Legends of the Garden - Noel Sullivan
HILARY O’ROURKE: (from his eulogy to Noel, 2000): Noel’s interest in rhododendrons led to the development of three branches of the Australian Rhododendron Society in Tasmania. Noel exerted a strong, but benign, influence on the North West Branch’s affairs serving several terms as president or secretary.
The decision of the NW branch to establish the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden gladdened Noel’s heart. The Garden owes much to his vision, and the influence this had on others. As the original Curator, he created, with an endless stream of equally dedicated enthusiasts, a unique showcase in which to display a treasure trove of rhododendrons.
Such was Dr Sullivan’s knowledge and reputation in the field of hybridising and propagation that he was often commissioned to write articles for specialist journals nationally and internationally. He also became a noted speaker on hybridisation on an international level. Noel was honoured with Life Membership of both the Australian Rhododendron Society and the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden.
Ant Dry tracked down Noel’s daughter Karenne Griffin, now resident in Wales.
ANT: Tell us about Noel’s early life.
KARENNE: Dad was born in Sydney in 1921. He lived in Roseville, one of the North Shore suburbs, but I don’t know where he went to school. His two sisters are also gone so I can’t ask them. Prior to WWII I believe he started a degree in Electrical Engineering, then after the war decided to become a dentist as they were in short supply.
ANT: What about your mum? Do you have any siblings?
KARENNE: My mother was a young lady he met playing tennis as a teenager. I was an only child until my father married Anne Skinner and I acquired two stepsisters and a stepbrother. They are in Australia, but we keep in regular contact.
After graduating he heard of an opportunity to join a practice with an older dentist who was planning to retire soon. The only thing was the dental practice was in Tasmania. So, the young couple moved to Tasmania. Dad liked the idea of a more rural location. My mother, Valda, however was a city girl who had worked for 20th Century Fox as a secretary and dabbled in modelling. They separated and Dad remarried. He was very happy with Anne, who was very supportive of the work he did with EVRG.
ANT: How did he become interested in rhododendrons?
KARENNE: After a couple of years living in Burnie, Dad bought a partly built house on a steep block of land in Burnie. I think it was the challenge of this stubborn grassy slope with just one tree (a Robinia) that fired his interest in gardening. It took him several years to terrace the slope and fill the quarter acre garden with plants and trees. After our regular visits to the garden centre there was hardly enough space for me on the back seat of the car. Like all new gardeners he learned by trial and error. The bamboo at the edge of the lower lawn was a mistake as it soon got out of hand, sprouting through the grass. He even constructed three fishponds; the top two fed into the lower one by means of a buried hosepipe.
I remember a lot of talk about rhododendrons when I was a child. He was determined to cultivate them from seed. Some seeds would only germinate having survived a harsh winter, so he put them in ice cube trays in the freezer for months on end. These were not the ones to put in your glass of orange squash!
When I was a teenager, he bought 28 acres of land up behind Round Hill, and after a few years moved up there. He bought three little Hydro houses that were redundant after one of the hydroelectric dam building projects had been completed. In the early years the Hydro houses were still on wooden stilts. There was a hole in the bathroom floor and the cold wind whistled up through it. Also, my Dad had relocated the door into the bathroom, but he’d only cut it about 4ft high, so you had to duck your head to get into the bathroom. The three houses were eventually joined together. When the building work was completed, and the central courtyard garden was finished, the house was miles better.
I lived there with my Dad for a few months before moving to Melbourne. I soon found out about country life when I walked into the kitchen one morning and saw a mouse running down the kettle cord. Luckily because of my upbringing small furry animals don’t freak me out.
Living with Dad was interesting. There was what I call ‘the plaster of Paris incident’. Only my father would have kept plaster of Paris in the kitchen cupboard, and unfortunately on one occasion he thickened the stew with it.
With so many acres my father soon did his best to fill them with rhododendrons. They became ideal companions for the gum trees and other native plants on this hilly tail-end of farmland that was unsuitable for crops or livestock. Except for the goats my father kept for a few years – but that’s another story.
ANT: Tell me about the goats.
KARENNE: We started with one goat called Gertie who lived on the hillside outside the fence of the Aileen Crescent house. Dad thought a goat was a good idea – she ate the brambles and bracken. Then when he moved up to Round Hill, he acquired a couple more goats, and they had babies, and on it went. He took an interest in breeding them, he had Anglo Nubians (brown with dangly ears) and Saanen which came from Switzerland and were white.
He got rid of the goats eventually – gave them to a friend. This was after he and Anne came home tired from an outing one day and the goats had broken or chewed the plastic pipe that fed water from the tank to the house and the entire contents of the tank drained away. That was the last straw.
ANT: Noel was an active participant in several nature related societies?
KARENNE: Yes, he was an active member of the Field Naturalists, with a great enthusiasm for Tasmania’s natural environment, from its geology to the indigenous plants and animals. Getting involved with nature was a big part of the attraction of Tasmania. Also, initially, we were outsiders and so were some of the others who joined the Field Nats. It was a good way to get to know people. We met some really interesting people and the group outings and holidays are some of my happiest childhood memories.
ANT: What were his other interests?
KARENNNE: Photography and art, but rhododendrons were his passion. I think it was though his friendship with Hilary O’Rourke and other local plantsmen and women that the idea for an Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden came to fruition, and thanks to Hilary a suitable site was made available just a stone’s throw from Burnie.
ANT: Tell us about his work at the Garden.
KARENNE: There were years of hard labour, and strong friendships were formed among the committee. They pooled their strengths, resources and useful contacts for vital stages such as construction of the access roads and paths. Along with the other members, Dad drew plans for a collection of rhododendrons and complementary planting laid out in zones according to various regions of the world – the Himalayas, North America, China and Europe. Other people might not have been able to see beyond a rocky expanse of straggly gum trees, but my father was just replicating what he had created on his own land.
I went to live in Melbourne, but when I visited Burnie there was always a visit to the Garden. My father would show me what they’d achieved already, and his enthusiasm for the subsequent stages was infectious. I moved to the UK, and when I returned in 1991 it was to a very different Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden. The zones of the world had become a reality. Noel had been busy hybridising and growing a wide variety of rhododendrons. On this visit I recall planting one of his hybrids that he had named in my honour. It is up there somewhere along with specimens named for other members of the family.
ANT: Did he have a philosophy of life?
KARENNE: One of his favourite sayings was ‘all things must pass’. Unfortunately, he was gone too soon, having died in 2000 aged 78. I have so many wonderful memories of the times we spent together. He was a remarkably talented man who kept absorbing knowledge throughout his life. He was an inspiration to many, me included. The Noel Sullivan Memorial Walk is a fitting tribute to his memory. The plants he created and nurtured live on in this idyllic setting.
