Tag Archives: timber

Dizzying geometric shapes (photo by Flexdream) The Garden of Cosmic Speculation

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For me gardening is taking time out of a ridiculously packed, never-ending schedule to relax and express yourself by creating an idea of how a garden paradise should look. Never hold back when it comes to your creative flair, and let go of the traditional gardening chains blocking your ideas from jumping out and biting the neighbours. Continue reading →

Yew Xylothek – a touching, reading adventure

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As we can read in this forum or elsewhere, gardening from a distance is far from easy, if not mad; awkward to plan and yet full of surprises. Last week I travelled to Germany for not entirely gardening related reasons but thought I might as well take some rare English bare-rooted fruit trees with me to incorporate into our orchard project there, which we have called our English corner or English fruit circle already. Over Christmas there were spring-like temperatures and I was hoping for a similar winter gap in February. Continue reading →

Benson and his bottle Puppies and gardens

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Phil Dudman’s ponderings on a puppy among the plants started me thinking about my own dogs when they were pups. I have two, both Labradoodles. It seems so long ago….. Jasmine (Jas is what she is usually called) joined us nearly eight years ago. She was eight weeks old, black and adorable. All puppies are adorable aren’t they? I’m sure puppies get away with so much mischief just because they are adorable. Continue reading →

Our grey timber back deck - and Balzac How to have a grey, weathered deck

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I love the look of grey, weathered timber. It somehow looks refined, elegant, and folksy all at the same time. But the splinters! If you leave most timber, especially hardwoods, to weather to grey without preserving them in some way, you will be sorry. But it’s not that easy. Continue reading →

Sanctuary garden Roses to rival Flemington

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I often work on Melbourne Cup day, stopping a few minutes before the actual race is run so that I can watch it on TV. This year though I had two good reasons to have most of the day off. Firstly, I was invited to lunch in a beautiful garden and secondly, the lunch was a fund raiser for a good cause. The garden is on a rural property, Orange Grove, nestled in the hills to the east of Perth and the owners Lynne and Denis McLeod not only hosted the lunch but also lovingly created the gardens which surround the house. Continue reading →

Te Kainga Marire NZ native garden – Te Kainga Marire

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It’s so easy to take our own environment for granted, and so much easier to value and appreciate differences when we travel overseas. From the video promoting the Taranaki Garden Festival, the open gardens featured are stunning, but I was surprised that nearly all seem to have a distinctly English flavour. On the other hand,  perhaps not so surprising for a country settled not only by the Maori people but also by the English, and which measures its annual rainfall in metres. Continue reading →

vertical garden bridgman DIY Vertical garden

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This is a bit of a cheat post, as it’s a repeat from another blog but it’s such a great project I couldn’t resist sharing it with you. For those of you who don’t know what ‘landscaping paper’ is, it’s the same as geotextile fabric. For the plants I’d be choosing waterwise plants like succulents in a bright, sunny location, or tougher ferns (like Blechnum and Doodia) and small bromeliads in the shade. Continue reading →