Book pre-order: A Living Palette

Details

Early-bird price: $70 until Sunday 21 December. Then it goes up to $75.

A garden of a lifetime takes, well, a lifetime. Carolyn Robinson has made two.

Glenrock came first – eight bare acres on the New England Tablelands that became one of Australia’s most admired traditional gardens. Then, at 56, Carolyn began again from nothing, on a granite rise above the Bluff River at the edge of wilderness, and made Eagles Bluff, a distinctly contemporary Australian garden.

Largely self-taught, and gardening far from any city, Carolyn found her own way – and became one of the country’s most original gardeners in the process.

This book is what she has learned: what to plant, how to get a garden through drought and flood, and how to think about designing with the landscape. It is also about why she does it at all. For Carolyn, gardening has been a source of great happiness and meaning, and she wants to help others find joy in cultivating a manageable, thriving garden too.

“A garden is not a painting to hang on a wall… it shifts with the seasons, with time, and with you.”

A beautifully made hardback, with photography throughout by Brigid Arnott and Kim Woods Rabbidge.

This is a pre-order. The book launches in March 2027 at the Australian Landscape Conference and will be posted to you after launch. Payment is taken now to secure your copy.

Please make sure the postal address you give at checkout is where you’d like the book sent.

Postage charged at checkout.