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Designed Landscapes

Simon Reeves has undertaken much research on the history of twentieth century Australian landscape design.  His long-standing interest in Walter Burley Griffin, one of the first professional landscape designers to work in Victoria, is documented elsewhere.  Simon is an acknowledged authority on Mrs E M Gibson (nee Emily Grassick), a prominent Melbourne  horticultural journalist and garden designer who was active from the 1920s to the 1960s.  He maintains a vast and largely unpublished archive of Mrs Gibson's career, mostly compiled in the late 1990s, which includes interviews and correspondence with her colleagues, associates, clients and family members (many since deceased), as well as copies of drawings, photographs, letters and other memorabilia.

He has also researched many of Mrs Gibson's contemporaries or proteges, including Nerine Chisholm, Grace Fraser, Margaret Hendry, Hilda Kirkhope, John Stevens and Edna Walling.