Talk:Eben Gowrie Waterhouse

Raison d'être
Waterhouse was famous for several different reasons. The differences have dispersed his memory, unfairly. He was just as famous a garden designer as Edna Walling, but she is remembered because she was only a garden designer.

Eryldene already has its own Wikipedia article, so I have focused on Waterhouse's approach to languages and his approach to gardens. In both cases he was an intellectual with well worked out ideas; I have described them. One reason his reputation has faded is that most treatments ignore his systematic thinking. He was also in world class as a camellia breeder, and I have given him full weight there. One would like to know if he interviewed Hitler and Mussolini as a tacit agent of the Department of External Affairs or indeed of the Foreign Office. The site could do with more (and better) photos, especially of his camellias. Erictimewell (talk) 00:52, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I have supplied a beginning list of photos of Waterhouse's camellias. The article could now do with photos of his surviving landscaping efforts, e.g. at the University of Sydney. There is also room for details of his great early successes as a camellia breeder. I have heard a lot about them from camellia fanciers but there seems to be nothing in print. Erictimewell (talk) 10:47, 9 December 2017 (UTC)