This article first appeared in Sanctuary Magazine, the 55th edition (with a few changes made here for my blog). A big thank you to editor Anna Cumming for commissioning this piece for I really love writing about the things I really love. Living fences: Using plants to...
Artemisia and I took the hill ride on our way to a fringe cut. The slow ascent offered views of gardens with lavish thick hedges. Many of the gardens use plants to create privacy and fencing and the overall effect is verdant. Daylesford is positively beautiful because...
When I see the cultural trend towards massive concrete drive ways, I wonder why oh why, there exists this lustful relationship with grey. While the trend is not entirely pervasive it is a worrying trend none the less. As there is plenty of grey concrete to share among...
On a recent bike ride I was overjoyed to see the efforts people were making in an attempt to protect their fruit harvest. With possums, white cockatoos and Rosella's all competing for food in the neighbourhood people of all ages were going to extreme lengths to...
In Germany even humble locals are passionate about urban greening. Ralf's cousin welcomed us for lunch at his home which had been recently renovated to include various green roofs. A green roof takes up rainwater and diminishes the amount of water that leaves the...
Fiona Cabassi introduced me to wall vases. In our home in Westgarth, Melbourne, she would decorate our corridor with gorgeous flowers draping from ceramic craft. I hunted for wall vases of my own when our share house shared no longer and found two for the entrance of...
Our farm in Daylesford is zoned 'farm zone' and hence it cannot be described as Urban at all. However although hard paved surfaces are rare in farm zoned areas, in many cases so are trees! Because farm zones are reserved for agriculture or grazing, farming has...
In Daylesford there are some wonderful examples of the softness, shelter and shade that plants bring to urban environments. Daylesford has some fantastic established gardens, small orchards and a lovingly tendered community garden in the heart of the CBD.
One of the big reasons I love gardens is because as is well known but mostly taken for granted, it is plants that produce the oxygen we breathe. Whether that plant be a rose, or an indigenous grass or a tomato, all plants photosynthesise and produce oxygen in the...
Along the Merri Creek we went, Jules, Artemisia and I. On the way we found a hut, trees to climb, wattle happiness, and on the way home, lichen and blue. ...
Green walls/living walls, have quite a high profile in the Urban Infrastructure scene, and a good thing that is, for they are very beautiful. When people talk about green walls in cities, they are usually referring to high rise or medium density dwellings that have...
Reservoir suffers from heat waves. All suburbs do, but some more than others and Reservoir has been identified by our Local Government as high on the heat wave risk raider. There are a number of reasons why, but the reason I am interested in has to do with the lack of...
The backyard was pretty bare when we came to inspect the house. Grass and a few Camellias.....we planted Acacia mearnsii (Black Wattle) and other species which I need to go back and identify....thanks to this fast growing tree, which is now 11 years old, we have had a...
So we removed the concrete drive, placed two railway sleepers along the length instead. We wanted to be able to park the car in the drive way occasionally and the sleepers help to prevent soil compaction (we navigate our wheels along the sleepers). Over the years...
In 2003 when we moved to our Reservoir home, Ralf and I finally had the opportunity to apply all the knowledge we had gained over many years of study and visits to Sustainable Homes, to create our own sustainable/sensible home. We wanted a comfortable, practical,...