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September 23, 2016

Cairns, sunshine and green spaces all the way to the Botanical gardens…

In early August we flew out of Canberra in our coats (minus 2 degrees) and arrived in Cairns, Far North Queensland, at midday…I took this photo as we had some coffee in the 27 degree sunshine….now the secret is out..

Cairns is known as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, but the city council should also be congratulated on their town planning and green spaces.

In Cairns is it possible to walk from the centre of the city all the way along the Harbour to the Botanical Gardens on the edge of the city….all that land preserved for the public.

The Esplanade has a collection of wonderful shallow pools for children to play and swim. Further along the boardwalk are playgrounds and spaces for older teenagers and young adults to play games such as volley ball.

The path is wide enough for pedestrians to walk either way….and, there is a separate wide path for cyclists….

These sorts of green spaces give a whole community a sense of wellbeing and belonging.

We took a leisurely stroll into Cairns in the evening…

…and then a leisurely stroll back towards the Botanical gardens…

Unfortunately we missed our booked guided tour of the Botanical Gardens due to rain…but here are a few photos of the gardens and the plants ….

….so very different from our plants in the south..

img_3519-1024x796 — Acanthaceae Justicia Carnea Jacobinia

img_4582-1024x789 — Leguminosae Brownea grandiceps

img_4626-1024x768 — Waeszewiczia Coccinea

The plant below was my absolute favourite, called Bumpy Satinash…The sign on this tree says,

it has aromatic flowers that attract many animals and insects, including possums, lorikeets and fruit bats to feed on the copious nectar,

It looked wonderful growing beside the magnificent Paperbark Melaleuca tree ..

And back at our hotel…..it is goodnight from the resident Kookaburra…

and in the dawn chorus of kookaburras, here is Junior Kookaburra just enjoying some early morning sun, and learning the ropes..

I hope you are enjoying your green spaces, where ever you live…..and that you have many paths to choose from…

September 12, 2016

Yarralumla in spring; blossoms, birds and kangaroos….

Can the centre of government be fifteen minutes walk away from this bay?

I often think our grandchildren will hardly be able to comprehend this innocent time when Parliament House is surrounded by quiet suburbs like Yarralumla, where people walk dogs, ride bikes, and play golf.

Yarralumla is named after the Indigenous people’s term for the area, and means ”echo”.

Yarralumla has lovely walking tracks with views of the Governor General’s residence.

img_5459-1024x761 — The Governor General’s House and the beautiful Brindabella Mountains as the backdrop…

This is a working property where heads of state, and royalty visit, and many events are hosted during the year.

Despite the grandeur, one of the challenges of the Governor General’s House and garden is the ongoing problem of the resident cockatoos and kangaroos….

These kangaroos are having a charmed life near the entrance to the Governor General’s House with all the lush greenery around …meanwhile a strange sounding hooter is attempting to frighten away the cockatoos from the main gardens….although I imagine it would take more than a hooter to frighten a determined cockatoo.

Walter Burley Griffin, the talented architect from Chicago who designed this garden city, could not have imagined that kangaroos and cockatoos could be such a problem in the future!

Along the walking track at Yarralumla is the Royal Golf Club. A few years ago, this photo below made headlines in many parts of the world……

Australian Open Interrupted by Kangaroos

458322-kangaroos-golf-course — Courier mail.com.au

In 2013 golfer Karrie Webb waits for the kangaroos to clear the fairway during the Australian Open….

I believe someone kindly lifted some fencing for this mob to jump out of the limelight!

Meanwhile on this spring day in Yarralumla…

Amongst the great variety of trees we saw many birds feeding..

The young Australian King Parrots almost disappearing into the oak leaves…

The adults are watching over them from above….

Crimson rosellas feasting on spring flowers..

We pass the Heritage Nursery…this is a place where plants just leap out to be bought, but today I’m going to show restraint with plants (and chocolate!)

…..and to end a lovely day’s walk.. here is a view of Telstra Tower on Black Mountain..

This tower is disliked by many, but for me…and I know for others, when we are travelling back to Canberra after a long car trip…the sight of the Telstra Tower silhouetted against the sky means we are nearly home..

and there is no place like home….

I hope this is true for you too.

Enjoy your home and green spaces where ever you are in the world…

September 6, 2016

Happy Wattle Day and spring time in Canberra!

I’m a little bit late for this greeting…. Wattle Day in Australia is 1st September, the beginning of spring.

The Golden Wattle flower is our national floral emblem.

Golden wattle National Archives of Australia (422x425) — Golden Wattle National Archives of Australia

It is colourful, full of hope, incredibly resilient, and regenerates easily after fire. The perfect Australian plant.

There are more than 1000 species of wattle in Australia, and I am told, somewhere in Australia a Wattle plant is flowering every day of the year. How about that!

Terry Fewtrell, the Wattle Day Association President says that wattles have been part of the Australian landscape for 30 million years,

“Wattles are like the great silent witness to the whole Australian story…”

I walked around my suburb on Wattle Day, and some Wattles were flowering…

Some parts were nearly finished…

and some were just starting to bloom..

Flowering in the National Art Gallery spring garden is a more unusual Wattle, with a cinnamon coloured flower. It is called Acacia Leprosa or Scarlet Blaze.

No matter which Wattle plant you choose for your garden, Angus Stewart, from Gardening Australia, says you are onto a winner … (in a very expressive Aussie kind of way)

”because wattles literally grow on the sniff of an empty fertilizer bag”

I was having a very Australian bird kind of day on the first day of spring as I walked….

The Red Wattle bird is watching me from the garden.

Our resident magpie is….looking alert. Magpies can be tricky in spring because they become very territorial and can swoop passers-by. I like to think I’ve built up some good karma by providing so many water bowls for them in summer, not to mention putting up with high maintenance babies.

At the end of the day….a call from the two very cute new kookaburras who seem to have set up home in our area..

And, as the sun is setting over the Brindabella Mountains, more rain is promised this week…

What could be better for the first week of spring?

I hope you are enjoying your green spaces wherever you are in the world.

August 20, 2016August 20, 2016

A Sicilian Garden from a Golden Age

Before Canberra bursts into spring, I have a couple of posts to show of our trip to Italy in May……so welcome to Villa Giulia, the first public park in Palermo, opened in 1778.

On a warm morning, after a long walk through the city, we decided to stroll around this inviting shady park rather than go to the Botanical Gardens, right next door. Botanical gardens need stamina, and more time than we had that day.

Sicily was first settled by the Phoenicans in the 8th century, then conquered by the Romans, the Arabs and the Normans. The buildings and gardens reflect this rich history.

The wide avenues and tall palms made this park seem cool, inviting and exotic, full of flowers and shrubs reminiscent of my childhood in Central Africa, where the climate is equally hot in summer.

I loved the Lantana Cultivar, the blaze of orange flowers making a a colourful hedge. Some red Hibiscus flowers are growing between the palms, and in the background the seemingly ever flowering purple Bougainvillea.

Parks in the 1700s were considered a reflection of the city’s wealth and prosperity, and were designed by artists, architects, scholars and dreamers of a golden age.

These are exedra, and they were intended for musical performances. The colours and the mosiacs have no doubt been restored, but it still withstands the test of time, and looks wonderful.The site is near the seafront and the park is based on a square, geometrically designed. The Dodecahedron fountain is at the heart of the garden, and the marble clock created by mathematician Lorenzo Federici – each face of the dodecahedron featuring a sundial.

The statue of Atlas is set in the centre of a circular fountain. Atlas was the god of endurance and astronomy.

Imagine an astronomer and a mathematican being consulted on the design of a park today!

Over time some of the plants have been renewed and the trees lining this path below look quite young and healthy. They are known as Judas trees, and can also be found in the National Arboretum in Canberra. The name possibly came from the French common name, Arbre de Judee, meaning the tree of Judea, the region where the tree is commonly grown, on stony arid slopes.

The flat ripening pods turn from green to bright red, giving extra colour to the park.

On the left hand-side of this path is the Italian pine (pino domestic) which is very common in Palermo and gives welcome shade in the summer.

Villa Giulia is an oasis in the teeming city of Palermo, and a lasting legacy to the enlightened times of its Golden Age.

…and, as we leave, another tree to remind me of Africa and Australia…

Who could resist stopping to take a photo of a flowering Jacaranda tree?

July 30, 2016July 30, 2016

Venice markets and a food tour..

The band is playing, the seagull is watching……it must be market day in Venice!

In May we spent a month in Italy, and I’ve finally sorted most of the photos ready for a few posts on Italian gardens, and some markets.

Paul and I are interested in growing food, and we enjoy seeing food at local markets when we are travelling.

IMG_2187 (1024x898) — The markets are behind the stairs.

The Rialto markets of Venice (a fish market and a produce market) were built long before the Rialto Bridge was in place.

These Markets keep up the tradition of all good markets; that food is much better grown locally, and eaten fresh and in season.

The fruit and vegetables are carefully displayed and clearly marked, a perfect opportunity to learn the names of vegetables in Italian, at the same time as buying the produce!

Much of the fresh food is grown on the island of Sant’Erasmo…look at the amazing white Bassano asparagus.

The purple Sant ‘Erasmo artichokes are very popular too.

Our guide, Francesca, explains that only the white inner part of this artichoke is used for cooking.

This happy market worker is cutting the artichokes up, and putting the white part into water, for later sales.

There are not many Venetians still living in Venice itself, and so locals all seem to know each other. In the Italian way, there is plenty of talk and laughter and good humour. Francesca has lived in Venice most of her life and considers herself very lucky. As she says, she can walk everywhere and never has a traffic jam going to work! (she says she knows how to dodge the crowds)

The Piscaria (fish market) was re-built in 1907, and we had heard that sustainable fishing is an old tradition in Venice. The marble plaques show regulations set centuries ago for minimum allowed size for lagoon fish.

The fish is glistening with sea water it is so fresh..

This was our first food tour in Italy, and Francesca guided us towards a tiny bar, full of delicious cicheti (small snacks like mini Panini), and of course, a glass of Prosecco.

I had some small artichoke balls, seen on the top of the counter, and they were delicious!

At our next stop we were offered Panini with some traditional serving of Baccala ( a dried salted cod mixture) and a variety of meats, artichoke, olives, anchovy, chilli, mixed vegetables, and beans.

The shop window had an intriguing array of herbs and spices, all artistically arranged on the plates.

We went to a restaurant for lunch and had black pasta made with the ink from squid.

It is testimony to the lovely food and good company on the tour, that I was too busy eating and talking to take photos of this!

The charm of Venice is not just the water and canals, but the small tempting restaurants, often tucked down alleyways, away from the crowds.

One thing we learnt quickly in Italy, Italians love to eat, socialise, and celebrate life…

….salute to that!

July 24, 2016July 24, 2016

Reflection on last summer’s garden….sometimes you just get lucky…

July is a very dreary winter month in Canberra, and it seems a perfect time to look back at photos of the garden over the spring and summer months of 2015/2016. This might give some inspiration for the coming spring…

In Canberra sweet peas need to be planted around my birthday, mid-March. My father-in-law was an enthusiastic gardener and he always reminded me to plant them.

Sweet peas also remind me of my Mum who loved all flowers and growing things, but sweet peas were one of her favourites.

I think of them both in a companionable way when I am in the garden…

During the summer I read a little book called ”Six Square Metres” by Margaret Simons. Margaret is a journalist and gardening enthusiast, and some years ago, she wrote a thoughtful, often humorous, gardening column in The Australian newspaper.

One of her quotes sums up a season of gardening….(and our year of gardening)

Sometimes you reap what you sow.

We certainly did that last summer, this pea crop went on for months, above and beyond the call of duty…

Sometimes you reap what other people sowed..

We bought this tomato as a sapling at the markets in spring. It is called ”Mortgage Lifter” and the tomatoes grow to an enormous size. Every few weeks Paul and I would put more stakes in for reinforcement as the plant grew bigger and the tomatoes grew wider. The beauty of this tomato is that it is very juicy, with a wonderfully rich flavour. I made tomato puree with the left over tomatoes in February, and now we add them to soups and stews. A taste from our own summer garden in winter.

Sometimes you haven’t got a clue what you are sowing.

….at the markets in spring I thought I was buying a new kind of chard with lovely purple stalks…and it was beetroot! I can’t believe I’m admitting to this….

IMG_8402 (840x1024)

and sometimes you just get lucky.

….this Gardenia really does not like the Canberra climate, especially the cold weather. This year we nursed it through the winter and then gave it plenty of fertilizer in spring and summer, and now some beautiful, perfectly formed scented flowers…

IMG_8172 (1024x705)

We were very lucky to have an abundance of tomatoes, and the best garlic in three years of trying to get it right..

or unlucky….

Much as I love the cockatoos, they sometimes just come by to pick the top off a rose stem, very very annoying…….. ”Who me?”

All these things are true of life, as of gardening…

I hope this year has been a lucky one for you and your garden…

July 19, 2016July 24, 2016

Birds in a winter Canberra garden…

It is always a delight to see birds like the Eastern Spinebill in the garden. They are the smallest of the Honeyeaters in Australia and a treat to watch.

We have planted more and more Pineapple Sage near the deck in our back garden, and this year the flowers lasted well into winter.

Now we can hear the strong call of the Eastern Spinebills on a winter morning…they are very welcome!

The Canberra Ornithologists Group has a useful and easy to read book called ”Birds of Canberra Gardens”. It has beautiful photos of all the birds in this area.

The bird on the front cover is a Gang Gang Cockatoo, and it is my dream to get a photo of one of these parrots one day!

Paul took this lovely photo of our resident male Superb Fairy Wren….. isn’t he a charmer?

The Superb Fairy Wren is a local species of Fairy Wren, and has adapted well to Canberra conditions.

The Pied Currawong is also very common in the Canberra region. They are magnificent flyers, and can fly across the garden in a few graceful sweeps and land on a tiny branch or wire.

Pied Currawong (C) Harry Charalambous 2014 www.birdlife.org.au

They are efficient and intelligent predators for the little birds gathering in our garden. Over time, Paul and the currawongs have reached a truce; they have strictly flying rights only over the garden…no settling into bushes and on wires to watch and hunt little birds. We live near Mt Taylor where they can hunt in their natural environment.

Grey Currawong (C) William Betts 2015 www.birdlife.org.au

However, while we were on holiday the Currawongs enjoyed the lack of supervision, and had a touch of Oppositional Defiance Disorder when we got home. This is a well used photo I know, but so expressive!

The Crested Pigeons are found in most gardens in Canberra….they seem to love sitting on the overhead wires of gardens, huddled together in winter

IMG_3327 (1024x593) — Baby its cold outside..

….are they on the alert for predators? Not in Canberra I suspect..

The description of the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo in the Birds of Canberra book begins

..”they are very conspicuous, noisy and gregarious birds commonly seen in Canberra gardens…. ”

What a perfect description of these birds!

One of our resident Cockatoos was sitting on the carport roof waiting to greet us when we got back from Italy.

”Oh Hi! You’re back…..just let me finish eating the almonds and I’ll show you what we’ve done in the front garden…

”We’ve stripped the Iron Bark Eucalypt of almost all its flowers….the nectar was nice..”

and the whole street is littered with small branches…it looks as if a shredding machine has been through the street….

Canberra’s suburban streets are lined with corridors of natural bushland and so the Cockatoos and other wild birds have a choice of homes

This hollow has been a nesting place for young cockatoos over the years…

Australian Magpies are described as;

”boldly marked, confiding and abundant, one of Australia’s best known birds. They feed on insects and other invertebrates on lawns and open ground, and may become tame if fed.

Here is one of our local Magpies….the water baby, regardless of the weather!

Look at this industrious Magpie…is she collecting bits for a nest already? In mid-July?

In spring I hope to bring you more photos of some of the many birds in Canberra gardens.

…… in the meanwhile, enjoy the birds in your neighbourhood where ever you live.

July 9, 2016July 15, 2016

Lanyon Homestead in Winter

When we left Canberra in May, the last month of autumn colour was still with us..

After an exciting month in Italy, we arrived back in Canberra at the beginning of June.

Winter cometh!

After some dreary rainy days (but we always need rain!) I have to remind myself that there is another side to Canberra winters…bright blue skies.

Last July we visited an historic homestead close to where we live in Canberra, the Lanyon homestead..

The homestead is ringed by the Brindabella Mountains and sits at the heart of a natural bowl shaped valley. This scenery takes my breath away, no matter how many times I see it.

This land has layers of rich history from surviving Aboriginal heritage sites, through to unbroken pastoral use since European settlement.

The land was granted to James Wright and John Lanyon in 1834. At that time the journey from Sydney took several weeks by bullock wagon over rough tracks. The farm land was so isolated that the farmers of the time had to be completely self-sufficient.

Andrew and James Cunningham bought Lanyon in 1849 and built the homestead over time. The house remains almost completely unchanged since 1859.

The original out-buildings around the homestead include a kitchen, cellar, laundry, worker’s barracks, a meat house and dairy stables, harness room and a blacksmith’s shop.

Despite the green and blue hues of this land today, in 2003 Lanyon homestead was under real threat as wind and fire raged over these mountains. I have read that there was only one fire engine available for Lanyon as the fires were so widespread. Miraculously the property survived.

Today the house is a museum and there are picnic areas and a café in the grounds.

Weddings, plant fairs, historical events and social activities go on all year in these lovely gardens.

The flower and vegetable gardens are a treat to see in spring and summer, indeed Lanyon homestead deserves to be seen in every season. (I’ll be back!)

The Bunya Pine became fashionable and, as with many homesteads in Australia, there is one planted here, quite close to the house.

And you won’t be surprised to know that when Mr Big Personality has finished stripping the flowers and branches off the Ironbark eucalypts in our street, he’ll be off to Lanyon to strip the Bunya Pine of its Bunya Nuts…..

That is the ying and yang of living in a bush capital city!

Have a happy weekend, whether it be winter or summer in your part of the world.

June 30, 2016July 1, 2016

Padua’s Botanical gardens

Padua, a university town in Italy, is not far from Venice.

IMG_2921 (1024x600) — Basilica di Santa Guistina and in the foreground the new greenhouses of the Botanical Gardens of Padua

We visited Padua for a few nights, and had the good fortune to book into the most hospitable hotel we have ever stayed in.. Andrea and her lovely staff gave us suggestions on where to go, where to eat, and tips on Italian phrases… nothing was too much trouble…(I wish I had taken a photo of them). Breakfast was a treat! The name is …Hotel Belludi 37

We also had a chance to see the Botanical gardens in Padua. It is the world’s oldest university garden of its kind. It was founded so that students could research and recognise medicinal plants.

The morning we visited the garden, it was just recovering from a heavy storm the night before. However, the old garden layout is much the same as it was in its founding days of 1545.

This map shows the plan of the garden, the plants are divided by category in beds organised into geometric shapes. There are, rare and endangered, poisonous plants, and medicinal plants and an Alpine rockery

The greenhouse on the right hand side of the previous photo holds Goethe’s Palm, planted in 1585.

The Saint Peter’s palm (chamaerops humilis) inspired the German poet to write theories on nature in his Metamorphosis of Plants.

It was impossible to get a photo of the whole palm tree while standing inside the temperature controlled greenhouse.

Nonetheless, it was a very humbling moment to stand beside a tree that has continued to grow through so much history, and still survives.

To think Elizabeth 1 was on the throne at this time, and Sir Francis Raleigh was sailing around looking for colonies!

The gardens were founded by the Venetian Republic, and exotic plants were brought from countries that traded with Venice.

The design of this very old garden is still very easy to see and follow.

This Ginkgo Biloba tree dates back to the mid 18th century, and is considered to be the oldest specimen in Europe

The gardens have new greenhouses, which run on solar and water-power. These gardens are designed to take us on a journey through the Earth’s climate zones and for us to see how plants have adapted to their various habitats.

The trail in the Greenhouse has five parts, a tropical rainforest, a sub-humid tropical rainforest, and temperate, Mediterranean and arid regions..

IMG_2927 (979x1024) — Renanthera Coccinea

This plant (a type of orchid) was almost covering one of the entrance doors…I have never seen anything quite like it.

If you ever get to Padua, I would suggest allowing yourself two days for these gardens, because the three greenhouses were packed with wonderful and diverse plants (as you can imagine)

We were almost overwhelmed by the amount of treasures just in the greenhouses alone..

The Botanic gardens of Padua have been Unesco World Heritage listed (1997) for its exceptional universal value in the birth of science. It has, and continues to contribute, to modern science, botany, medicine, chemistry, ecology, and pharmacy.

In the very turbulent world we have today, I take heart from the amount of school children we’ve seen on excursions to places like the ancient Padua Botanical gardens. These gardens are showing children our history, some of the wonders of the world, and the positive contribution that has been made to our world over time.

Salute to the teachers and parents who take children to such places. My next Prosecco will be a toast to all of you!

June 20, 2016June 28, 2016

Florence Markets

I have turned Canberra’s Green Spaces into Italy’s Green Spaces for a month or so to show some of the wonderful green spaces we found in Italy.

(I mentioned Villa Giulia in my last post, and I do intend writing about this park in Palermo later)

Parks are always a welcome sight for me in new city, and Paul and I also share a love of markets….the food that people eat and grow and the produce for sale is so much part of the flavour of a country.

Here we are in Florence, even on a dull day, who could resist such a beautiful city?

We have organised to join a food tour of the markets in Florence. We did this tour, and many others through The Walking Tours of Italy, and they were all good.

Anna, our vivacious guide told us that tripe is a special, much loved, dish in Florence, and indeed when we arrived at this stall Italians were stopping off for a dish of Lampredotto (spiced tripe), in the same way we would stop off for a coffee.

Anna said in her charming Italian way that, usually, men were much more prepared to try this dish because it was the manly thing to do to try dishes that may not appeal immediately. That was me off the hook, I have to confess, I love food, but I’m not very adventurous. All the guys on the tour tried it…how could they not try??

I don’t think Paul was that thrilled, but he finished most of it. This was a great start to the tour because everyone began to talk about their favourite dishes back home.

Here we are at our next stop, an Enoteca (wine shop). The shopkeeper had some Bruschetta with tomato and basil, bread with olive paste, some with fish paste, and some with extra virgin olive oil.

Anna explained that Italians traditionally have a drink at this time of day (about 11.00 am)

We had noticed this tradition in Venice, in fact I had seen a woman strongly resembling my Mum with a shopping bag stopping off for a Prosecco one morning.

I wondered about the wisdom of having something like this to drink at the beginning of tour, but Tuscan Chianti and the Sicilian wine were very light, and most enjoyable.

I always love the colour and movement in markets. There were more varieties of tomatoes than I had ever seen here…

Zucchini flowers are very popular and stuffed with vegetables and/or meat mixtures, often seen in restaurants.

There were plastic tops on these plants, and I have no idea what their purpose is.

The choice of cheeses and meats was amazing. The sellers pride themselves in all their produce, and love describing the cooking and curing of these cheeses and meats.

Many of the butchers, fishmongers, cheese sellers in Italy belonged to families who had been doing this for three or more generations. There is real pride in their product.

IMG_3175 (1024x761)

We ended the tour at a gelato shop. The gelato was wonderful, but I was too busy eating and talking to even think of taking a photo at that point.

However, we did visit another fantastic gelato shop before we left Florence,and I was attracted to it because it appeared to have chocolate streaming down the walls.. …what can you say….

reader…I ate more gelato!

Have a happy week of gardening, growing and eating!