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Leura, New South Wales

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62-698: Leura ( postcode : 2780) is a suburb in the City of Blue Mountains local government area that is located 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of the Sydney central business district in New South Wales , Australia. It is one of the series of small towns stretched along the Main Western railway line and Great Western Highway that bisects the Blue Mountains National Park . Leura is situated adjacent to Katoomba ,

124-694: A Large Volume Receiver (LVR), e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has the postcode 4029, the Australian National University had the postcode 0200. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s. Australia Post has been progressively discontinuing the LVR programme since 2006. Some places in Australia do not have postcodes. These are typically remote areas with little or no population. The first one or two numerals usually show

186-501: A National Trust of Australia (NSW) property—and expanded the garden. and to "Mahratta", where he renovated the garden for its new owners— Bank of New South Wales —in 1964. He did work at the country estate of the Field family, Lanyon Homestead , in the A.C.T. Also in the A.C.T. he carried out tree surgery that saved some very old cedar trees at "Yarralumla". In the late 1960s, he also returned to "Invergowrie" and restored and extended

248-582: A Remembrance Drive of memorial tree plantings along the Old Hume Highway south of Berrima. In 1939, by now doing significant work in the Southern Highlands and Illawarra areas, he set up a second nursery at Berrima , which operated until 1944. At " Mahratta " in Wahroonga , he redesigned and renovated his earlier garden to suit a new art deco style mansion built there for Thomas Alfred (T.A.) Field,

310-588: A farmhand in Victoria , prior to getting work at Ormond Plant Farm propagating ferns. He moved to the Blue Mountains and obtained work as a gardener at the Carrington Hotel at Katoomba . He opened a plant nursery, called Sorensen's Nursery, at Katoomba, before moving the business in 1920 to Leura , a nearby mountain village that would become his lifelong home. Initially maintaining existing gardens, Sorensen

372-503: A gardener. In 1932, he started a garden at "Heaton Lodge", Mudgee , for the Loneragan family, owners of the town's department store; this was the first garden that he created in an area of relatively low rainfall. In 1933, Sorensen met Henri van der Velde, a Belgian-born manufacturer and the owner of Feltex Carpets , who had a vision for a garden at " Everglades ", Leura; this garden would become probably Sorensen's best known. During

434-579: A number of localities across WA, SA and NT. Three locations (Mingoola, Mungindi and Texas ) straddle the NSW-Queensland border (so same town name and postcode on both sides). Jervis Bay Territory is located on the coast of NSW. It is just south of the towns of Vincentia and Huskisson, with which it shares a postcode. Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is addressed to the ACT. The numerals used to show

496-436: A real estate agency. The Alexandra Hotel, overlooking the railway station, offers panoramic views from its back veranda. There are a substantial number of restaurants, cafes and coffee shops along Leura Mall, among the boutiques, gift and antique shops. Leura is home to many formal, English-style, cool-climate gardens, influenced or designed by Paul Sorenson , which provide elegant walks and the opportunity to visit when open to

558-466: A similar system then used in rural and regional New South Wales . The introduction of the postcodes coincided with the introduction of a large-scale mechanical mail sorting system in Australia, starting with the Sydney GPO . The first digit for each state's postcode was copied directly from Australian radio call signs . Over time, digits beyond this set have come to be used for PO Boxes etc., for example

620-594: A small waterfall and "grotto pool" of natural appearance—clearly influenced by the natural watercourses of the Blue Mountains—and the garden has a lookout overlooking Gordon Falls and the Jamison Valley Similarly, at "Leuralla", the garden overlooks the Jamison Valley. At "Gleniffer Brae", the garden framed views of nearby Mount Keira and at Mt Keira Scout Camp, he made advantage of distant views to

682-694: A sorting number which is printed on the letter as an orange-coloured barcode . This number might be 12 digits long. This system enables the post office to place items in delivery order. Companies can also use Rapid Addressing Tool (RATS) to print Customer Addressed Barcodes, which are printed above the address. Every Delivery Point in Australia (DPID) has its own number. Barcode sorter machines sort and sequence letters up to C5 size. Flat multi-level OCR reads, imprints and sorts C5 to A3 sized articles. Paul Sorensen (landscape gardener) Paul Edwin Bielenberg Sorensen (16 December 1891 – 12 September 1983)

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744-505: A wealthy grazier and meat merchant, in 1941. Also in the 1940s, he created a cool climate garden for "The Braes" at Leura. Sorensen became friendly with Lady Gowrie , wife of the Earl of Gowrie , Governor-General of Australia, and he assisted in the creation of a small garden at "Yarralumla" (Government House, Canberra) , in memory of the Gowries' son, Patrick , who died on active service during

806-521: Is an inherent problem with spatial representation of postcodes since areas referenced to a specific postal code tend to change over time, as new postcodes are added or existing ones are split by Australia Post for operational purposes. Some mail generating software can automatically sort outward mail by postcode before it is generated. This pre-sort of mail into postcode order eliminates the need for it to be sorted manually or using mail sorting machines . To improve mechanised sorting, each address now has

868-664: Is intended for a specific identity within an organisation, their identity can be prepended on the line above the business name, with c/- prepended to the business name. If addressing a letter from outside Australia, the postcode is recorded before 'Australia', which is placed on a fourth line. Australian postcodes are sorting information. They are often linked with one area (e.g. 6160 belongs only to Fremantle, Western Australia ). Due to postcode rationalisation, they can be quite complex, especially in country areas (e.g. 2570 belongs to twenty-two towns and suburbs around Camden, New South Wales ). The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of

930-668: Is the Everglades Gardens , the former home of Belgian -born industrialist Henri van de Velde now administered by the National Trust . The Everglades includes van de Velde's Moderne -style home and 5 hectares (13 acres) of landscaped gardens designed by Paul Sorensen . The Everglades has an outdoor theatre which often hosts productions such as Cirquinox and the Leura Shakespeare festival. Self-styled as "the Garden Village",

992-783: The Australian Labor Party , the third President of the United Nations General Assembly , the first Chairman of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission , and a Justice of the High Court of Australia . The property was home to the NSW Toy and Railway Museum. which closed in 2022, with the toys subsequently auctioned off. As of April 2024, the Leuralla property is for sale. Another major attraction

1054-629: The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions share a postcode with the isolated sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie Island (part of Tasmania): There is also a "special" postcode for routing mail sent to Santa: Each state's capital city ends with three zeroes, while territorial capital cities end with two zeroes. Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs and PO Boxes were made available. The last numeral can usually be changed from "0" to "1" to get

1116-581: The Australian National University (now 2601) to 9944 for Cannonvale , Queensland. Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for street deliveries and another for post office boxes . For example, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this: But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed: Many large businesses, government departments and other institutions receiving high volumes of mail had their own postcode as

1178-532: The Geelong Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people. This means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations (e.g., postcode 4350 serving some 100,000 people in Toowoomba and the surrounding area), while other postcodes have much smaller populations, even in urban areas. Australian postcodes range from 0200 for

1240-676: The Jamison Valley , and Leura Cascades in the southwest. There is a network of tracks, part of the Prince Henry walk that go from Wentworth Falls to Echo Point , taking in many attractions along the way, including in the Leura area, the Pool of Siloam, Elysian Lookout, Olympian Lookout, Leura Cascades, Leura Falls, Jamison Lookout, Linda Falls and the Dardanelles Pass, before ascending to Echo Point via

1302-555: The 1930s, Sorensen worked for seed supplier Anderson & Co in garden design, while keeping his private clients. In 1934, he donated his time, plants and materials to laying out the memorial garden and stone flagging at the War Memorial Hall—now the Country Women's Association Hall—at Leura. Industrialist Cecil Hoskins , who also had a passion for gardens, became a client and lifelong friend. Sorensen designed and planted

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1364-842: The 8000 series refers to special addresses in Victoria. It is sometimes stated that the numbering was based on the (now retired) Australian Military Administrative Districts, however this is incorrect. For example, in that numbering scheme Queensland is 1, and 4 is South Australia. By 1968, 75% of mail was using postcodes, and in the same year post office preferred-size envelopes were introduced, which came to be referred to as "standard envelopes". Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990 to enable Australia Post to use optical character recognition (OCR) software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail by postcodes. Australian postcodes consist of four digits, and are written after

1426-591: The Australia Post website. Australian envelopes and postcards often have four square boxes printed in orange at the bottom right for the postcode. These are used to assist with the automated sorting of mail that has been addressed by hand for Australian delivery. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) to replace earlier postal sorting systems, such as Melbourne's letter and number codes (e.g., N3 , E5 ) and

1488-518: The Blue Mountains, such as "Benison", at Leura. Sorensen redesigned and expanded an existing garden at "Mahratta" at Wahroonga , in 1925 for its then owner, Gerald Allen of the mercantile firm Samuel Allen & Sons . After 1930, Sorensen also worked for the next owner of "Mahratta", James Joynton Smith who, as owner of the Carrington Hotel, had given Sorensen his first work in Australia as

1550-754: The Giant Stairway. The area is popular for bushwalking and photography. Postcodes in Australia Postcodes in Australia are used to more efficiently sort and route mail within the Australian postal system. Postcodes in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, before the country. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by Australia Post , Australia's national postal service. Postcodes are published in booklets available from post offices or online from

1612-693: The Leura Gardens Festival is held annually in October. The Festival is a registered charity and raises money for the Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital in Katoomba by opening private gardens to the public. Not connected with the garden festival but also held at the same time is the popular Leura Village Fair. Natural attractions include Sublime Point to the south and Gordon Falls park, which offer panoramic views of

1674-886: The Second World War. Sorensen died on 12 September 1983, at his home at Leura. He wanted his ashes returned to Europe and scattered in the North Sea. His younger son, Ib Sorensen, was also a landscape gardener and carried on the business, finally selling the Sorensen's Nursery in 1988. Sorensen's main legacies are those of his gardens that survive to this day. He is best known for "Everglades" at Leura but he built over 100 gardens during his career. Unfortunately, some of his gardens have been lost, reduced in size, or neglected. Many of his remaining gardens are at risk from subdivision and other modern urban developments such as road widening. Sorensen's rooftop garden at Feltex House, Sydney,

1736-593: The Second World War. Two of Sorensen's own sons died in the war and Cecil Hoskins invited Sorensen to erect a memorial to them in the grounds of the Hoskins Memorial Church at Lithgow; he created a simple memorial, using natural rock. After the war, he constructed mainly smaller gardens, for country properties—including "Bethune" near Orange—and for houses in the Blue Mountains and on the Upper North Shore in Sydney. He returned to "Everglades"—from 1962

1798-587: The aesthetics of the garden. "Invergowrie" retains a large garden by modern standards but due to some sub-division of the land is of reduced extent. A number of his surviving gardens are heritage listed. The garden of the Mount Keira Scout Camp is one of the best maintained surviving examples of his garden designs but is not heritage listed. Sorensen's other legacies are his techniques for creating gardens and his approach to garden design, both of which were influential. He developed techniques for enhancing

1860-529: The approach should be "don't buy land, buy water". Sorensen's approach to landscape garden design, although based in the European tradition, was influenced by the Australian landscape. He saw the most important elements of gardens as being trees and larger shrubs. He used mainly exotic plants in his Australian gardens, but his terracing, stone walls, and other features were typically less formal and conventional than those of earlier garden designers. A signature feature

1922-518: The construction of the Coffee Palace and the railway station, Leura Mall began to dominate. Most of its commercial buildings date from 1900 to the 1920s and today the Mall is the focus of Leura's daily business activity. Leura has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: At the 2016 census , there were 4,644 people in Leura. 66.1% of people were born in Australia. The next most common country of birth

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1984-481: The cost of car and house insurance. Transport for NSW uses postcodes to give specific numbers for each bus stop in Greater Sydney . The stop number is five to seven numbers: the first four are the postcode, and the others show the bus stop (sometimes written with a space in between, e.g. "2000 108"). Many companies that produce metropolitan street maps also list the postcodes for each suburb, both in indexes and on

2046-416: The discovery of coal in the Jamison Valley below the present Leura golf course in the early 1880s, which led to the establishment of a colliery. The earliest appearance of the name Leura was on a plan of subdivision, dated January–March 1881, for land south of the railway line belonging to Frederick Clissold. On his plan Clissold named a distinctive waterfall Leura Falls. Many theories have been advanced as to

2108-525: The expedition of George Evans in November 1813 and the road-building party of William Cox in the following year. When the western railway line was constructed across the Blue Mountains in 1867–68, a gatehouse (No 9) was erected where the line crossed the Western Road near the present Sorensen Bridge. The gatekeepers were the first permanent European residents of the area, Another early presence occurred following

2170-545: The garden for its new owners. He also designed and constructed new gardens for "Mereworth House" at Berrima, in 1965, and " Fernhill " at Mulgoa in 1969. Such large commissions became rarer; the era of grand residences with extensive parkland gardens was largely over by the 1960s. Sorensen kept working until his death in 1983, with his younger son and grandson doing the heavier work. On 27 November 1919, Sorensen married Anna Ernestena Hillenberg. They had three sons, two of whom—Derrick and Neville—died during their service in

2232-429: The garden of Hoskins' newly-built home, "Invergowrie", at Exeter (1936). "Invergowrie" was built on land Hoskins had bought from the estate of Arthur Yates in 1929. In making the new garden, Sorensen was able to make use of some mature trees, hedgerows, beds of daffodils, and orchards planted during Yates' ownership, but photographs taken at the time show the area in front of the house was newly-planted and almost all of

2294-584: The gardens that Sorensen designed and built were for residences. Noteworthy exceptions were the rooftop garden that he created at Feltex House (an office building) or Henri van der Velde, in 1939, and three garden projects associated with the Hoskins family; the Mount Keira Scout Camp ; the garden landscaped surroundings of the Southern Portland Cement Ltd's cement plant, near Berrima ; and

2356-526: The large garden was his work. The association with Cecil Hoskins led to other garden projects, mainly in the Illawarra and Southern Highlands ; " Gleniffer Brae ", in Wollongong , for Cecil's brother Sidney Hoskins; "Green Hills" and "Hillside" executive housing for Australian Iron & Steel; and the Hoskins Memorial Church at Lithgow . He also created the gardens for "Redlands" at Mittagong . Most of

2418-578: The largest centre in the upper mountains, and the two towns merge along Leura's western edge. The original inhabitants of the area were the Dharug and Gundungurra people. Archaeological evidence at Lyrebird Dell in South Leura suggests that Aboriginal occupation of the region may date back more than 12,000 years. The first Europeans to enter the area, in 1813, was the expedition of Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth. They were followed by

2480-404: The maps themselves. Spatial representation of postcodes is also very popular in defining sales and franchise territories. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Taxation Office and many other Federal and State government organisations publish a variety of statistics by postcode which extends the use Australia Post four digit code to many business and social planning related activities. There

2542-400: The name of the city, suburb, or town, and the state or territory: Recipient Name 100 Citizen Road BLACKTOWN NSW 2148 When writing an address by hand, and a row of four boxes is pre-printed on the lower right-hand corner of an envelope, the postcode may be written in the boxes instead. When posting to an organisation, business names can be written instead of a recipient name. If an article

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2604-592: The ocean. However, Sorensen planned his gardens so that plantings screened views and other features, which were gradually revealed only by moving through the garden space. Although he planned a garden with its final landscape form in mind, Sorensen anticipated the development of the garden over a long period of time, during which its nature would vary as it matured; the aim was to allow the garden to achieve its own ecological equilibrium, after which only relatively little maintenance would be needed. This notion of planning for continuing change and development, over many years,

2666-511: The origins of the name of Leura, but the debate has by no means been settled. When the land was offered for sale later in 1881 as the Leura Estate, however, the name was well on its way to general acceptance. Perhaps the first large home erected at Leura was Leura House, high on the northern side of the Western Road, in the late 1880s. Another early house was Mondeval in Railway Parade which

2728-580: The postcode 2750 and Petrie, Queensland has the postcode 4502. Within each region with the same second numeral, postcodes are usually allocated in ascending order the further one travels from the state's capital city along major highways and railways. For instance, heading north on the North Coast railway in New South Wales away from Sydney: Major towns and cities tend to have "0" as the last numeral or last two numerals, e.g. Rockhampton, Queensland has

2790-915: The postcode 4700 and Ballarat, Victoria has the postcode 3350. There are exceptions; the major town of Ipswich, Queensland has the postcode 4305, while Goodna , a relatively small suburb of Ipswich, is allocated 4300. Australia Post prefers envelopes sold in Australia to have four boxes in the bottom right corner of the front of the envelope. Entering the postcode in these boxes or squares, which Australia Post calls postcode squares , enables Australia Post to use optical character recognition software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail into postcodes, which also embeds routing information. Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990. Australia Post says that postcode squares should not be used for machine-addressed mail, or mail going overseas. Many other organisations now use postcodes. Insurance companies often use postcodes when working out

2852-425: The postcode for General Post Office boxes in any capital city (though Perth now uses a different range of postcodes for its GPO Boxes): While the first numeral of a postcode usually shows the state or territory, the second numeral usually shows a region within the state. However, postcodes with the same second numeral are not always next to each other. As an example, postcodes in the range 2200–2299 are split between

2914-423: The public in early October each year. In 2016, Leura was named in the list of top 50 most irresistible, exotic, historic and postcard-worthy small towns in Australia. One of the most prominent of Leura's historic homes is Leuralla , the former home of Clive Evatt , an Australian politician, barrister and raconteur. Evatt was the brother of H.V. "Doc" Evatt , a former Chief Justice of New South Wales , Leader of

2976-498: The sandy soils of the Blue Mountains, so that these soils could support luxuriant gardens. At "Gleniffer Brae", he transplanted, from the surrounding bushland, several large Illawarra flame trees —reputedly one of the earliest successful transplantings of mature Australian native trees, something still seen as very difficult to do. Sorensen understood the difficulties of creating and maintaining large landscaped gardens in Australia, an extremely dry continent, saying that in Australia

3038-593: The southern suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast , Lake Macquarie and Newcastle regions of New South Wales. Postcodes with a second numeral of "0" or "1" are almost always located within the metropolitan area of the state's capital city. Postcodes with higher second numerals are usually located in rural and regional areas. Common exceptions are where towns were rural when postcodes were first introduced in 1967, but have since been suburbanised and incorporated into metropolitan areas, e.g. Penrith, New South Wales has

3100-538: The state on each radio callsign in Australia are the same numeral as the first numeral for postcodes in that state, e.g. 2xx in New South Wales, 3xx in Victoria, etc. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years. Australia's external territories are also included in Australia Post's postcode system. While these territories do not belong to any state, they are addressed as such for mail sorting: Three scientific bases in Antarctica operated by

3162-445: The state or territory that the postcode belongs to Sometimes near the state and territory borders, Australia Post finds it easier to send mail through a nearby post office that is across the border: Some of the postcodes above may cover two or more states. For example, postcode 2620 covers both a locality in NSW ( Gundaroo ) as well as a locality in the ACT ( Hume ), and postcode 0872 covers

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3224-493: The urban area of Copenhagen, Denmark, which is the site of two extensive public gardens, Frederiksberg Have and Søndermarken . Sorensen was employed at a Copenhagen nursery, Hørsholm Planteskole, at the age of thirteen. He enrolled at the Hørsholm Tekniske Skole to study horticulture. For the last two years of this training, Sorensen was under the direction of Lars Nielsen, a leading horticulturist, who at that time

3286-572: Was England at 6.5%. 81.7% of people only spoke English at home. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 39.8%, Anglican 15.7% and Catholic 14.0%. Leura's elevation of 985 metres (3,232 ft) AHD leads to occasional snowfall in winter and a climate that reflects all four seasons distinctly. The village centre lies on Leura Mall which is divided at this point by a wide grassy median strip planted with flowering cherry trees by Danish -born landscape gardener Paul Sorenson . The historic streetscape has been largely preserved, although there

3348-512: Was a Danish-born Australian landscape gardener and nurseryman. After leaving Europe due to the outbreak of the First World War, Sorensen lived in Australia for the rest of his life, mostly in the Blue Mountains . He designed and planted over 100 gardens, of which the best known is " Everglades ", in Leura , Australia. Paul Sorensen was born on 16 December 1891 at Frederiksberg , a town now part of

3410-735: Was a novel and unusual approach, when Sorensen began his work. Gardens by Sorensen are significant in the listing of these places in the New South Wales State Heritage Inventory: Sorensen is the subject of Australia’s Master Gardener: Paul Sorensen and his gardens , by Richard Ratcliffe (1990). He has an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography . Sorensen left no written works of his own. His life and work are mentioned in various articles—particularly in Australian Garden History ,

3472-462: Was built in the 1890s. A railway platform was erected in 1891, followed on Christmas Eve 1892 by the opening of the Leura Coffee Palace. Postal facilities were established in 1893 and during the next 20 years land on both sides of the railway line was subdivided and offered for sale. A new railway station was built in 1902. While the early focus of activity had been along the Western Road, with

3534-500: Was employed by the landscape designers and contractors Mertens Bros. Sorensen was later to state that it was the outbreak of the First World War (although his homeland Denmark was neutral) that motivated him to migrate to Australia, when he saw his French, German, Austrian, and Italian friends in Switzerland being recalled to their homelands for military service. Sorensen arrived in Australia in 1915. He initially found employment as

3596-467: Was local concern regarding the development of a shopping complex on the site of a former distribution warehouse. Redesigned to better suit the Leura Mall ambience after consultations with the wider community, the new shopping complex was completed in 2010, hosting a Woolworths (now Metro) supermarket and liquor store. The historic post office building continues to operate as a post office but is also home to

3658-488: Was lost when it was converted to office space in 1954; the original three-storey art deco style building was extended to nine storeys in 1961. A part of his garden "Gleniffer Brae" is now the Wollongong Botanic Garden , although changes made as a public park have masked much of the original garden's design. At "The Braes", the removal of large trees and other changes have altered the microclimate and compromised

3720-518: Was responsible for the design of much of the open spaces of Copenhagen . During that same period, Sorensen did garden maintenance work at Hvidøre , which at that time was a summer residence owned by King Christian IX 's daughters, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom and Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia . After performing national service , he worked in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He

3782-518: Was soon planting large gardens for wealthy people who had homes in the Blue Mountains. During the 1920s, he created gardens in the area for the residences "Sylvan Mists", "Gabo", "La Vista" at Wentworth Falls , "Dean [or Dene] Park", and "Cheppen". Sorensen assisted Lady Fairfax, the widow of the Sydney newspaper magnate Sir James Oswald Fairfax (1863–1928), with the garden of "Sospel" at Leura. He also improved an existing garden in Leura, " Leuralla ". Sorensen's garden designs influenced other gardens in

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3844-434: Was stone walling using local rock that may have been split or broken to shape but not noticeably cut with straight edges. He made use of the surrounding outlooks and natural vegetation and he did use large native trees—such as the Illawarra flame trees and coastal cypress pine at "Gleniffer Brae"—when and where it suited his design. In the garden of "Mahratta", he mixed native trees with exotics. At "Everglades", he created

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