Rogue: Art of a Garden

Rick Eckersley’s garden at Musk Cottage is the culminating work of decades of design and experimentation in contemporary Australian landscape architecture. As Eckersley’s own private garden, it is an expression both of his respect for Australia’s unique flora and ecologies and his unfettered, almost painterly approach to garden design. Both wild and directed, ancient and contemporary, it is a landscape of contradictions – a rogue garden of hybrid vigour that engages the senses, celebrates intuition and inspires artistic expression. It is also, unquestionably, a work of art in itself.

Rogue: Art of a Garden documents and explores this remarkable Australian landscape and the sensibility that produced it. While evocative photography by Will Salter takes the reader on a journey through the garden’s plantings, textures, spaces and cycles, the book foregoes the typical series of accompanying explanatory essays. Instead, a selection of artworks by Australian artists, created in response to the garden, form richly subjective layers of interpretation and shifting perspectives. Short reflections by Eckersley reveal the philosophical underpinnings of an approach that has transcended gardening’s strictures and conventions to create a uniquely Australian landscape.