BETWEEN THE LEAVES by Katie Holmes - UWA Publishing

Book Club Notes
BETWEEN THE LEAVES
Stories of Australian Women, Writing and Gardens
by Katie Holmes
Some topics to consider while reading Between the Leaves:
• A love of writing and gardening
• Environmental issues
• Women’s struggles, and marital complexities
• Self-expression and creativity
• Loss and loneliness
• The deep bonds of friendship
Between the Leaves is an intimate portrayal of the lives of
nine twentieth-century Australian women who wrote about
their garden, yearnings, isolation, marital problems, and
bereavement, in their letters or diaries.
Featuring letters by Katharine Susannah Prichard, Judith
Wright, Jean Galbraith and others, these women’s stories
illustrate the many meanings of the garden, and show us how
these remarkable women transformed their landscapes and
reshaped the world around them.
About Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes is Associate Professor
of History at La Trobe University. She
has published widely on gardening in
Australia, including Reading the Garden
(2008), and her book on women’s diary
writing, Spaces in Her Day: Australian
women’s diaries of the 1920s and
1930s (1995) which was shortlisted
for the NSW and Victorian Premiers’
Awards. In 2010 she held the Keith
Cameron Chair in Australian History at
University College Dublin.

Discussion questions
1 Friendships were often forged during the creation of a garden and the subsequent letters detailing the
progress of the garden reinforced these friendships. Does receiving an email from a friend have as
much meaning as a hand-written letter
2 The garden provided women with a site for self-expression in a period when women were not yet
perceived as being equal to men. Now that most contemporary women have self-supportive careers,
has the importance of the garden as a site for creative expression lessened
3 Inky and Winifred Stevenson grew a garden of dissent comprised of native plants and European flowers
that reflected their own marital conflicts. Does the garden reveal part of a person’s life that they don’t
necessarily discuss openly
4 Discuss the ‘daily meaning’ of a garden, whereby every time you see a particular flower or plant, you
remember the person who gave it to you or for whom it was planted. Is it still popular to create a
garden as a site for remembrance, and is this constant reminder always a good thing
5 In your opinion, would Inky and Winifred Stevensen have had a happier marriage, after his release, if
they had gone to live at Heathcote where their beloved garden was, rather than moving to Melbourne
6 Wendy O’ Dowd tried to bring order to her life by having a clean house and an organised garden that
hid the internal dissent of her marriage. Did this sense of control, whether real or imagined, help her
through her marital difficulties, or did it delay her from seeing the reality of the situation
7 Discuss the environmental issues that surface throughout the book. Is there an irony to the fact that
these women somewhat destroyed the native landscape in order to create an ordered beauty in their
own gardens Also, why do you think they often persisted in planting European flowers even though it
was almost impossible to water and maintain them in the harsh Australian climate
8 Did you personally relate to any of these women or their experiences while reading the book Explain.
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