Rose petals in a fountain in the Arabian Desert…pink petals today, yellow petals yesterday.

January 2019

                                              …defended by a grandchild.

December 2018

Brave attempt at a festive street-planting of the temperamental NSW Christmas Bush (ceratopetalum gummiferum). This one in Camperdown, Sydney.

For an interesting historical pic, go to:

https://www.anbg.gov.au/christmas/christmas-bush.html

December 2018

B. I think of such great ways to make our fortune when I am out the back watering in the evening.

G. Such as?

B. Today’s brilliant thought is a start-up called Noir Wakes.

G. What on earth is that?

B. It’s about providing an elegant mourning garden for people to hold the wake after a funeral.

G. Mmm.

B. Picture it. A courtyard walled in dark stone, with black pavers, a black Japanese spill fountain. We’d plant things like black pansies, black stemmed bamboo, black mondo grass. Guests would enter through a huge ebony door carved in Bali.

G. I like it. I like it. How about an avenue of dark cypresses leading up to it? And a resident black cat?

B. We’d offer noir menus: afternoon tea would be black coffee with black forest cake. Or maybe caviar on pumpernickel if they were rich.

G. Served on black chinaware of course. Lunch could be black pasta with aubergine, black sticky rice for dessert. I’m getting into the swing of this.

B. And aren’t there some fancy cocktails called negritos? They sort of sound black.

G. Never had one. Better Google them before we add them to the menu.

B. Do you really think we might be onto something here? Would we ever do it?

G. No. But it guarantees the back garden gets a thorough water each evening.

November 2018

It blooms at the same time as that gaudy interloper, jacaranda, so its charms are often overlooked. But this fabulous Aussie native, blueberry ash (or to be botanically correct – elaeocarpus reticulatus), unlike its one-trick rival, pulls two rabbits from the hat: weeks laden with masses of little fringed white flowers in November, followed by months of clusters of gorgeous blue berries.

November 2018

Wildflowers on the ceiling of my 100-year-old cottage still look down cheerfully while all around me damp rises, termites chew, the roof leaks and the plaster crumbles relentlessly off the walls.

November 2018

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. But this one doesn’t tell the temperature. It was 41 degrees!!!  Kata Tjuka (the Olgas)

November 2018

You’ll have to from scratch with this one because you need a good sized carrot with its foliage attached and I haven’t seen such a carrot in the supermarket for years (only the tiny Dutch ones pictured here). So. Grow a row of carrots. When one gets to substantial size, pull it and cut it off about 5 cm from the top, leaving all the green foliage on the stump. Hollow the stump out until it becomes a little bowl. Hang it upside down near a window.  Fill the little bowl with water. Soon the green fronds will start curving gracefully upwards forming a pretty green hanging basket, thus demonstrating to the kids that a plant will always defy gravity and grow with the stems up.

November 2018

Answers to QQ11.

(a) Giverny (b) Versailles (c) Sissinghurst (d) Monticello (e) Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

If I ever moved into an apartment with a balcony, I would take up growing moss. So suitably small, so vivid green, so challenging. And so easy to source a starter pack. The owner of this deck – or is it a fence? – would be only too pleased if someone scraped off a chunk, popped it in a plastic bag and carted it off.

I’d need to have a collection of rocks on the balcony first – arranged artistically in a corner. From then on, it’d be flying blind. Maybe break the moss into little pieces and press it on the rock. Maybe tie it on with netting. What moss hates is loose soil. What moss loves is moisture, so I’d need to get hold of a mister. What moss needs is patience.

Maybe I’d end up with some dead moss. Or maybe years later I’d be a moss expert who could tell the difference between acrocarps and pleurocarps. But that’s half the fun of gardening – you win some, you lose some.

October 2018

Continuing the check list of front gardens that reveal their owners’ personalities as you pass by on your daily constitutional.

Family gardens. They grow a basketball hoop, a swing and a broken tricycle. The lawn shows signs of heavy wear. You can probably hear the hum of a pool filter coming from the back yard. Other clues provide more detail. If the garden is Australian natives, the family have probably been there since the seventies. If there’s a fig tree covered with blue plastic bags, they’ve probably got an Italian grandpa. If there’s a white picket fence, well, you can guess the way they vote.

Mean spirited. The grass on the nature strip is the clue here. They mow theirs to precisely the point where their neighbour’s begins and not a centimetre further. The lemon tree near the fence is pruned back on the street side rather than give a passer-by the pleasure of nicking a bit of fruit. At Halloween, theirs is the house strictly without cobwebs or skeletons – no chocolate handouts to be had at that address.

Merchant bankers. If the massive front wall is too high to see over and there’s a heavy, opaque, electronically operated gate, that’s a dead giveaway. The nature strip is always immaculate; the footpath you are standing on has been swept; the live-in gardener makes sure of both. Nothing else to note, but don’t linger. The security camera is probably taking a shot of you even now.

October 2018