VALE SHIRLEY STACKHOUSE IMMERSED IN HORTICULTURE FROM A YOUNG AGE, SHIRLEY STACKHOUSE GREW TO BECOME A HOUSEHOLD NAME, AN ICONIC GARDENING PERSONALITY AND AN UNRIVALLED SUPPORTER OF THE BOTANIC GARDENS
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he late Shirley Stackhouse made an extraordinary contribution to the Botanic Gardens and was a cherished Life Member of Foundation & Friends, an appointment reserved for those who have shown exceptional passion and dedication. Recently, she also generously bequeathed her art collection to Foundation & Friends, and we hope to be exhibiting this soon. Shirley‘s passion for gardening was fostered by her mother and grandfather at the family’s rose business, Pacific Nurseries. As a child she was known to assist customers when they phoned for guidance on the care of their roses. After graduating from Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Shirley did secretarial work to pay her way through art school, and soon began selling her paintings of flowers and gardens. She then went on a working holiday to New Zealand, as a nurse’s aide, and it was there that she met her future husband, journalist and correspondent John Stackhouse. John and Shirley married in 1954 at Shirley’s family property in Brisbane. They lived in Melbourne, Singapore and Papua New Guinea before settling back in Brisbane, where John took up a job with ABC TV news and Shirley worked for the ABC. When John later moved to Channel 9 in Sydney, the family settled in Killara, where they lived for more than 40 years, creating a garden filled with old-fashioned roses, camellias, bluebells, cats and dogs. In the late ‘60s, Shirley’s gardening and media career began to take off. When the gardening writer for The Sydney Morning Herald became ill, John volunteered his wife’s services. Shirley wrote a piece on roses, which
appeared with the headline ‘Demand makes 1968 the year of the rose’. In 1970, when her youngest child Geoffrey began school, Shirley went to Ryde School of Horticulture to gain her Certificate in Horticulture. There she flourished, made lifelong friends and started to cement her place in Sydney’s horticultural community. Shirley’s gardening advice column in The Sydney Morning Herald ran for more than 30 years. She also became the gardening contributor for Woman’s Day and Belle magazines, and in 1980 her first book, Shirley Stackhouse’s Gardening Year, was published. When Friends of the Botanic Gardens was formed in 1982, with Sir Rupert Myers as President, Shirley was on the foundation committee. Not long after this, she started leading gardening tours for the Friends organisation. In the mid-1980s, Shirley began her radio career on 2UE. Her gardening show ‘Over the Fence’, loved for its good advice and humour, ran for nearly two decades, co-hosted initially with the late Gary O’Callaghan MBE (aka Sammy Sparrow) then Phil Haldeman. Shirley achieved acclaim not just by sharing her extensive gardening
Shirley among her plants in 2005
knowledge, but also through her charm, warmth, friendliness and passion for growing plants. She personally spoke to many thousands of gardeners and answered as many letters. Shirley was awarded an Order of Australia in 2005 for her contribution to horticulture. Shirley died peacefully in Sydney on 4 March, aged 92, after a short illness. She is survived by her four children, Jennifer, Peter, Katie and Geoffrey, and five grandchildren. Her husband, John, who had worked as an aviation and defence journalist and editor, died last year.
Tending her Killara garden in 1975
“Shirley’s top-rating ga rdening show ra n for nea rly two decades” THE GARDENS WINTER 2020 17
