecture
Stones collaborated for many years with Edna Walling, constructing many of the rock outcrops, walls and ponds in the gardens she designed.
Among the gardens in which he did rock work for Walling were:
* the Donaldson, Anderson and Marshall gardens in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
* the Beattie, Darling and Anderson gardens in Toorak
* the Lewis garden in Malvern
* 'Kildrummie', the Carnegie garden in
Holbrook, New South Wales
Holbrook is a small town in Southern New South Wales, Australia. It is on the Hume Highway, by road North-East of Melbourne and by road south-west of Sydney between Tarcutta, New South Wales, Tarcutta and Albury. The town is in the Greater Hume ...
* the 'Hillsborough' or 'Silver Birches' garden in Balwyn
* gardens in Benalla, Skipton and Olinda
In ''Australian Home Beautiful'' of December 1938 Walling wrote:
"It is a rare thing this gift for placing stones and strange that a man possessing it should bear the name Stones... Lovely as formal gardens can be, it is these informal schemes, in which boulders form so important a part, that appeal so tremendously... they give us the atmosphere of the country, and the refreshment of mind derived from such".
Stones' inspiration for garden landscaping came from the natural world.
He writes in the introduction to his book ''Australian Landscape Design'',
" ... more can be learnt by observing nature than through any other form of teaching. When you see pleasing contours with perhaps an attractive grouping of trees, ask yourself why they please you. It may be their texture or perhaps their shape, or a wandering track which may give special interest to the landscape. Look for the reason. It may be that the track winds around a tree which casts shadows on the path, or past an outcrop of boulders."
In her foreword to ''The Ellis Stones Garden Book'' published in 1976
shortly after his death, Thistle Harris elaborates
"Ellis Stones abhorred geometrical patterns as much as does nature on a grand scale, and straight paths, trimmed borders and serried ranks of plants are never to be found in his gardens. Curving paths leading to forever; informal clumps of plants, bending intimately towards each other; lichen-covered rocks of geological antiquity—these things distinguish his designs."
The second principle which guided Stones' work was the idea that gardens must be designed for the people who use them. This struck a chord with writer Anne Latreille as she researched his life and work for her book ‘The Natural Garden’ (1990).
She noted how he would start by considering the owners' way of life including likely changing needs over time. He tried to include private, sheltered spaces to sit outdoors. And he was cognisant of providing beautiful outlooks from indoors as well as particular spots in the garden.
In addition to creating many hundreds of gardens throughout Melbourne, through his writings (for instance as an occasional then regular contributor to ''Australian Home Beautiful'' and later with his books), Stones must have influenced hundreds of thousands of home gardeners. His 1950s plant nursery in Lower Heidelberg Road helped to make native plants more available to the general public, and allowed him to provide brief advice to a large number of customers who had admired his work in others' gardens or who read his articles but could not afford to engage him.
Stones' specific advice on the design of home gardens has been distilled as follows:
* "Think of a courtyard as a room without a ceiling.
* Use timber for its beauty as well as its utility.
* No garden is too small to have water in it.
* When placing rocks, bury more underground than you will see above ground.
* A garden should always have a sitting spot."
His employees also recall him frequently commenting, "when in doubt, plant spiraea!"
Stones inspired a whole generation of younger garden designers.
He was a foundation lecturer in the landscape design course at
RMIT
RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia.
Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scienc ...
. His employees Bob Grant and David Leech went on to develop successful landscape businesses. Leech practised in Far North Queensland but his work lives on in beautiful parks and gardens in the Eltham area.
NSW landscaper designer Michael Bligh's career in design was prompted by coming across Stones' book while looking for something to read on his way home on the train.
While not formally trained himself, Stones supported the establishment of the
Australian Institute of Landscape Architects
The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) is the Australian non profit professional institute formed to serve the mutual interests of Australian landscape architects.
History
The AILA was established in 1966 with an interim commi ...
, becoming one of its first affiliate members, and receiving a fellowship in 1975. Among others, he trained landscape designer,
Bev Hanson
Bev may refer to:
* Bev, short for beverage
* Bev (company), an American female-owned wine company
* Bev (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the unisex given name
BEV may stand for:
* Battery electric vehicle
* Beam's eye ...
and pioneer of the bush garden concept,
Gordon Ford
Gordon Ford (1918–1999) was an Australian landscape designer who created rugged gardens which were noted to be of a distinctly Australian style.
After returning from service in New Guinea in WWII, he settled near Montsalvat, where he dug out ...
. Ford's influence lives on into the 21st century through the work of his former employee, contemporary landscape architect, Sam Cox. Stones was also a major influence on John Fenton, one of Australia's foremost ecological farmers.
Commissions
As noted, over his long and busy working life, Stones was involved in creating several hundred gardens around Melbourne and beyond. Beginning with smaller specific elements such as rock outcrops and pools (especially for Edna Walling) his body of work includes the following:
Other commissions included a garden in
Balwyn
Balwyn () is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 10 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Boroondara local government area. Balwyn recorded a population of 13,495 at the 2021 census.
White ...
for Alan Blazey, chairman of garden products firm Hortico in the mid-1950s,
a garden in
Strathmore and playgrounds and gardens at
Invercargill
Invercargill ( , mi, Waihōpai is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. The city lies in the heart of the wide expanse of t ...
in New Zealand.
Association with Merchant Builders; the Elliston Estate
Merchant Builders Pty Ltd was an initiative of Melbourne businessman
David Yencken. After discussions with prominent Melbourne architect
Robin Boyd and his young employee Graeme Gunn, Yencken (with timber merchant John Ridge) established the company with the vision of providing architect-designed houses at project home prices.
Graeme Gunn was architect-in-charge, and Ellis Stones – then aged 71 – took on its landscape and garden design.Eventually Merchant Builders assembled a team of architects to design 50 basic house plans.
The architects consulted included:
* Charles Duncan
*
Daryl Jackson
Daryl Sanders Jackson AO (born 7 February 1937) is an Australian architect and the owner of an international architecture firm, Jackson Architecture. Jackson also became the associate professor of the University of Melbourne and Deakin Univers ...
and
Evan Walker
*
McGlashan Everist
*
Graeme Gunn
Ellis Stones was commissioned to undertake landscaping in many of the Merchant home developments.
Elliston Estate was one of the best-known Merchant Builders home developments, named after Ellis Stones himself. Swamped by protests from local residents when the Rosanna Golf Club was to be subdivided for housing, Heidelberg City Council agreed to buy the golf course, retain half of it for a park and sell the rest to Merchant Builders for on-selling to the public. Ellis Stones advised on landscaping the park and developing the streetscapes and gardens so that 'gardens streets and park' would 'flow into and through each other'.
Elliston includes the following streets:
Bachli, Cremin, Ferrier, Pickworth, Hartley, Nagle and Devlin Courts; Stanton, Crampton, Phillips and Von Nida Crescents; the west side of Finlayson Street; and Thompson Drive (all in
Rosanna).
Environmentalism
Ellis Stones was deeply concerned about the destruction of the Australian landscape. In the introduction to his book ''Australian Garden Design'', published in 1971,
he writes
"Before the commencement of any major project that encroaches on the landscape there should be formed a panel consisting of persons representing every profession concerned with the project, to discuss and advise on the best means of carrying out the project with the least damage to the landscape. A landscape architect should certainly be included in any such panel, as he is in other countries which are deeply concerned about the preservation of their natural flora and fauna."
He goes on to say, "The ideal way to design a garden is in consultation with the architect or builder, before operations have commenced, so that the building may be sited in a way that will give plenty of scope for the garden, preserve some of the existing trees if the area is a wooded one, or emphasise any other strong features that may be evident in the natural contours."
Stones had a major influence on the landscaping of public places in Australia. In 1964 he assisted the Blackburn Tree Preservation Society
to develop a proposal for staggered planting of clumps of Australian plants both within the median strip and either side of Springvale Road.
The
Nunawading
Nunawading is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 18 km (11 miles) east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse, Whitehorse Local g ...
Council, though initially resistant to the proposal, was eventually persuaded. Newsletters from the Society document that planting undertaken in 1965 in a trial stretch from Whitehorse Road to Canterbury Road was later extended south to Waverley Road. In 1974, Stones designed a section of the median strip in Canterbury Road from east of View Road, Vermont to the intersection of Boronia and Mitcham Roads. This landscape project used rock outcrops and low bluestone walls and is still visible when driving west along Canterbury Road before the intersection with Mitcham and Boronia Roads.
The retention and supplementation of native vegetation championed by Stones and the Blackburn Tree Preservation Society has become the norm for median strips and roadside planting throughout Victoria.
Stones was an outspoken critic of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), lamenting the destruction and degradation of the Yarra River environs and creeks throughout suburban Melbourne.
He was the first president of the Ivanhoe River Parklands Protection League established in 1955 to prevent the destruction of Chelsworth Park.
He served as a committee member for the Save the Yarra League and also assisted the Yarra Valley Freeway Action Group.
For the
Tullamarine Freeway
The Tullamarine Freeway (commonly referred to as "The Tulla"), is a major urban freeway in Melbourne, linking Melbourne Airport to the Melbourne City Centre. It carries up to 210,000 vehicles per day and is one of Australia's busiest freeways. T ...
he wrote to Lord Mayor Ron Walker late in 1974 suggesting "the whole length... as a beautiful bushland setting, with the statuesque river red gums a main feature... to welcome visitors to Australia."
The very last job undertaken by Ellis Stones, in 1975, was landscaping Salt Creek in the Rosanna Parklands, a job approved by his former adversary the MMBW.
As Anne Latreille describes it
"Peter Glass visited Ellis on site the day before he died and found him 'leaping around those rocks like an antelope'. He came home for dinner on the night of 9 April, tired and happy. 'Oh I've had a good day' he said to (wife) Olive. 'There's a boy on the job who really understands what I'm talking about.' He went for a short lie-down before the evening meal and did not wake. He died in harness, quickly and quietly, as he wished it."
Not long after his death, the MMBW preserved a large amount of land along the Yarra Valley in a series of metropolitan parks, landscaped with native vegetation exactly as he would have wanted.
Awards and recognition
Stones posthumously received the Royal Australian Institute of Architect's Robin Boyd environmental medal.
A memorial plaque honouring his work can be found in a rock garden in Chelsworth Park near his former home in Ivanhoe.
The rock garden he designed near the staff car park at The University of Melbourne bears another memorial plaque.
The Ellis Stones rockery in Burnley Gardens was created to honour his contribution to landscape design in Australia.
The Ellis Stones Memorial Award is offered biennially to a landscape student for an outstanding piece of research.
Books
* Stones, Ellis, 1971, ''Australian Garden Design'', South Melbourne, with photographs by Ted Rotherham
* Stones, Ellis, 1976, '' The Ellis Stones Garden Book'', Nelson Australia, West Melbourne
* Stones, Ellis, unpublished manuscript "Priority Landscaping''
* Latreille, Anne, 1990, ''The Natural Garden – Ellis Stones: His Life and Work'', Penguin Australia, Ringwood, Melbourne
* Latreille, Anne, 2013, ''Garden Voices Australian Designers – their stories'', Bloomings Books, Melbourne, Australia
* Saniga, Andrew 2012, ''Making Landscape Architecture in Australia'', UNSW Press, Sydney
* Vale, Anne, 2013, ''Exceptional Australian Garden Makers'' Lothian, Middle Park, Melbourne
Peer reviewed academic literature
* Dr Andrew Saniga, University of Melbourne http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/publication258502#time
References
Additional newspaper articles
About war experience
* McMullin, R
Gallipoli’s three musketeers went off to war ... only one returned.Life section, ''The Australian'', 25 April 2015
About gardening
* Alston,
Making the most of your spaceGardening, ''The Age'', 3 December 1976, p 27
* Blog postin
Iconic Australian Landscape Architects – Ellis Stones in Grass Trees and Butterfly Chairs, 13 September 2012
A fertile field for green fingers (article mentioning Como garden and promoting gardening apprenticeships Monday Job Market, ''The Age'', 28 March 1988, p24
* Kerr Forsyth,
=en Garden edging can make life neater and easierExecutive Living, ''The Australian'', 28 March 2015
About garden heritage
* Latreille, A
Magic of a garden Environs, ''The Age'', 13 October 1976
About environmentalism
* Colebatch, T
'Pocket' park plan urged. City's wasteland can be transformed so cheaply - expert ''The Age'', 5 December 1974, p10
* Stones, E., Letter to the editor
Restaurant in Botanic gardens(Ellis objects) ''The Age'', 16 December 1968, p4
* Latreille, A
Plan for Valley: Landscaping scheme proposed Living in Melbourne, ''The Age'', 12 February 1975
* Wilson, G
Planners should go nativeWeekender, 'The Age', 20 May 1977, p16
* Colebatch, T
Boom returning for Toorak of the NorthEnvirons, ''The Age'', 4 February 1974, p22
* Stevens, J
Action speaks louder than words(concerning report of the Valley Freeway Action Group), ND Column 'The Age', 23 March 1976
About playgrounds
Building backlog could be ended.'Children doing landscaping to plan of Ellis Stones', ''The Age'', 13 January 1975
* Dexter, N
Highrise quality of lifeAccent, ''The Age'', 4 June 1970, p17
About Elliston
* Chisholm, J
Unorthodox Elliston: 50 Acres of natural parkland20 November 1969
* Buhrich,
'Planned for enjoyment''The Sydney Morning Herald', 18 June 1970, p13
Recognition, obituaries and honours
* Dexter, N
Working with natureAccent, ''The Age'', 3 April 1970, p11
Our leading landscape planner dies ''The Age'', 7 April 1975
University chair may honor architectHome news, ''The Age'', 9 April 1975, p 4
Robin Boyd Environmental Award 1975Home News, ''The Age'', 22 October 1975, p2
* Barker, J
Three-story design is house of the yearHouses and Property, 'The Age', 27 October 1975, p13
Honor for Ellis StonesHome news, ''The Age'', 28 October 1976, p4
* Latreille, A
Ellis Stones Appeal Environs, Accent, ''The Age'', 3 November 1976, p26
Legacy
* Guest, S
We need to create a true Australian styleSpring/Summer Gardening, ''The Age'', 17 October 1989, p24
Newspaper advertisements mentioning Stones
* Stones, E
Newspaper advertisement for Stones' 'Garden Art' business ''The Argus'', 16 July 1945
The Good Life for sale advertisement for houses for sale in Winter Park, Doncaster'The Age' 23 December 1972 p27
* Davie, R
Merchant Builders' house popular editorial and advertisement for houses in Merchant Builders' Winter Park], Real estate, ''The Age'', 7 November 1975, pp25–6
* Advertorial concernin
house for sale in Merchant Builders' Elliston estate ''The Age'', 26 August 1981, p34
External links
QuotesWar recordBiographical note, National Library of Australia TroveEllis Stones, National Portrait GalleryHeritage citation, Elliston estate*
ttps://www.google.com.au/search?tbs=bks:1&q=%22Ellis+Stones%22&gws_rd=cr&ei=j1MmVbfTPKbCmAWTmYDYBA Books indexed on googlebr>
Google scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stones, Ellis
1975 deaths
1895 births
Australian landscape architects
Australian military personnel of World War I
People from Wodonga
Volunteer Defence Corps soldiers
20th-century Australian architects
People from Essendon, Victoria
Military personnel from Melbourne
Australian conservationists