Graced with a clever title, The Man Who Planted Canberra is a new book about the life of Charles Weston MBE (1866-1935) and likely to be snaffled by horticulturists and proud Canberrans alike. 

The 240-page work by Canberra writer and CityNews columnist Robert Macklin pays tribute to the British horticulturist and arborist who was responsible for the planting of at least three million trees in the nation’s capital.

The book partly deals with the way that, albeit memorialised in the naming of Weston Park, Charles Weston has been relegated to the backrooms of history, in contrast to his much-lauded, contemporaries Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion. 

The idea of the book was first pitched to Macklin by local heritage researchers, who alerted him to the doctorate by the late John Gray, undertaken at the University of Canberra under Prof Ken Taylor, on the life and work of Weston.

His curiosity piqued, he read the whole thesis, which focused on Weston’s scientific achievements rather than his personal life. It was an invaluable resource for Macklin who, although the author of 25 non-fiction books, is on his own admission no horticulturist.

His challenge, he thought, would be to have readers turn the pages on a story of at least 65,000 words, so he would need to undertake his own extensive research into the political and social milieu of Weston’s time. 

He introduces us to the young Weston working at Drumlanrig Castle in the Scottish borderlands under influential British gardener David Thomson, who appointed him at merely 26 to be in charge of around 79 staff.

We learn of his work in afforestation in Scotland and his rigorous apprenticeship before migrating to Australia in 1896, eventually becoming officer-in-charge of afforestation in Canberra in May 1913, a position he held until 1926.

From the narrative perspective, this move to the fledgling capital yielded Macklin a cavalcade of colourful characters, not least the wily Billy Hughes and the American-born politician, King O’Malley – “a cheat, liar, and possibly even a murderer,” Macklin says.

Then there were the local bureaucrats to deal with, some of them accessible but others far less so, leading to dramatic chapter titles such as Frontal Attack, Daggers Drawn and Leadership, Canberra-style. 

Macklin was shocked to find how little talent Weston had to work with. 

“When I looked, I saw the biggest problem was the fact that a whole generation of people were sent away from Australia to be killed in World War I,” he says, alerting me to a part of Geoff Page’s poem The Forester published in the book, which reads:

Your propagation shed has shoots

from half the countries in the world.

In northern France they’re planting out

their sixty thousand dead Australians.

But it was the character of Weston himself that would provide Macklin the greatest opportunities for storytelling.

A man of humble requirements, he lived for eight years in a little, two-room hut where it took him three years to get a stove and a similar time to get his windows stopped-up.

Because he’d been deprived of an education, Weston and his English-born wife Minimia were determined that their children would get a good education. So she spent many years with them in Macquarie Street, Sydney, while they were schooled, only later coming to Canberra.

But it was a happy married life, Macklin says: “You read about them getting together again and again and there are two letters at the end of the book that open up the reality of their love for each other and for their children.” 

His hopes of finding Weston’s letters were sorely dashed when he found that their middle daughter had burnt her father’s letters, 

But luckily, he adds, another letter from Minimia to the girls throwing light on his revelation of Weston’s dysfunctional relationship with his stingy parents, who has prevented him from gaining formal academic qualifications.

Another letter from Minimia to the family describes how Weston himself made the floral tributes for the visiting Duchess of York in 1927, sourcing flowers from his own garden.

Of course, not everything was perfect, but it wasn’t always his fault. Griffin wrongly predicted that the cork industry was about to take off in Australia, leading to the disastrous planting of a cork oak plantation.

But there are examples of his prescience, as, with an eye to Canberra’s drought-prone environment, he advised against excessive planting of lawns.

Every good book needs a strong ending and Macklin hopes he’s achieved that by publishing a message conveyed posthumously to his children – “I should like you all to keep in loving and peace”.

It moves and consoles Macklin that both Charles, who died in 1935, and Minimia two years after him, had their ashes spread on the Parliament House gardens. 

The Man who Planted Canberra: Charles Weston & His Three Million Trees, by Robert Macklin (NLA Publishing).