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sculpture garden
Question: What could be better than seeing a high quality, diverse, eclectic collection of sculpture? Answer: Seeing such a collection outdoors, against a backdrop of trees and lake. These are just a...
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risk taking in the summer garden
Any gardener with any experience of a hot Melbourne summer will tell you you're stupid if you cut things back hard when temperatures soar. Keep a protective cover over the soil as much as possible,...
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good nature news and bad nature news
Bunnings has decided to stop selling Round Up and other pesticides containing neonicotinoids or glysophate. Yay! A victory for environmental activists around the world.from Friends of the Earth...
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a few garden snippets
I see this little lizard around from time to time. In winter it hibernates in my study in between sheets of paper. During warm weather I glimpse it round the compost and other spots in the garden. The...
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imagining life forms
The state school that my grandsons attend was fortunate to have an artist in residence for a whole term. The residence culminated in an Arts Festival called Unseen Forces. The exhibition showed the...
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Guilfoyle's volcano
Guilfoyle's Volcano - part of Melbourne's Royal Botanical Gardens - is an example of very special and remarkable garden design. It was originally built in 1873, a reservoir to supply water for the...
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sources of hope
How to maintain hope and optimism in a world where war and environmental destruction looms large? We're not likely to find hope by looking at prominent government policy makers and breakers and their...
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Melbourne Landscape Conference
All week I kept wondering how I can write a post about this experience. Over the weekend I spent about 14 hours raptly listening to highly creative landscape architects and garden designers from all...
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photographing wildlife
One of the things I learned in the online Digital Photography School, is that when you take a photo of an insect, it is best to focus on its eyes. I'm proud of this photo of a Daddy Long Legs spider....
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quotes that speak to me
"I don't believe in final answers, only unfolding stories." - Tim Low, Australian biologist, environmental consultant and writer."How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before...
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What lives in the garden yet isn't flora or fauna?
There are things in my garden that don't photosynthesise or breathe. They might get a bit shabby, or rusty, but they don't really change much over time. The little guinea fowl family have lived in the...
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native nursery, critique of native nursery and "native" wildflower
About an hour's drive from my house is Kuranga Nursery. Kuranga stocks a huge range of native Australian plants. If it's native, you'll probably pick it up there. It's also a very attractive place, at...
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Potter's no longer in the garden
Potter was the name of our dog. We had her for 17 and a half years. She had a sweet nature. We loved her so much and she loved us back. Potter also functioned as garden ornament. She loved being in...
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garden catchup, and thanks to Feedspot
Over the summer the garden drooped, wilted and sulked and I couldn't bear to take photos. It's now come back smiling again, and I feel bad that I forgot how resilient it is. Even when I don't get...
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garden shoulds
It's not that there's never a time and place for should. Psychopaths and sociopaths behave badly and they should be more caring and considerate of others. But most of us are not psychopaths or...
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the new nature: book review
This book, by Tim Low, is full of interesting stories about how nature changes, how this affects, and is affected by, us humans and all the other species that together make up the idea of nature....
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gardening with shoes
I sometimes walk past a garden fence that is unusual and quirky.It's a new style of gardening, I think. I call it shoe gardening.Not any old shoes. They have to be sneakers. This gardener must have a...
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animals in Myanmar - captive, free and working
One day in Yangon I went to the zoo. I had read the online reviews which were dismal. So I wasn't looking forward to it, but determinedly went anyway in a spirit of investigation. When it was first...
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blogging as a way of life
Am I the only blogger who thinks about the extra time they would get if they stopped blogging? In a few months it will be a decade since I went beyond my comfort zone and ventured into the...
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casual infrequent blogging
I haven't posted in this blog for more than three months. It seems being a blogger is not necessarily a way of life after all. I'm feeling very ambivalent about it. Part of me wants to formally...
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