Tropicalia
Gardens with Tropical Attitude
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600003275Keywords:
'tropicalia', Richard C. Tongg, Loraine E. Kuck, horticultureAbstract
What is tropicalia? It's a garden that looks tropical. Hawaiian landscape architect Richard C. Tongg explained in 1960, ‘developing gardens on the theme of “tropicalia”, [means] making gardens in the tropics look the part, instead of being pale copies of other styles’. So what makes a garden look tropical? Earlier in the 1930s, Richard Tongg with garden writer Loraine E. Kuck provided the first clues to defining tropical garden character – three essential characteristics. I have argued there are other telltales from my research into early Queensland garden history. A summary of the qualities that distinguish tropical garden or landscape character is offered here.
References
Dust-jacket publisher's blurb, in Loraine Kuck, E., and Tongg, Richard C., The Modern Tropical Garden: its design, plant materials and horticulture (Honolulu: Tongg Publishing Co., 1960). Tongg's use of the word in 1960 appears to be the first application regarding garden character. The word ‘tropicalian’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edn (1989), as ‘Belonging to the marine region called Tropicalia, comprising the seas between the isocrymes of 68° F. [meteorological lines of similar mean daily maximum of 20° C. during the coldest months] on each side of the equator.’ It seems quite reasonable to appropriate the word to apply to the garden character typical of a similar climatic region on land.
Refer to Chapter 7 ‘The Tropical Genre of Landscape Design’ in Sim, J. C. R., ‘Designed Landscapes in Queensland, 1859–1939: experimentation – adaptation – innovation’, unpublished PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 1999.
The first three of these points were taken from the ideas of Loraine E. Kuck and Richard C. Tongg, The Tropical Garden (New York: Macmillan, 1939), 2 and 5.
Stearn, W. T., ‘Sources of information about botanic gardens and herbaria’, Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society 3, (1971): 225-33. Also useful: Stearn, W.T., ‘The origin and later development of cultivated plants’, Journal of the Royal Horicultural Society, 90 (1965): 279-291, 322-340.
Similar to a miniature glasshouse enclosing airspace and soil to retain moisture, refer Nottle, Trevor (2002) ‘Wardian Case’ in Aitken, Richard Looker, Michael, eds., Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 627–8.
Reported in Gardeners Chronicle (1864): 703 and cited in Elliott, Brent, Victorian Gardens (London: BT Batsford Ltd., 1986), 153.
William Robinson: 1868 Gleanings from French Gardens; 1869 The Parks, Promenades, and Gardens of Paris; and, 1871 The Subtropical Garden; or, Beauty of Form in the Flower Garden. Source: Allan, Mea, William Robinson 1838-1935: Father of the English Flower Garden (London: Faber and Faber, 1982).
Hibberd, Shirley, New and Rare Beautiful-leaved Plants; containing illustrations and descriptions of the most ornamental-foliaged plants not hitherto noticed in any work on the subject (London: Bell and Daldy, 1870).
Elliott, Brent, Victorian Gardens (London: BT Batsford Ltd., 1986), 156.
Hewson, Helen, (2002). ‘North, Marianne’ in Aitken, Richard Looker, Michael, eds., Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 442-3.
For examples refer to (1) Logan Botanic Garden, Rhinns of Galloway: ‘Scotland's most exotic garden'; ‘Logan lies at the south-western tip of Scotland, and it is unrivalled as the country's most exotic garden. Because of the influence of the Gulf Stream, a remarkable collection of bizarre and beautiful plants flourishes outside, making this Garden a plantsman's paradise’, www.rbge.org.uk/rbge/web/visiting/lbg.jsp accessed 3 June 2003; (2) Abbey Garden, Tresco, Isles of Scilly: ‘Throw out the rule-book. Set aside your preconceptions about what can and cannot be grown in frost-cursed, rain-soaked Britain. These Abbey Gardens are a glorious exception – a perennial Kew without the glass – shrugging off salt spray and Atlantic gales to host 20,000 exotic plants’, www.tresco.co.uk/the_abbey_garden/default.asp accessed 3 June 2003; (3) Heligan, a Cornish exotic plant collection: Tim Smit, Lost Gardens of Heligan (London: Victor Gollancz, 1997).
Robinson, William [Illustrated by Alfred Parsons], The wild garden, or, The naturalization and natural grouping of hardy exotic plants / with a chapter on the garden of British wild flowers, 4th edn. (London: Scholar Press, 1977, first published 1870).
Miller, Wilhelm Vernon, Christopher [Introduction], The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening (American Society of Landscape Architects Centennial Reprints series. Amherst, MA: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2002).
This acclimatisation process was a major argument (contribution) in my PhD thesis. Refer to Chapter 6 ‘The Landscape Design Evolution Model’, in Sim, J. C. R., ‘Designed Landscapes in Queensland, 1859-1939 op. cit. and Jeannie Sim, ‘Tropical Gardens’ in Richard Aitken and Michael Looker, eds., Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 604–5.
These include Walter Hill's Fern Island at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and William Guilfoyle's Fern Gully in the RBG, Melbourne both in the 1860s.
The first publication solely devoted to the art of bush-house gardening is: Cole, A. E. ('Bouquet'), Half-Hours in the Bush-House (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1922). Reference is also made to building and stocking shade house ferneries in W.A. Shum, ed., Australian Gardening of To-day (Melbourne: Sun News-Pictorial, c.1939).
Edwards, Reginald George, The Australian Garden Book: With practical hints on the culture of all the principal flowers, bulbs, shrubs, trees, fruits, and vegetables. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1950), 309.
Aitken, Richard Looker, Michael, eds., Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002).
McKay, J. M., ‘“A Good Show”: Colonial Queensland at International Exhibitions’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 1, (1998): 175-343, 227.
McKay, J. M., op. cit., 222; and, Bailey, F. Manson, A Sketch of the Economic Plants of Queensland (Brisbane: James C. Beal, Government Printer, 1888).
Wright, T., ‘Horticulture’, In Price, Fletcher, ed., Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886. Queensland: Its Resources and Institutions, Essays (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1886), 3–12, 8-9.
‘F. D.’ [author], “Sketcher'’, Queenslander, 6 June 1896: 1077; Illustration titled ‘A Beautanic Gardener’.
Queenslander, 19 June 1897, 1344.
Queenslander, 15 May 1897: 1066, cited in J. M. McKay, ‘“A Good Show”: Colonial Queensland at International Exhibitions’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 1, (1998): 175-343, pg. 224. Within this bush-house was ‘ an octagonal structure designed by the exhibition's architect Leslie Gordon Corrie to show the beauty and versatility of native barks and timbers’.
Rutlidge, Charles Schaefer,, Guide to Queensland and the International Exhibition (Brisbane: W.H. Wendt & Co., 1897), 193, cited in J. M. McKay, op. cit., 224.
Refer to Chapter 4 ‘Garden Literature in Queensland’ in Sim, J. C. R., ‘Designed Landscapes in Queensland, 1859–1939 op. cit.
An ‘essential feature of horticulture in the tropics is what may be called verandah-gardening’ wrote Macmillan, H. F., Tropical Planting and Gardening, 4th ed. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1935), 77.
Treloar, Henry, Cottage Gardening in Queensland, 3rd edn. (Townsville/Brisbane: T. Wilmett & Sons/Geo. H. Barker, 1915); and Henry Treloar, Cottage Gardening in Queensland, 5th edn. (Brisbane: George H. Barker, 1920); William C. Deans. Queensland Fruit Culture (1913); and, William C. Deans, The Australian Flower Garden: a simple guide to the cultivation of flowers in Australia (Brisbane: published by the author, 1928).
Benson, Albert H., Fruits of Queensland (Brisbane: Anthony J. Cumming, Government Printer, 1914); and A. J., Boyd, Market Gardening In Queensland, 2nd edn. (Brisbane: Anthony James Cumming, Government Printer, 1910).
Rock, Joseph F., The Ornamental Trees of Hawaii (Honolulu, HI: Author under patronage, 1917).
Macmillan, H. F., revised by Barlow, H. S., Enoch, I., and Russell, R. A. (1991). Tropical Planting and Gardening, 6th ed. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Nature Society, ‘Introduction to sixth edition’, vii. Macmillan was described on the title page of the 5th edition as F.L.S. and A.R.H.S.: Fellow of the Linnaean Society and Associate of the Royal Horticultural Society.
The first three editions were published in Ceylon (1910, 1914 and 1925) but it finally reached a wider audience with the fourth edition, published by Macmillan and Co, London in 1935. A fifth edition was published in 1943 and reprinted in 1946. The long-standing authority of this work is further exemplified by the republication (with only minor changes) in 1991 of a sixth edition. Source: Macmillan, H. F., revised by H. S. Barlow, I. Enoch, and R. A. Russell (1991). Tropical Planting and Gardening, 6th ed. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Nature Society, iv.
Macmillan, H. F., revised by Barlow, H. S., Enoch, I., and Russell, R. A. (1991). Tropical Planting and Gardening, 6th ed. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Nature Society, vii.
Publisher's blurb on dust jacket in Kuck, Loraine E. Tongg, Richard C., Hawaiian Flowers & Flowering Trees: A Guide to Tropical & Semitropical Flora (Rutland, Vermont/Tokyo, Japan: Charles E Turtle, 1980). First published 1958.
Kuck, Loraine, The World of the Japanese Garden, From Chinese Origins to Modern Landscape Art (New York/Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1989). First edition in 1968. Her earlier book was called The Art of the Japanese Garden (1941).
Kuck, Loraine E. Tongg, Richard C., The Modern Tropical Garden: Its Design, Plant Materials and Horticulture (Honolulu: Tongg Publishing Company, 1970), 10. First published 1960. Further biographical background material on these authors was not uncovered in the research and their non-appearance in recent American landscape histories appears an oversight.
Kuck, Loraine E. Tongg, Richard C., The Tropical Garden: Its design, horticulture and plant materials (New York: Macmillan, 1939). First published 1936.
Kuck, Tongg, , The Modem Tropical Garden op. cit. Preface. While Kuck and Tongg play homage to Eckbo (a leading exponent of the Californian School of Modernist landscape design), their 1930s book already contained significant insight into the tropical outdoor lifestyle typical of Hawaii.
Also found by these authors on these topics: Loraine E. Kuck and Richard C. Tongg, ‘A New Garden Style: contemporary Hawaiian gardens in the tropical manner’, Landscape Architecture 31 (1) (1941), 7-8; and, Loraine E. Kuck and Richard C. Tongg, Hawaiian Flowers and Flowering Trees: A Guide to Tropical and Semitropical Flora (Rutland, Vermont/Tokyo, Japan: Charles E Tuttle, 1980, 1st published 1958).
According to Kuck and Tongg, tropical-looking herbaceous species include: A'pes (Alocasia spp.); taros (Calocasia spp.); caladiums and Zantedeschia spp. (calla lilies); anthuriums, bananas and related plants (musa, heliconia, ravenala, strelitzia); cordylines (ti plants in Hawaiian) and dracaenas; gingers (Alpinia spp.) and hedychiums and zingibers; pandanus, spider lilies (crinums, hymenocallis, pancratium); exotic vines (monstera, pothos etc); bamboos and other large grasses, begonias, and others (aglaonemas, asparagus, calathea, chlorophytum, coleus, dieffenbachia, iresine, macaranga, philodendron, rhoeo, vriesca and tillandsia, etc.). To these can be added certain other vines – peppers, hoyas, climbing maidenhair. Many of these plants are in the araceae family (pothos, monstera, anthurium, calla, arum, spathiphyllum, philodendron, caladium, taros, etc.) or the zingerberaceae (ginger) family. See Loraine E. Kuck and Richard C. Tongg, The Tropical Garden (New York: Macmillan, 1939), 255–283.
Jackson, Faith Reyher, Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: William Lyman Phillips in Florida (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, 1997).
Op. cit. 175.
Neal, Marie C., In Gardens in Hawaii. Special Publication 40 (Honolulu, HI: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1948). Continuing in this ethno-botanical approach is Angela Kay Kepler, Hawaiian Heritage Plants, Revised second edition (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, first published in 1984) and Angela K. Kepler, Exotic Tropicals of Hawaii: Heliconias, Gingers, Anthuriums & Decorative Foliage (Honolulu, HI: Mutual publishing, 1996).
Publisher's blurb, dust jacket of Herbert, D.A., Gardening in Warm Climates. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1952).
Oakman, Harry, Gardening in Queensland (Brisbane: Jacaranda, 1958); Oakman, Harry, Tropical and Subtropical Gardening, 1st edn (Milton, Brisbane: Jacaranda, 1975). This work has seen three editions and was still in print in 1998.
Graf, Alfred Byrd, Exotic House Plants: All the Best in Indoor Plants, 10th edn. (East Rutherford, NJ: Roehrs Co., 1976); Alfred Byrd Graf, (1985). Exotica, Series 4 International: pictorial cyclopedia of exotic plants from tropical and near-tropical regions, 12th ed. (East Rutherford, NJ, USA: Roehrs Co., 1985, first published 1957).; and Alfred Byrd Graf, (1992). Tropica: color cyclopedia of exotic plants and trees for warm-region horticultural, in cool climate, the summer-garden, or sheltered indoors, 4th ed. East Rutherford, NJ: Roehrs Co., 1992, first published 1978). This publisher Roehrs is still operating a tropical plant nursery in New Jersey, see www.juliusroehrs.com/ (accessed 30 May 2003).
Clay, Horace F. Hubbard, James C., Trees for Hawaiian Gardens, Cooperative Extension Service Bulletin 67 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1962). Subsequent publications from these authors include: Horace F. Clay and James C. Hubbard, Tropical Shrubs (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, c.1977); Horace F. Clay and James C. Hubbard, Tropical Exotics (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, c.1977).
While these creations are less in the tropicalian (hot-wet) mode and related more to the hot-dry context, they still embody the ‘Exotic Aspect’, and perhaps even some of the ‘Bizarre Aspect’.
Plant House or Nursery, Roberto Burle Marx's own propagating house at his farm (Sitio) called Santo Antonio da Bica, in Guaratiba, Brazil. Source: P. M. Bardi, The Tropical Gardens of Burle Marx (London: Architectural Press, 1964), 25 & 81.
‘Roberto Burle Marx in his greenhouse at the sitio (Archives of the Sitio Burle Marx)’. Source: Rossana Vaccarino, ed., Roberto Burle Marx: Landscape Reflected (New York: Princeton Architectural Press with Harvard University GSD, 2000), 57.
‘Drawing by Burle Marx, 1960, of a lathwork structure for undergrowth flora, planned for the Caracas Parque de Este, Venezuela’. Source: P.M. Bardi, The Tropical Gardens of Burle Marx (London: Architectural Press, 1964), 62.
‘Orchids in bloom are bought from the planthouse. Yellow trusses of Dendrobium densiflorum attract attention. Small bromeliads, Neoregelia pauciflora, form a pattern against the wall’. Source: Sima Eliovson, The Gardens of Roberto Burle Marx (Portland, OR: Sagapress/Timber Press, 1991), 37.
Photographic reminders of these features in the ‘Queensland Epiphyte Forest’ (since removed and dismantled) were located in the brochure Lawrence Smith, World Expo ‘88 Landscape (Brisbane: Australian Print Brokers, c.1988), 14.
Publisher's blurb, dust jacket of Gil Hanly and Jacqueline Walker, The Subtropical Garden (Milsons Point, NSW: Random House, 1992).
These recent publications include: Warren, William, The Tropical Garden (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991); William Warren and Luca Invernizzi Tettoni, Thai Garden Style (Singapore: Periplus, 1996); and, William Warren and Luca Invernizzi Tettoni, Balinese Gardens. 2nd edn (Singapore: Periplus, 1997, first published 1995).
Publisher's blurb on dust-jacket, Warren, William Tettoni, Luca Invernizzi, Tropical Garden Plants (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997).
Wijaya, Made, Tropical Garden Design (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999).
Bunk, Steven, ‘Hollywood and Vine’, Good Weekend, 25 September 1995, 45, 47–49.
Publisher's blurb, dust jacket of Will Giles, The New Exotic Garden (London; Mitchell Beazley, 2000).
Publisher's blurb, dust jacket of Susan A. Roth and Dennis Schrader, Hot Plants for Cool Climates: Gardening with Tropical Plants in Temperate Zones. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000).
Publisher's blurb, dust jacket of Richard R. Iversen, The Exotic Garden: Designing with tropical plants in almost any climate (Newtown, CT: Taunton Press, 1999).
Leighton, Dena, The Spanish Dreamer – A Biography of Jose Paronella. (Wollongong, NSW: Rosemont Press, 1997).
