Source: "Everylady's Journal", 1 Jan,1927. Recorded by "Wilma".

A Successful Student.

The College heads are very proud of Miss Edna Walling, whose ability they seasoned with scientific lore. As an expert designer, and one who is rather a genius at her job, Melbourne is beginning to value her, for in the last six years she has given us a number of lovely suburban gardens, expressions of pastoral delight and, moreover, a fit setting to the home they materially assist to beautify. When a costly new house is nearing completion, the owner, wishful to possess such a garden, sends for Miss Walling, who studies the architecture of the house and sizes up the land. Next, she submits a plan for the garden, just as did the architect for his part. The job is let to a contractor, who carries out the design under Miss Walling's supervision. In bygone days this was termed landscape gardening. ...

"There's no sentiment about my job," declared Miss Walling, "though some gardens do develop into such pets that one hates to part with them; but when a contract is finished, it means good-bye to that particular garden, and, like the builder, one passes on to the next work at hand." ...

Asked what directed her energy in this specialised work, she shrugged slightly and answered with a masculine directness, characteristic of her attitude toward life in general: "I don't know, it just came my way, and it fascinated me." One couldn't picture her somehow at any other job. Her breezy personality is frankly boyish and decidedly unique. It suggests wide spaces and long tramps in the open. Parlour diversions, little feminine tricks and wiles would find no place in her life, so crowded with practical interests. ...

[Referring to the house she built at Bickleigh Vale] Men experienced at the game admire that it is a rare specimen of beauty. As an example of woman's work, it is a fine tonic to the sex, for it shows that an active, wholesome outdoor life is good for some of us and a fine panacea for human ills, for Miss Walling looks as fit and healthy as does the garden, and her energy outpaces its growth.

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