Broadening Histories of Designed Landscapes: The Case of the Gembrook Nurseries and the Dandenong Ranges/Koran Warrabin Range

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines how complex food production systems developed by Kulin Nation people over centuries in the physical landscape around Emerald, in the Dandenong /Koran Warrabin Range/s east of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) were transformed in the late nineteenth century, through colonisation and, especially, the operations of C. A. Nobelius’ Gembrook Nurseries, into the largest commercial fruit tree nursery in the Southern Hemisphere. Using the colonial archive and contemporary sources, the research demonstrates shared aspects of landscape resources and infrastructures as they were used by both Kulin Nation and settler communities, and also some of the fundamental differences in modes of access to these resources. Photographic evidence in particular documents how the scale and speed of change through industrial-scale colonial horticulture massively impacted the landscape within a matter of years, if not seasons, resulting in disruption to and destruction of Indigenous landscape systems. This analysis seeks to address the ways in which Australian histories can continue to be re-framed to better acknowledge and respect Australian Aboriginal histories, and confirms the importance of revisiting historically settler-focused understandings and heritage assessments of Australian landscapes to better acknowledge the complex uses and values of these places for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land where I live and work, the people of the Kulin Nations, and pay respect to their Elders and other Aboriginal people.