Wittunga Ashby was married to Esther Maria Coleman, and they had four children. Together they ran a farm, called 'Wittunga', in the
Adelaide Hills. In 1901, Ashby began an extensive formal
English garden beside the main house. Esther managed the business side of Wittunga property.
Watiparinga In 1911, Ashby expanded the Wittunga farming operation when he acquired a nearby parcel called 'Watiparinga'. After he died his daughter
Alison Marjorie Ashby inherited Watiparinga, and in the late 1950s, she began planting thousands of seedlings of Australian plants in Watiparinga. She eventually donated Watiparinga to the National Trust of South Australia in 1957, which now operates it as the
Watiparinga Reserve From the 1970s Ashby's granddaughter,
Enid Lucy Robertson, began a project to regenerate the land, and in 1984 she wrote the
Watiparinga Reserve Management Plan which became a prototype for other small to medium nature reserves in urban areas. This led to her being awarded a Heritage Award in 1986. The
Watiparinga Reserve was added to the
Register of the National Estate in 1996. == References ==