We recently spent time in Sydney with my Scottish cousins….
It was nice to take the time and see the city centre through tourists’ eyes
Captain Cook, born in Yorkshire, landed in Australia in 1770…..what a contrast to the city we see today..
We walked through Hyde Park every day, and we were grateful to have these enormous trees giving us so much shade in Sydney’s hot summer.
Jane Jose in her book Places Women Make says… liveability means being able to walk to a park, near where you live, have shady trees and seating and ”accidental connectedness” to your neighbourhood or city….
an early morning yoga class..
This part of Hyde Park is very familiar to me as I came here every day when I first arrived in Sydney, from Africa, aged 19. I sat in the park and waited for my brother to finish work. (my two brothers were the only people I knew in Australia at that time.)
The park gave me a connection with people, and I began to feel part of the city.
The Domain is near Hyde Park, and has some great playing fields for groups to use at lunch time in the city…
I love this sign, ”A place for people” …what a great reminder for all big cities!!
The flowers boxes in the city this summer are wonderful, and I have never seen parsley used so well in a flower bed…
Most of all I love buskers and music in the city….I always give some money to someone who is providing music….it is the food of life!
I’ll end with another beautiful, but exhausting city, Rome…we were there in May last year.
Even a glorious city like Rome can become too much, and one day we found this wonderful park. We sat in the shade of some big trees and listened to a busker playing the trumpet
soft melodious jazz never sounded so good …I can hear that music as I write…
Do you have a favourite park in your part of the world?
This was going to be a post about sculptures at the National Arboretum in Canberra ….but I digress…..
As you drive up to the Arboretum there is a most imposing sculpture along the ridge of the hill.
The metal words in cursive, say..
wide brown land….
These three scripted words were taken from the diary of an Australian poet, Dorothea McKellar. Her poem is called My Country .
I didn’t know until recently that Dorothea was only 22 years old when she wrote that poem. She was living in England and missing her home country.
I was 19 years old when I came to Australia (from Africa)
…and I was 22 when I came back from a holiday in England and realised that Australia was my home, a place I love.
Perhaps we need to leave to learn how we feel about our place in the world.
I have always loved Dorothea McKellar’s poem, and here are the words of one of the verses that lend themselves to some photos I have taken over the last few years……
My country
I love a sunburnt country
A Land of sweeping plains,
..of ragged mountain ranges
Of droughts…and flooding rains…
I love her far horizons..
I love her jewel sea
Her beauty and her terror..
The wide brown land for me..
I feel very lucky to have a place in the world….what is your favourite place?
Canberra’s summer has been hot and dry, and as a consolation, the sunsets have been stunning..
Hot Lips Salvias and Persian Ironwood Tree near the birdbath
A recent survey of birds in suburbia recorded that nearly 50% of households in the Canberra region provide water for birds in summer..
Birds in our garden have a choice of bird baths, and a sprinkler system occasionally which they can fly in and out of…(a five star bird friendly garden)
…..this provides us with daily amusement and joy.
Hot Lips Salvias (left) and Lavandula pedunculata hybrid (right)
Last week this tiny kookaburra appeared on the back wires…(a good place to check out the water situation in safety) I have never seen one so young in our area…..his Mum was not far behind..
Juvenile Kookaburra
All babies are beguiling, but this little kookaburra is at the top of my list for cuties…he hasn’t even got the Kookaburra crew cut hairdo yet!
Juvenile Kookaburra
In the nearby Eucalyptus tree is a juvenile Cockatoo….just waking up….look out…
When we came to Canberra, the house we bought faced due west, which meant we got the punishing summer sun on all the living room windows. It was like living in an oven!
At that time we had a one year old daughter and another baby on the way! Fortunately we were young and just pleased to have our own home!
In those days no thought was given by planners or developers to siting houses to take account of the climate.
Over time we extended the house, and put insulation in the roof, and the walls. Eventually, we bought solar panels for the roof, and best of all, double glazing for all the windows.
What a difference all of that made!
In the meanwhile we built up shrubs and trees, especially in the front garden to give us shade and protection. We bought two water tanks for the garden, which helps, but is not enough during dry months.
We planted agapanthus because they are tough and drought resistant. I was once told they are the ”bully boys” of the garden, and when you look at their roots, this is certainly true. But they earned their stripes by surviving a drought and a nearby fire some years ago.
In the past couple of years we have had good spring rain, and this has set them up to flower very well this summer.
The garden is now shady and green, and the house is cool and quiet.
Having a simple, well functioning home give me a sense of wellbeing…it is a port in a storm.
I have mentioned the Chinese Tallow tree in previous posts, and this is our Chinese Tallow tree during summer, full of tassel like flowers which attract bees and butterflies by the millions (it seems)
I have read, in New South Wales, these trees are considered weeds because they sprout and grow prolifically. However, the up side is the bees are prolific here in summer. (we will get rid of new young trees appearing …one is plenty)
IN February we had about three days of extreme heat (41 degrees). At times like this the birds stay hidden in our thick bushes and trees, and come down to the bird baths in the late afternoon.
Now that we get more bees and insects in the garden, I noticed many of them coming for water too. In fact, after rescuing a bee swimming desperately in this small blue bird bath, I have put some small stones in the bird bath and reduced the level of water to give them solid places to land on when they need a drink.
The rest of the garden is now quite well established, and has held up well in the days of extreme heat.
Under the Chinese Tallow tree, daisies, a Grevillia ”Bonnie Prince Charlie” a blue Salvia (taking over the garden) and hidden behind the daisy is a Correa Bauerlenii
One advantage of heat is, the fruit is nice and soft to eat…
On Valentine’s day I heard these two galahs chatting away in the Eucalyptus tree. They are very sociable birds, and it looks like love is in the air on this summer’s evening…
I have so many photos of our lovely sunsets, so here is one more…..
May you enjoy your change of season, as we will be soon…autumn is my favourite season in Canberra and I look forward to hearing what yours is…
If you love sunshine and roses….then a visit to the Old Parliament House Rose gardens in spring time is a must.
These photos were taken in November, during a gloriously wet spring.
In 1927 Canberra became the new capital of Australia.
The bush capital…. so beautiful today, was, in those days, a cluster of buildings on windswept limestone plains….
Empire Parliamentary Association tree planting ceremony in front of Parliament House 1926 (Mildenhall’s Canberra National Archives)
Just look at this old photo of a group of people trying to do some tree planting as they huddle together out in that windswept limestone plain ….
The newly formed capital of Australia was a compromise….neither of the two large cities in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne, wished the other to be the capital.
Old Parliament House, now the Museum of Australian Democracy
Therefore Canberra, geographically between the two cities, was chosen as the site to be a new capital.
It became the responsibility of parliamentary officer Robert Broinowski to build some gardens around the Old Parliament House and bring some relief to the new buildings.
The gardens included tennis courts, and a bowling green… much needed in those days when homes and families were so far away, and travel was long and hard.
I’m sure those early politicians could not imagine how lovely the grounds of Old Parliament House look today.
The gardens, on either side of the Old Parliament House, consist of four rose gardens. Each garden was originally designed and laid out in a simple quadrant design, with roses in two quadrants.
This photo was taken in early summer, when the beautiful lilac and white wisteria on the white pillars had turned to green..
In this post I am writing about the House of Representative Gardens, which has two gardens.
The first is the Macarthur Rose Garden which is filled with one hundred red ”Etoile de Hollande” and shot silk roses donated by the great grand daughter of John and Elizabeth Macarthur. This gift marked the major contribution by John and Elizabeth Macarthur, to the early settlement of Australia in the breeding of Merino sheep at Parramatta and Camden. Many large farms from settlement to today, have lovely gardens and include roses.
The decision was made to plant roses in all the gardens. They provided colour to the unrelenting browns and greys of the Australian landscape, they reminded politicians of homes in the Northern Hemisphere, and lastly and most importantly, they were cheap to grow and very hardy.
Fortunately Broinowski was a passionate gardener, and, even during the Depression he kept up the project of designing and planting by searching for donations far and wide.
He asked the wives of politicians to support the second garden, known appropriately as the Ladies Rose garden, and started gathering donations of one shilling and four pence per rose.
This garden has Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses which were very popular at the time, and are an absolute delight to look at on a spring day….here are just a few..
Just Joey
Playboy
Lavender Pinocchio
Perfume Perfection
Hot chocolateGold bunny
Madam President
Peace
Once you start looking at these lovely roses, you are hooked, and there is no known cure!
Charles Weston had originally designed and planted Eucalyptus trees around the grounds of Parliament House, and these, and dense hedges keep the roses safe from hot dry winds.
This would not be a post about Canberra if I didn’t include some of our resident Sulphur Crested Cockatoos…….a number of them spend time around Parliament House, no doubt using the Eucalyptus trees for nesting, and the acorn trees for food.
Sulphur Crested Cockatoos eating on the grass around Old Parliament House in autumn.
I haven’t check with the gardeners, but I suspect the Cockatoos have a penchant for loping the stems of tender colourful plants, like roses, and may be a mixed blessing here.
….. but there is something endearingly Australian about having recalcitrant Cockatoos in residence so close to the seat of government.
Canberra is just a short drive away from the Snowy Mountains… the highest alpine wilderness in Australia.
The Lake Crackenback Resort, near Australia’s highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko, is the perfect cool summer place for us to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary….where did the time go?
On our early morning walk we saw this beguiling little kangaroo….she waited patiently while we took about five photos. Can you believe that pose?
Meanwhile we noticed her mother had taken the younger Joey and was waiting anxiously for the star to finish her photo shoot…parents the world over can recognise that anxious look (and blissfully unaware younger brother/sister)
Our young star seems to be saying…
”well, maybe I will….. maybe I won’t” (she must be a teenager!)
Phew, she’s hopped down to join her family.
Off to shoot the breeze on the golf course..
Australia is the driest continent on earth, and since the 19th century with expanding settlement and farming, there has been a critical need for irrigation, and a water supply to combat droughts.
The Snowy Mountains, with melting snow and flowing rivers, was ideal for hydro-electricity. Thus began, in 1949 one of the biggest post WW11 projects, the Snowy Mountains Scheme. This scheme changed the course of Australian history in many ways, and definitely deserves its own post, later this year.
In the meanwhile, I’m passing on the canoeing (easy for some)….. but we are ready to try out the excellent pizzas in the Alpine Larder.
Look at the wonderful soft grasses!
I was brought up in Africa, running through grasses trying not to attract snakes and bugs, so I’m a latecomer to how beautiful they look in a landscape like this.
There are fences and gates between the kangaroos and houses, but ….
I bet it is hard to keep all the animals and insects away from new plants..
I loved the use of stone and timber in the house below, for a split second I think how nice it would be to live here…
But…. we are happy just to be here.
So, a toast to our 39th Wedding anniversary, and to having the good fortune to be able to stay in the lovely Snowy Mountains.
…and looking out over this most precious and elusive resource in Australia…water.
‘‘Have you ever noticed that botanical gardens often make you think of Paradise?” Francis Halle French botanist 2004
Welcome to the Royal Sydney Botanic Gardens, a little piece of paradise in Australia’s largest city.
….who would be anywhere else on a lovely summer’s day?
Sydney Harbour, Royal Botanic Gardens, Harbour Bridge
The Royal Botanic Gardens were established in 1816 and cover an area of 30 hectares along the foreshore of Sydney harbour.
Plants, lawns, trees and bush line the edge of the city right up to the Opera House and give views of the Harbour Bridge.
Can you imagine trying to preserving that amount of prime land for the public today?
Salute to our visionary forebears!
The Gardens are home to nearly 9000 plant species from all over the world, with a focus on Australia and the South Pacific.
A sign near the sculptures says…
‘‘ Before European settlement this foreshore was a mud flat. Seeds, flotsam were washed up by waves. Ships arrived in the tide in 1788 and crops were planted soon after. This area has been dedicated ever since to the introduction and propagation of plants reflecting the changing culture and horticultural needs of the day.”
Palm by Bronwyn Oliver
Magnolia by Bronwyn Oliver
These sculptures symbolise the seeds washed up by the tide, blown by the wind, eroded by the water, and laden with potential for vigour and transformation.
The huge older trees, like this fig tree have been given space and time to grow, and now they provide plentiful shade in summer. (They say the shade of a big tree is worth one air-conditioner)
The flowers of the mature Magnolia trees are magnificent at this time of the year.
This tropical garden has lush colourful foliage, and flamboyant flowers and plants…orchids, hibiscus, palm….sensory overload while I sit nearby drinking iced coffee!
Cannas
Frangipani
Our home in Canberra, a four hour drive away, is a world away in terms of plants and climatic conditions. We have hot dry summers and cold, frosty winters. The Sydney climate of long humid summers and mild winters is a big contrast.
The Botanic Gardens provide habitat for wildlife….colourful birds, fruit bats and water dragons..
Rainbow Lorikeet
The Herb gardens, not far from the city streets, have blossoming herbs, sunflowers and all kinds of bee attracting flowers…
…what a bonus to have so much variety in such a big bustling city…
This beautiful sundial was fascinating for tourists and especially children…..imagine the sun directing our time rather than our Iphones ….incredible!
I love visiting big cities like Sydney…but, thank goodness for gardens like this glorious one…..
I return to my favourite quote….(one day I will find out who wrote it..)
”when the world wearies, and society does not satisfy, there is always the garden”
Salute again to those generous forebears who had the wisdom and energy to started this wonderful garden… for everyone.
Season’s greeting from the bush capital of Australia.
I began blogging about 18 months ago, to write a low key kind of diary about our garden.
Before long I realised that the blog was really about my place in the world: Canberra, the bush capital of Australia.
The National Arboretum in Canberra….. 100 trees in 100 forests
The word Canberrais often used to explain the workings of government….”Canberra raisedtaxes this year…”
Parliament House Canberra
But of course, behind the workings of Parliament there is a city of people who call Canberra home.
Since I began blogging about green spaces in Canberra, I have met many gardeners, volunteers and ordinary Canberrans who are very knowledgeable and proud of their place in the world.
Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. National Library Australia copyright
The gods were smiling on this lovely part of the world when Chicagoan Walter Burley Griffin won the competition to design Canberra, and his wife Marion Mahony created the beautiful drawings of his design.
He dreamed of a city in green spaces, and that is what we have today… a city in a big bush garden.
Lake Burley Griffin and Parliament House
The land around the lake is reserved for all people to enjoy..
This kangaroo was photographed five minutes away from our house, on the edge of Mt Taylor. Not long after we moved to Canberra, 30 years ago, a kangaroo from Mt Taylor hopped down our suburban road. A great introduction to life in Canberra for our family!
a young kangaroo on Mt Taylor
I’ve shared the blog with some big personalities
A Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
and some colourful ones ….
King Parrots
A Crimson Rosella
and some that are just plain cute.
young Kookaburras
I’ve had the pleasure of following many blogs, in UK, US, Canada, Italy, France and of course, Australia and New Zealand. The Northern Hemisphere seasons, especially the autumn and spring are a delight to see. As an armchair traveller, I also enjoy the breath-taking snowy winter photos….happy in the knowledge that I won’t have to go and shovel snow at any time!
Thank you very much to the all the people who have visited and followed Canberra’s Green Spaces, over the past 18 months, I appreciate every visit, and every comment.
Summer is coming slowly to the Brindabella Mountains, a lovely blue and green tinge lingering from spring.
This is the view of the mountains from our street.
This region is Ngunnawal country, and it was an important meeting place and significant to many Aboriginal groups.
The mountains and hills were used as markers and were excellent vantage points for keeping an eye on enemy clans, and signalling friendly clans.
This is a glimpse of Mt Taylor from our back garden….a backdrop behind our almond and plum trees.
Mt Taylor is part of a green belt between the satellite cities of Woden and Tuggeranong. This was all part of Walter Burley Griffin’s plan for green spaces between town centres
Last month, the end of spring, we enjoyed an early morning walk, up Mt Taylor.
It was still cool, and the kangaroos were waking up slowly…
Amongst the grasses there were some wild flowers.
Golden Everlasting
St John’s Wort
Today, we did this walk again…..the signs of summer are everywhere…
The kangaroos are alert and looking for greener grasses..
Some wild flowers are still blooming…the grasses are drying off..
The natural bush colours of summer; grey, yellow and brown are everywhere to be seen.
This is a Noisy Friar bird. He looks a little pre-historic, but his beak is very useful for feeding off Eucalyptus trees and wild flowers
What a joy to see these flowering Eucalyptus trees…the flowers and supple branches are often used in Christmas wreaths, and always remind me of summer holidays..
Here are two Wattle birds…like many Australian wild birds…quite bossy!
The magpie calls a friendly hello from his feeding spot in the grasses and wildflowers
This cockatoo has landed with a deafening screech on a tree near us, and climbed to the top spot…
The Corellas (cousins of the Cockatoos) are all feeding on some wattle bushes near the road…
I wonder if that magnificent yellow crest increases self esteem for Cockatoos?
As we walk back home I can’t help taking photos of two lovely flowers, one growing almost wild in a corner of someone’s garden. I’m not sure of its name, but one of the Protea family I think.
Protea: Rocket pincushion
and the other, a striking Bottle brush, flowering quietly in the shade along the back track. (officially known as the Fire trail)
And back home to our garden. Paul has spent a few heavy lifting days putting mulch down all over the garden, to keep the plants cool for summer.
Here in the front garden we are planting for birds and bees…salvias, daisies, Grevilleas, and the lovely Chinese Tallow tree.
May you enjoy your green spaces, where ever you are in the world, and if you are in the depth of a northern hemisphere winter, then I hope you are planning for your spring!
The rain clouds rising from the Brindabella Mountains in spring
We have also had an incredible amount of rain this year. After ten years of drought, everyone is collectively holding our breath and hoping it will continue…
Canberra is cool Temperate and Alpine Zone 8-9. In theory we have:
mild or warm summers (I would say, often very hot summers)
cold winters (heavy frosts)…Yes!
and spring is a pivotal event…Yes!
Tim Entwisle, the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, has written a book about Australia’s changing seasons, called Sprinter and Sprummer.
He says we should adopt a five season approach, early spring should include August and be called Sprinter (August September)
And late spring should be called Sprummer (October, November)
He bases his seasonal categories on the timing of the plants, the activities of the animals, and the unsettled weather before we move into summer.
It is true that much of Australia has no real spring or a very short spring, and not many of the flowers and plants common to the European spring.
However, in Canberra, as you can see, we do have a joyous spring, after a cold winter. (by Aussie standards, of course..)
Paul suggests that we have should have our own season called Sprindy because we do have a lot of windy weather in spring.
However, during our Canberra spring, we brave the windy, often cold weather , to plant and enjoy English cottage garden flowers like Jonquils, daffodils, aquilegia, tulips, Iris.
Many flowers only come out in late spring, (November) and then we can smell summer in the air.
However, during the spring and summer the real stars of the garden are not the pretty spring bulbs and flowers, but the flowering long lasting, ”foot soldiers” of the garden. I’m coming to appreciate them more and more. For example..
The Orange Sparaxis, grows in poor soil and has survived through drought and wind and rain. They are striking to look at, and these flowers, right by the walkway, are often admired by passers-by.
This is a Native Geranium ground cover, which will flower and flourish in all conditions, and brings the bees. I have seen a photo of a Geranium just like this called Wild Geranium on Jason and his wife Judy’s great blog called garden in a city .
The Lemon-scented Geranium is another plant that tolerates almost any conditions, and brings the bees and the butterflies too. Another foot solider.
We have three Bottlebrush bushes in our garden, but this one deserves a special mention, for hanging in there, behind the cabin for many years. The winter and spring rain have made it sit up and take notice and it is lovely to see its flaming red colour across the garden.
And now for my spring change of heart……the Iris is lovely, but……. here today, and gonetomorrow.In autumn I spent ages re-planting the Iris into this part of the garden, and very soon the plants were leggy and falling over in the wind and rain. We were away for a week, and the flowers had died off, and the weeds had taken over.
Enough already! In autumn we will dig them up, and keep a select few and replace the rest with the hardy native plants.
Of course I’ll always grow some spring flowers, they are such a joy and sign of hope in a garden.
As Peter Cundal, the previous presenter of Gardening Australia, said one day, as he bent over a some spring plants..
”when I see the first signs of a spring plant coming up, my heart gives a little leap!”
..and I feel exactly the same way.
This has been a big week for our family, as my older brother had a long and serious heart operation and is now successfully recovering. He is a dedicated reader of my blog, and is extremely knowledgeable about birds and plants. He lives in a beautiful part of the world (Port Macquarie) with no winter or sprinter, and I know he will be glad to be back there very soon, and I look forward to him being well and able to enjoy his own green spaces again.
This is the story of Canberra Nara Peace park, celebrating friendship, harmony and trade between Japan and Australia…….and a mighty little bird, the Latham Snipe, that flies between our two countries every year.
The park is set in the Lennox gardens on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin. Even at the end of winter there is a stark beauty to the gardens..
Canberra Nara Peace Park opened in 1999, is a symbol of the friendship between the sister cities of Canberra, built as the National Capital of Australia in the 20th century, and Nara, the first capital city of Japan in the 8th century.
This lovely little park is a joy to visit in any season, but especially in spring.
The dry stream bed is lit up once a year for the Nara Candle festival. We missed this wonderful festival this year, so I’ll keep that story for another spring.
The young magpie in the photo is Canberra’s most well known bird. She is probably looking for insects, but magpies are also very curious birds, so she could be just ”having a stickybeak” as Australians would say…
The park has a gazebo surrounded by Japanese maples and cherry trees.
A relatively new addition to the park is a sculpture, Toku, commissioned to celebrate the1300th anniversary of Japan’s ancient city Nara.
The five storied pagoda form represents Canberra
a floating stone represents Nara…
and the lovely little sculptured bird represents a Latham’s Snipe.
This is a species of shorebird that migrates annually between Japan and Canberra.
Latham Snipe arriving in Canberra for summer. Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Dabb
The Latham Snipe, weighing only 200 grams, spends half the year in Japan and then flies south to the warmth of Canberra and other parts of south-east Australia for the spring and summer.
Japan and Australia are working together to find out more about these mighty little birds.
On the foreshores of a wetland in Hokkaido in Japan, five birds were skilfully fitted with trackers, before they began their amazing voyage.
Early data showed the birds travelling more than 5500 kilometres in six days of continuous flight from Hokkaido in Japan to Papua New Guinea at an average speed of 40 km/hr.
The Latham Snipe. Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Dabb
The visiting birds are starting to arrive in the south east of Australia, to settle in for the spring and summer.
During the summer four more birds will be fitted with trackers to observe their movements here in Australia, and their long return flight.
I’ll never complain about the long flight back to Australia again!
The Nara Peace park is full of colourful trees and blossoms in spring, and shady peaceful places to sit in the hot summer months.
If you are wandering around the park, or just sitting and contemplating the beauty of spring, give a respectful nod to the symbol of the tiny bird near the top of the sculpture, Toku.
…. and wish the Latham Snipe well for summer in Canberra.
To follow the flight progress of these fearless little birds visit the Jerrabomberra Wetlands site and look for the Latham Snipe project.
I hope you are enjoying your season and birdlife where ever you are!
