Ellis Andrew Stones (1 October 1895 – 9 April 1975) was an Australian landscape architect of private and public gardens—many displaying naturalistic rockwork—and a conservationist whose work and ideas influenced approaches to public landscaping in Australia. Based in Melbourne, Australia, he was an early proponent of the use of Australian native plants and one of the founding fathers of the Australian landscaping style.
Early years and family life
Ellis Stones was born in Wodonga, Victoria. His father was Thomas James Stones a customs officer, born in Victoria. His mother was Hannah May, née Downs, also born in Victoria. He grew up in Essendon, Victoria. After attending Moonee Ponds West Primary School he worked with the Victorian Railways as an apprentice carriage builder. He married Olive Doyle in 1922. They had a son who died in his first year, and three daughters.
War years (1914–1918 and 1939–1945)
On 25 April 1915 he was a rower in the first boat of the second wave of the landing in the Gallipoli Campaign. He took a bullet in his left knee, an injury which was to cause him lifelong pain.
During World War II Stones worked in the Volunteer Defence Corps and the Civil Constructional Corps.
Building
After WWI he returned to work as a carpenter and, later, a builder, eventually living and working at Avenel in country Victoria. The Depression brought him and his family back to Melbourne, where he took on whatever work he could find (including repairing broken window glass), and eventually settled in Ivanhoe. Working on a house in Heidelberg in 1934-35, he volunteered to build a stone wall for its landscape designer Edna Walling. Impressed by his natural aptitude she employed him again on many other jobs as he gradually established his own practice as a constructor and designer of gardens.
Landscape architecture
Stones collaborated for many years with Edna Walling, constructing many of the rock outcrops, walls and ponds in the gardens she designed. Among the gardens in which he did rock work for Walling were: the Donaldson, Anderson and Marshall gardens in Heidelberg the Beattie, Darling and Anderson gardens in Toorak the Lewis garden in Malvern 'Kildrummie', the Carnegie garden in Holbrook, New South Wales the 'Hillsborough' or 'Silver Birches' garden in Balwyn gardens in Benalla, Skipton and Olinda
In Australian Home Beautiful of December 1938 Walling wrote:
"It is a rare thing this gift for placing stones and strange that a man possessing it should bear the name Stones... Lovely as formal gardens can be, it is these informal schemes, in which boulders form so important a part, that appeal so tremendously... they give us the atmosphere of the country, and the refreshment of mind derived from such".
Stones' inspiration for garden landscaping came from the natural world. He writes in the introduction to his book Australian Landscape Design,
" ... more can be learnt by observing nature than through any other form of teaching. When you see pleasing contours with perhaps an attractive grouping of trees, ask yourself why they please you. It may be their texture or perhaps their shape, or a wandering track which may give special interest to the landscape. Look for the reason. It may be that the track winds around a tree which casts shadows on the path, or past an outcrop of boulders."
In her foreword to The Ellis Stones Garden Book published in 1976 shortly after his death, Thistle Harris elaborates
"Ellis Stones abhorred geometrical patterns as much as does nature on a grand scale, and straight paths, trimmed borders and serried ranks of plants are never to be found in his gardens. Curving paths leading to forever; informal clumps of plants, bending intimately towards each other; lichen-covered rocks of geological antiquity—these things distinguish his designs."
The second principle which guided Stones' work was the idea that gardens must be designed for the people who use them. This struck a chord with writer Anne Latreille as she researched his life and work for her book ‘The Natural Garden’ (1990). She noted how he would start by considering the owners' way of life including likely changing needs over time. He tried to include private, sheltered spaces to sit outdoors. And he was cognisant of providing beautiful outlooks from indoors as well as particular spots in the garden.