Gardens

Looking at other gardens, whether they’re ‘real’ gardens, show gardens, or public parks and Botanical Gardens gives us ideas and inspiration. We can see exciting and interesting combinations of plants, and new types of decoration but, best of all, ways that other gardeners have found to deal with their site’s special characteristics, including steep or flat sites, heritage precincts, and difficult soils and climate.

War Gardens – a review

Stuart Read
2

This book and its theme are timely and poignant. We won’t stop waging wars. Some parts of the globe have long histories of it with competition for resources, land, water, trade and souls. Dwindling water supplies suggest more will come. We also won’t stop gardening – for food, shelter, beauty, solace – and this book is revealing on why. What gardening does for us – something that seems worth pondering and talking-up, as peace-fostering.

Continue reading →

Hawaii: a paradise for plants

Janelle Hatherly
Reply

Islands are Nature’s kitchen and the Hawaiian Islands, sitting in splendid isolation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, are the perfect place to see where evolution has cooked up a smorgasbord. When the first humans arrived on the islands around 400 AD there were already thousands of plant and animal creations.

Continue reading →

Comfrey for bones

Jennifer Stackhouse
2

A fall in the family means I’ve had broken bones on my mind lately. This particular break (my mother’s broken shoulder) is going to need the best medical science has to offer to make it better but in days gone by, people often turned to the garden for a remedy.

Continue reading →

Instant city garden oasis

GardenDrum
Reply

Garden designer Robert Boyle’s client had dreams of a very private city garden, only to discover the adjoining property, which they had just purchased to create their back-garden oasis, would be overlooked and dominated by a large development on a neighbour’s property.

Continue reading →

Naples Botanical Garden

Christopher Woods
Reply

Horticulture can be an undisciplined craft—the lack of set rules sometimes gives rise to brilliance, sometimes not. Those with unbridled enthusiasm for plants tend to chafe under the restraint of design while designers often complain that gardeners are messing things up. Fortunately, horticulture and design partnered to make the Naples Botanical Garden garden a true joy.

Continue reading →