[1] In 1938, she married James William "Jim" Matthews, the Dominion's news editor; they had two sons, Lewis and Julian, who both also became horticulturalists and writers.
[1] Four years later, they left the newspaper to become freelance writers on gardening and horticultural subjects.
[1] In 1944, Jim founded a new monthly magazine, New Zealand Gardener, and for more than two decades Barbara wrote for it, worked as its assistant editor, and promoted it to horticultural groups around the country.
[1] Starting in the late 1960s, when Jim's eyesight got bad, she wrote his popular newspaper column "Garden with Matthews" for him until 1987, though it continued to appear under his byline.
[3] In the 1950s, Barbara and her family lived in Waikanae on a property where the garden had been designed by the landscape architect Alfred William Buxton.