As Canberra settles into another spectacular autumn, it's hard to imagine that the city was once a dusty and inhospitable plain with barely a tree growing in the overgrazed, rabbit-infested soil.
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Unless, that is, your grandfather was one of the people tasked with creating the urban forests and treescapes that are so integral to Canberra's status as Most Liveable City.
John Langford, for one, knows exactly what I'm talking about. Like me, he recalls being driven around the streets as a child, and being told about his grandfather, who "planted all the trees".
Professor Langford and I are separated by two generations, but we have similar feelings of pride every time we stop to consider the vision that spurred on our respective forebears.
His grandfather, Charles Weston, was greeted by a windy wasteland when he arrived in the fledgling, recently-named city in 1913 to take up his role as officer-in-charge of afforestation.
His main job was to create the urban treescapes so integral to the Griffins' plan - a mind-boggling task.
And, like all the people who helped build the city virtually from scratch, Weston had no choice but to roll up his sleeves and get moving.
Today, his legacy is everywhere, as is that of his successor, my grandfather Lindsay Pryor: from the European-style tree-lined avenues of the inner suburbs, to the poplars and eucalypts dotted throughout the city centre.
What must it have been like for Weston and Pryor to embark on a task based almost entirely on faith and long-term vision?
It's a question that strikes me almost every day, as I drive through Canberra's inner suburban streets, many of which have trees so high they form a canopy over the road.
The thick foliage, such a relief in the summer, is about to explode into its familiar autumn finery, which will eventually whither and fall, leaving the branches bare and surrounded by much needed light during the dull winter days.
Weston and Pryor would have spent their working days predicting the effects of the trees and plants that were taking root around them.
But they would also have known that neither would live to see the full glory of their work, hoping all the same that their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would reap the benefits for years to come.
Weston spent 13 years examining seedlings and experimenting with different breeds to understand what would survive in the city's climate.
He also set up the Yarralumla Nursery where Canberra's tree seedlings were propagated to be used to mark out the city's avenues, parks, seasonal colours and shelters. By the time he retired in 1926, nearly 1.2 million trees had been planted.
But history intervened, and by the time Australia had weathered the Great Depression and the Second World War, momentum on Canberra's development had faltered. This is where Pryor came in: he was appointed director of parks and gardens in 1944, and picked up where Weston had left off.
Although he was responsible for establishing the suburban canopies and avenues that make inner Canberra so distinctively lovely, he always credited Weston for laying such rigorous foundations.
Professor Langford will be in Canberra on Sunday to help celebrate the nursery's centenary, although he has long been a frequent visitor to the capital.
A renowned expert on water - he was commissioner of the Murray Darling Basin Commission for four years - he says his grandfather has always been his main inspiration.
"Of all my forebears, he's had more influence on me. I just admire what he did," he says.
"He started off on the lower rungs of English society, the son of a journeyman, and carefully sought the sort of people he'd work with as an apprentice."
Just two years after he migrated to NSW, Weston was appointed head gardener at Admiralty House, and later at Federal Government House in Sydney.
In the family archives are various notes and gifts from the wives of Australian dignitaries, thanking him for his flower arrangements and garden landscapes.
Many years later, I've found myself sifting through similar letters of thanks to my own grandfather, from various embassies, thanking him for the gardens he helped design at the newly established international missions dotted around Forrest and Red Hill.
Yarralumla Nursery Open Day is on Sunday April 6, from 10am to 3pm.