Q: When is a non-native plant arguably native? A: When it is bred here. Such is the case with Kniphofia ‘Apricot Nectar’. Now before I get all red hot pokered by you lot for making such an ...
I missed the Sydney launch of my first book. I had pneumonia, and I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow. My pillow was in Woodend, Australia. But what I’m eternally grateful for is that Brode ...
I don’t know how or why I first acquired, much less planted, three Cistus ‘Silver Pink’. I know that I had absolutely no interest in, or attraction to them. The only cistuses I loved were wh ...
I here confess that despite my best intentions to maintain an objectivity when it comes to plants and their merits, there have been a few influences in my life that simply override my best attempts, o ...
I was first introduced to the beauty of Fothergilla major by the late gardener Colin Little, who regularly opened his stunning Dandenong Ranges garden ‘Hillcrest’, located in Sherbrooke, Victoria, ...
I clearly recall, as an eighteen year old in my first year of garden-love, picking up a packet of seed of stocks and reading the info on the back, telling me how many weeks to expect the seedlings to ...
Being the impatient gardener I am, sitting out the winter months in Kinglake longing for spring to arrive is a long drawn out process. Winter arrives here in early May and continues into late Septembe ...
“I’m just going to check out the plant stall,” I said to my wife. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Da-aad,” chorused my daughters with a note of despair – “no more plants!” But ...
Sometimes you don’t love a plant straight away. Sometimes you first have to go through the process of getting to know it, like a kind of courtship, becoming familiar with its quirks and quibbles b ...
The English oak, in the UK, was once known as the ‘tree of peace’. If this term fills you with thoughts of sunny afternoons, picnicking safely in the vast, enveloping embrace of its gargantuan c ...
In my last piece for Plant of the Week, I name-checked two French missionaries who worked in China, and were responsible for introducing several plants many of us think of as ‘British’ into hortic ...
When Mike Morant of Antique Perennials mentioned in his recent Plant of the Week featuring Thalictrum, that Euphorbia rigida would make a worthy subject, my first thought was ‘Already done, Mike!’ ...
A master gardener’s quest to find the perfect, pivotal plant… Grow what? Where? Why??? There would not be many Australian households who would not have owned a copy of the book ‘Grow what ...
I often hear gardeners talk about plants that need little to no care once they’re established. Of course, I see the appeal of a low-demand garden to enjoy when we get a break from our high-demand li ...
Metapanax delavayi is one of my favourite members of one of my favourite families, the Araliaceae. As long as one is prepared to overlook common ivy’s (Hedera helix) propensity to be a little weedy ...
I’ve always been someone who arrives late to a party and I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I’ve only recently discovered how much fun Phlomis russeliana can be, which leaves me wishing I’d ...
If Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii suddenly disappeared from our plant palettes, imagine the hole it would leave! What else would we ever find to flower at this time of year, so joyously, and so w ...