The Fairer Side of Buxton - Alfred Buxton's Gardens and the Women Who Loved Them

The Cuba Press, 2024. 248 pages.

Alfred Buxton was the father of landscape design in New Zealand. Working in the early twentieth century, he was one of the first in the country to create expansive and sophisticated gardens that transformed people's properties and way of life. His rural gardens became creative outlets for the wives of the farmers who commissioned them, recreational spaces for their families and meeting places for the community. Independent women commissioned Buxton gardens for their own enjoyment and for the schools they worked for, while mothers and wives raised funds for gardens to enhance the memorials being built to remember those lost in the Great War. Clare Gleeson tells an intriguing story of a man who played an important role in developing Aotearoa's horticultural landscape, through the lens of the 'fairer sex' who supported and took pleasure in his work.