The Growing Gardens of Orange

Orange looking south down Hill Street with 'Emily', a Dalton home in Byng Street in the foreground. This photo shows the extensive size of the house blocks, the characteristic hedges creating garden rooms or zones with dedicated areas for chooks and a small orchard. Two small children peer over the front gate.

Image courtesy: McDonald Album, Orange City Library

With the gold rush in 1851, the settlement of Orange developed as a service and administrative centre for the district. Gardens thrived in the excellent soils. Orchards and Chinese market gardens spread across the slopes of Mt Canobolas and the Pinnacle.

James Dale arrived in Orange in 1848 and gives a mouth watering description of his flourishing garden on the south-west corner of Summer and Sale Street.

I had a good garden and grew all kinds of English fruits, including red, black and white currants, to great perfection, also gooseberries and raspberries, the garden being bordered all round with strawberries. I made four kinds of wine… The district of Orange is particularly favourable for the growth of apples, and I gathered once a large green keeping apple which measured thirteen and half inches in circumference...