Barbara Barnes, Edna Walling's niece recalls:

I think that her essence is that she was a natural. There was nothing artificial or put on about her. She was influenced by all sorts of people but she was very much her own woman, very respectful of nature and not corrupted by the Christian idea that you've got to conquer nature at all.

And I think there's something about her freshness, and definitely her honesty, which I feel young people are attracted to. They feel as though they can trust what she writes. They like the way she writes, so they tell me, or so the way the sales of her books suggests, and they pick up her enthusiasms and that helps them to be enthusiastic.

So she continues to be an inspiration, but thanks to Anne O'Donovan for printing the books, thanks to Peter Watts, thanks to Trisha Dixon and Jennie Churchill, thanks to Warwick Forge for publishing them, thanks to people like Peter Cundall picking it up on ABC TV and thanks to Burke's Backyard because he often mentions her.