White cat asleep in a moss garden

Gio-ji Temple in Kyoto is but one of 1,600 temples in this oh-so-beautiful Japanese city that touches the mountains. Shinto deities and Buddha co-exist. It is a tiny patch of exquisiteness in the quilt of beauty that is Kyoto. Gio was a great beauty who denounced worldly pleasures as a young woman and became a nun after falling out of favour with a chieftain of the Taira clan in the 12th century.


There are other stunning and more expansive moss temple gardens. Gio-ji, however, will always stand out perhaps because of the mysterious white cat who slept on a bed of moss oblivious to the audience of temple visitors. The umbrella protecting the precious Chinese peony from the elements and the ornamental kale adding colour at the entrance were similar little touches of homeliness in a spiritual setting.

You can see the bamboo forest bordering the moss garden and creating a luminous backdrop. We walked around the moss garden and our eyes soaked up the extreme green of the primordial moss while ever present water made music in the garden.

On the way back from the temple in the Arashiyama area we saw a magnificent dogwood in full bloom and then noticed these everywhere as street trees even in Tokyo. Our Japanese volunteer guide was bemused by the choice of an ugly name for  a tree of such great beauty. In Japanese dogwood means flower water tree.

Feeling like a champion

I was feeling a little despondent but consoled myself that we were in it! Amid juggling paid work, volunteer commitments, running a household with a huge garden, back to school and our wonderful social lives I'd managed to get the forms in to enter the 2012 Royal Canberra Show.

My champion ribbon!

It had been a late night and I'd been struck by a virus. I dosed myself up on coffee and cold and flu tablets and we worked into the night, baking, pasting, preparing. Imogen made cupcakes but I gave her the wrong size tin and a terrible untested recipe for glace icing. We'd spent all our time working out how to get the cupcakes out of the tin without patty pan papers and neglected the glace glory.

Then there was the eggs. I collected the eggs for weeks then Imogen generously gave away half a dozen to a little friend and I used some for birthday baking confident our hens would keep laying three eggs a day.
Then they stopped. I realise now that hot weather of course, makes hens go off the lay!

We begged some eggs from the farmer around the corner so that we could at least lay claim to local produce but they were old and didn't match our pristine half dozen. The girls prepared their 'healthy lunch box' entries for the cookery section of the show - a new category. I rose at dawn and picked my herbs fresh with dew.  The refrain from the traditional ballad; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.  I trimmed off any blemishes and artfully arranged them in a nice container. I was only entering the 'collection of four distinct herbs; clearly labelled' section to be a role model. How could I expect them to enter the show without making an effort myself.

Four different kinds of herbs

I raced out with my special pass and merged into the excitement of Harvest Hall as cooks, bakers, gardeners and growers joined together to show off their creative Cornucopia. I parked my car and delivered all the entries. The smell of livestock hit my nostrils with an organic splash of urea, hay and nitrogen. The excitement as city meets country. I saw Dave the demon horticulturalist who placed his entries and urged me next year to take the day off work and school so the girls could see the judges inspecting and measuring the vegetables and tasting the preserves.

I felt a great sense of achievement that we had entered the show as competitors. Inspired and encouraged by Dave and Libby who give it a go every year. It was with some disbelief that a day or so later Craig phoned me to say the gentleman farmer of Crookwell and his beautiful wife were first on the scene to see my champion ribbon. Not just first prize but champion! The girls also won Highly Commended for their healthy lunch boxes thank goodness after my stuff-ups with the eggs and the patty cakes. I have been over the moon ever since.

We couldn't get to the show until Sunday but everything was on display in all its glory including a friend's son's prize winning army cake entitled World War Three. Apparently his brother's gummi bears armed with bazookas on the milk arrowroots didn't get a prize but were a popular favourite. I ran into teachers from the school and they were excited that so many people in our community had entered and won prizes including the championship dahlia exhibitors. I recognised the dahlias from the front office of the school. One of the employees brings in exquisite vases of dahlias and seasonal blooms which perfectly suit the art deco foyer.

Champion for best collection; garden produce

It was an afternoon I will not forget in a long time and now we know the show is far more than dagwood dogs, expensive show bags and dizzy rides. As I watched the parade of bulls from Longreach to Hurlstone flanked by hundreds of pony club competitors I knew the show is where we celebrate town and country.

Six brown (but local)  interlopers; Our hens went off the lay

Award winning dahlias

Sculptural in their form; dahlias

Breathtaking!

A very hot and tired grumpy little pumpkin

Pretty in pink

It's interesting how the people who inspire us and touch our lives are often at the periphery and not those with deep kin or emotional connections. Yet they stay in our subconscious. They invest in us with their wise words or a generous act of kindness or simply inspire us at a personal turning point with their courage, grace or flair. In turn we give the same gift to someone else.

There are many people who've influenced me along the way and I've met one such person recently. I hope she won't mind being described so enthusiastically but she really is the personification of Flora's charm and grace and she is of course, a gardener. This wonderful gardener whom I shall call G is a mature lady and proves my thesis that beauty knows no age but comes from the heart and the soul. To me beautiful people are those who suffer some pain but live their lives with grace and optimism.

My strelitzia from Aldi

Purple carrots for Christmas dinner with knobbly bits

I adored my artichoke blooms

It began with a small cut glass vase filled with different types of roses or peonies or hyacinths. Each week something gorgeous from her garden brings floral beauty to our boring office cubicles and when she leaves G gives me her little posy to take home and enjoy over the weekend. The first time I received a gift of flowers from her I was in shock at her gesture but we began to speak a different language in our workplace as G described her garden and showed me photos of her own backyard garden of dreams. Although our workplace is a far cry from those dark Satanic mills it's been wonderful to see G bring her flowers and object d'art such as little vintage plates into that somewhat soulless environment.

Italian arum 'lords and ladies'

At the coast: our tuzzy muzzy 

Gardens give many people solace and G has created an idyll from a bare patch of suburban dirt despite suffering severe pain due to injury. I favour foliage and I have always steered away from 'frilly' flowers and roses in particular because I can't bare a black-spotted spindly rose in a poor landscape design. G's designs show how it's all done properly with a profusion of cultivars and sympathetic companion planting including lots of silver foliage such as lavender and salvias. I've turned and I'm going to create a profusion of pink in my side garden - it's what's been missing all along! I can't wait to replant my 'naked lady' amaryllis bulbs in this pink and mauve setting. I rescued several amaryllis from another spot and they will look fabulous. I'm also going to brave bluebells and a daffodil maze under my birch trees all inspired by G's garden plans. I'll give my geraniums a go spilling out of an urn and creating a ground cover facing a hot north. I already have magnificent Russian sage flowering at the height of summer and completely drought hardy which will look beautiful with geraniums, pelargoniums, lavender and roses. Marjoram, coriander, dwarf nasturtium, parsley and pyrethrum as well as borage and comfrey are recommended. The lavender oil apparently acts as a mild fungicide but the silver foliage also creates a complementary planting scheme.

Russian sage
I've had to teach myself organisational skills throughout my life mainly to cope as a parent. I love being organised... not to the point of perfection though. While I have my house in order G. has shown me a way forward to get my garden in order which I'd never really considered. It's simple, so obvious but quite brilliant.

The garden journal

G has a meticulous garden journal and in 2012 I plan to follow suit. It details her garden designs and then outlines every planting with notes on care and maintenance. In the left hand page G pastes notes from seed packets and plant labels. Although my garden is not extensive, I forget what I've planted where and I love the idea of tailored reminders of when I should be cutting back or feeding. G has an extensive collection of bulbs which she has documented.

Her neat pages are coded and show a planting scheme such as shrub roses, carpet roses, lavenders, white crocus, Duck egg blue Ixias, romantic blend ranunculi, white rain lilies, nerine, Gold Autum crocus, Autumn snowflakes, Siberian Iris and Ixia. Chives mingle with tulips as chives are thought to help prevent blackspot and mildew and repel aphids. Her standard roses include Princess de Monaco, Burgundy Iceberg, Pink Iceberg, white Iceberg, Princess de Monaco and Jane McGrath Floribund bush rose pink.
Let's face it G's a rose fiend! A table tracks height and width for her bulb plantings, watering, frost tolerance, flowering time, fertiliser and after flowering care.

G chooses her roses for their repeat flowering and their scent. Very important she tells me. Her companion planting and landscaping favourites to complement the repeat flowering roses are violets, daisies, salvia, climbing star jasmine and lavender. G loves her Iris and collects many different types. She also has some English snowdrops.

Gardens Illustrated, galanthus and Nympha

The Galanthus craze has taken off to nearly rival tulips.  My horticultural world has been opened up by the pages of Britain's Garden's Illustrated. Any other gardening magazine I've every read pales into comparison. Check out beningtonlordship.co.uk a gathering place for galanthophiles.

Snowdrops are a sign of hope that winter is over.

Over the holidays with time to read I've also been inspired by the ancient gardens of Nympha in Italy and plan to visit that ruined village and restored garden one day in the future. I particularly adore the giant umbrellas of rhubarb-related plants that line the stream flowing through Nympha.

In the short term I am heading to Japan in just a few months and have booked accommodation in Kyoto so I can visit the bamboo grove in Arashiyama on the outskirts of Kyoto and of course the many sacred temples and gardens. Moss gardens, zen gardens maintained by monks, a temple tea house and all in the height of the Spring cherry blossom season. It will be the trip of a lifetime.

Helping us with real food

Real food by young people for young people

Real lemonade

Kate B. talks about Helpings

Nicki and friend - one of the inspiring young people working for sustainability

A big event of significance in my life recently was the launch of Helpings in Canberra at the Majura Primary Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden. It was a significant event for many reasons. Top of the list would be inspiration from a new generation of young people who are activists in the true sense of the word. Not just talking about change as I did in the 1980s but getting out and changing the world step by step. Acting locally and thinking globally. Running fresh food workshops for school children and serving real food every week at the ANU.  Acknowledging the efforts of locals like the school canteen manager who had the courage to turn around the canteen into a healthy and delicious going concern that no longer sells junk food to children.

It is not surprising that one of the book's authors Charlie Wood was recognised as the ACT's young environmentalist of the year. Charlie helped found Real Food and the connectivity of Real Food's links in the community was evident at the launch. Famous and potentially famous chefs, denizens of local produce and business, scientists, thinkers, writers and musicians. The event was beautiful, eloquent and musical. It was orchestrated to speak to the heart through the stomach. The guest speakers highlighted the crises we face then gave us the hope and optimism to change which is exactly how to inspire human beings to action.

Science writer Julian Cribb pointed out that the population of Canberra (250,000) is born every day but that competition for water gets more fierce and in the end the farmers who need water to feed our planet will be pushed out by the miners and manufacturers. Huge cities were being built with no capacity for independent food production. Without innovation, food and water scarcity are inevitable.

Dietmar Sawyer, of Berowra Waters Inn fame, observed that while on his journey to Canberra he stopped to get petrol where, symbolically, a woman went to the effort to put premium petrol in her car then bought a cheap candy bar and packet of chips to fuel her body.

Charlie reminded us that everything we put in our mouths must be a conscious choice that helps heal our planet and is mindful of the ethics and hidden environmental and social costs of production. We live on a planet where one billion people have too much food and are potentially dying from diet-related diseases while one billion people are starving. Short supply chains are part of the solution.

Growing the growers

Growing the growers and encouraging our young people to go on the land and farm is really important. Check out this amazing project -  I want to support this initiative to grow new farmers, new backyard gardeners and new markets. Alan from Allsun Farms was at the launch and spoke about this project and the City Farms movement. He congratulated Charlie and her  Real Food friends who worked on his organic farm near Canberra as part of their commitment to sustainability.

My children were involved in the production of the cook book from helping test the recipes, singing at the launch and serving the delectable 'real' food made with love by the volunteers associated with the publication of this unique volume. The children were literally over the moon at being part of something big. The book itself has helped shaped their attitudes and response to healthy nourishing food and I find it conceptually so easy for us all to compare 'real food' with the energy-dense denatured rubbish that we sometimes put into our body. We all know the difference and why real food tastes and feels so right. It's a choice that for our family is getting easier to make.

It was a heavenly Monday in a little patch of abundance built by gardeners and growers of children at the Majura School surrounded by crops and produce. Home-made hummus, delectable mince pies, tarts and ginger biscuits washed down with real lemonade showed how real food just doesn't even compare with the horrors of the packaged, preserved and processed food that dominates our supermarket shelves. Real food is fun, bright and beautiful and tastes great. It's good for the planet too. To find out where to buy the cook book visit  http://realfoodcanberra.org/cookbook. The book got some great media coverage and I am still learning from reading it.


Question authority!

Charlie's mum Kate is pretty amazing and one of her personal mantras is Question Authority! All the children are hypnotised by her and will do anything she says including singing beautifully! I don't think I have ever met anyone quite like Kate whose leadership and passion is gentle and inspiring. Kate believes in the potential of everyone and expects great things. A true leader. She makes me feel as if she believes in me and expects great things of me. No-one has ever had that effect on me before except my devoted hubby of course! Kate introduced me to the concept of 'guerrilla gardening' and one Sunday I found myself helping to rescue an ancient tree with a group of willing helpers. We worked to restore the correct amount of mulch protecting the tree. Here is a photo of my daughter taking to guerrilla gardening like a duck to water. She even wore a special outfit! I hope to change the world one step at a time like Kate and her daughter Charlie and I hope to have the same gentle compassion for other human beings on this planet just like Kate and Charlie too!

Fava beans reignite my fervour

The Helpings cook book has a recipe for potato and broad bean salad donated by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingshall whom many of us worship on the telly as he recreates an Arcadian dream in the English countryside.  I've learned lots of tips from the cook book. I didn't realise, for instance, that you should slip the fava bean out of its skin after you cook it.  Before Helpings I nearly gave up on my vegetable garden but broad beans won me over again. I was despondent as my brassicas had either gone to seed or were being ravaged by white cabbage butterflies. I was so busy doing everything else in my life that I hadn't got out into the garden. I thought to myself that it is a much better value proposition to support the farmer's markets and other local growers.  But then my husband pointed out to me that at least our children got to see a cauliflower peek out of its nest of grey-green leaves and beans crawl quickly up trellises. They know where vegetables come from. Then I made a salad with my freshly picked broad beans and nothing could compare. I also re-read Lolo Houbein who emphasises the benefits of companion planting and how difficult it is to protect against pests and diseases. But it is possible with a few minutes every day and a small plot to grow something. I was comforted that night to talk to a friend (one of my faithful blog followers) who had experienced exactly the same emotions. Disappointment over some poor companion planting (snow peas near onions) then inspiration from that Dutch-Australian genius of a woman Lolo.

I've thrown in zuchinnis, egg plant, chillis and beans and loads of marigold and heartsease (a tip from the Burra Open Gardens). My artichokes look sculpturally beautiful and I've cut up a whole lot of white plastic into cabbage butterfly shapes and hung them near my remaining cauliflowers. This apparently tells the butterflies to stay away because the territory is occupied by white 'pretend' butterflies. The children who come to the garden help harvest our goodies and I was thrilled when my older daughter offered to plant the zucchinis.

Spring chickens and mountain wildflowers

A newly hatched chick with proud Mum

Wow! Now I know why tiny chickens that go peep are such powerful symbols of spring time and new life. They are so adorable and fluffy and nothing beats listening to the tapping noise they make while in their shell and their cute little cheeps. I'm as excited about these day-old chicks as if I was visiting a new baby. Our Sussex Light hens went successively broody as soon as the weather turned. The first lady puffed up her feathers, put on a nasty expression with a special 'leave me alone!' squawk and sat on the nest for three weeks. In the last week all three girls have gone broody and shared the nest sitting. They only get up to do one 'malodorous' poo once a day and eat and drink.


How's this for coincidence or maybe scary locational targeting. I googled fertile chick eggs and the first result I got was a house less then a few hundred metres from mine with a fine Welsummer rooster residing in the backyard. We bought four Welsummer-cross fertile eggs from John the retired farmer.      These babies have just hatched. On Thursday I'm expecting a dozen Light Sussex chicks to hatch.


Everyone is ecstatic and our babies took a walk around with mum and have already learned to drink water and eat their special mash.


Walking up Mount Imlay

Eucalyptus Imlayensis

I was lucky enough to do two superb bush walks during the school holidays at Eden on the South Coast. The first bush walk covered coastal terrain which varied from windswept tea-tree to rainforest to wild heath ablaze with gorgeous wildflowers.


The second walk was up Mount Imlay where I saw the endangered Eucalyptus Imlayensis (see photograph). Only a remnant few remain on the summit of Mount Imlay and nowhere else in Australia. They are beautiful and are among a few species unique to Mount Imlay including a boronia. The scenery was breathtaking and I admired nature's landscaping particularly the placement of rocks and ancient grass trees. It all works so beautifully. Did you know that lichen is actually a combination of an algae and a fungus? The lichens down that way are beautiful and one species of lichen colours the ancient rocks a milky white as if an artist had flicked a paint brush to create spots.


We had to cleanse our footwear to prevent the spread of the dreaded Phytophthora cinnamon fungus which is killing the trees. I'm interested in the work of the Australian National Botanic Gardens and the seed saver network and intend to investigate further.

Real Food Canberra and love of a laminex table


Two special books are being launched around this time. Love of a laminex table from the owner of Benedict House artist Kate Shelton was launched recently and I intend to get myself a copy. I dined at Benedict House in Queanbeyan and was charmed by the deceptive simplicity of a menu based on homegrown and regional produce. Brown rice flecked with puy lentils and citrusy salads with fennel, candied walnuts and a scattering of luscious pink pomegranate. The atmosphere of Benedict House is incomparable and nothing like it exists in Canberra. http://www.benedicthouse.com.au/ My friend Karen and I ate unbelievably good corned beef and talked about Lost Gardens with Monty Don on ABC TV and the stand of arctic beech in Barrington Tops National Park, NSW.


Real Food Canberra are fantastic dedicated folk and their sustainable cook book for children will be launched on 21 November at Majura Primary School. They have worked many hours on producing a resource that will benefit our children and engage their passion for real food and healthy eating. It's also a great literacy tool.


Burra Open Gardens


Burra opens its gardens again in 2011 with seven beautiful gardens for our enjoyment on the weekend of Saturday 29 October and Sunday 30 October. All the gardens sound spectacular and proceeds help the local community. A rest for refreshments in the Burra Community Hall or in one of the gardens is recommended. I don't know how we'll fit them all in but we'll give it a go. Roselawn was created around the remnants of the original 1930s garden which features a Monet-inspired footbridge.  The garden is planted with old fashioned iris, drifts of evening primrose, lavenders, rose and penstemon.


My own garden is looking a bit sad so I shouldn't really be traipsing off to look at other gardens but it will be my birthday treat. I have lots of work to do but I've decided to take a heritage based approach and turn one part of the garden into an orchard on the same site where an orchard was created by the wonderful gardener who lived here years ago. When he died all the trees were removed except for an oleander, some hibiscus, a fuchsia and the lovely camellias. My potato garden is flourishing and promises to rehabilitate the soil ready for future autumnal planting. Our vegetable garden needs supplementing but I've successfully seeded purple carrots and have snow peas growing. Many of the winter brassicas went to seed so I've donated those to our chooks. Raspberry canes are growing madly. I'm looking forward to planting some Lolo plots based on a culinary theme. I will ask my friend Linda to post some information about heritage plantings for the Ainslie area onto my blog.

Native orchid near Eden

Down the garden path

Real heritage, I learned today, is not what is locked away in museums but is when history lives on with purpose and meaning connecting past lives with the present.

That connection happened today as people walked the streets of our village community and heritage and knowledge was shared in the gardens of local residents where everyone was filled with spring joy and community spirit.

Carefully tended gardens with chooks, vegetables and spring blossoms were the stars of the day punctuated by our beautiful children selling flowers, herbs and old-fashioned lemonade straight from a CWA cook book.

'Down the garden path' was an initiative of Ainslie School and the hard work and enthusiasm of organisers Libby and Robyn who had an entire community behind them.

The deputy principal of Ainslie School stood on the steps of that beautiful Art Deco building and shared with me how proud she was to teach at a school that really is a showcase of the kind of living heritage that some historians say is what really counts. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters walked through those doors today then began their pilgrimage around a few small but special streets where children, love, friendship and laughter were abundant.

It is wonderful to know that we are transforming our gardens into productive beautiful spaces that are not just about lawn or specimen trees. Like those who first planted the gardens in our suburb of Ainslie we are nurturing heritage plants and reclaiming productive space to grow food for our families and friends. Our large garden blocks are a rarity and we are endeavouring to use this space as it was always intended.

Today I remember my great friend Daphne an original Ainslie resident who passed away several years ago whose garden kept alive her mind and body until the end. She reared baby chickens during the war and grew vegetables to support her family in between working at Parliament House while her husband was away at war. Even frail and crippled in her 90s against doctors' orders she would get out every day propped up on a pair of old tomato stakes and tend to that garden which has been producing vegetables since the 1930s. I miss her annual show of sweet peas and the friendship we had that transcended our age differences.

Here are some highlights of the day.

Childhood is everyone's country

 A particular garden helped shaped my childhood memories and experiences. I thought I had lost those memories and connections forever due to a terrible fire which nearly destroyed my life. Living in that little town in New Zealand was a period of stability, innocence and magic and I hung fiercely to the jumbled images in my mind.

Forget-me-nots in the streets. A red and white fairy mushroom ring in a woodland where I roamed free. Fat goldfish in a series of rectangular ponds lined with alyssum.

Most beautiful of all was the memory of a crystal clear river that swirled its blue waters around limestone rocks and held a natural whirlpool that gently whirled me around.

Rose Street was high on a hill in the little village and lined with beautiful Victorian homes and gracious gardens. Next door to me lived Miss Bibby, a beautiful elderly woman with a black cat. Her house was flanked by a white crunchy gravel circular driveway and I loved to visit. Embedded in my memory is a sunny day when she combed out her long silver hair to dry.

The fire that destroyed my home 32 years ago

At the bottom of my garden was an old Victorian-era rubbish dump and I would find little porcelain dolly legs and other treasures. My father built me a tree house in an apple tree and one day I slipped and fell. I lay on the ground without a scrap of oxygen in my lungs.

I thought the photos were gone but as you can see here I have some visual remnants of my childhood found at the back of a drawer at my nana's place. Years later I visited Waipawa and drove past briefly but didn't see anything that reminded me of that magic and sparkle all those years ago. Recently something amazing happened...I googled 9 Rose Street, Waipawa and was amazed to discover the website of a local sculptor, historian and community-minded person Jan Gosling. She lives in the house next door and her mother lives on the site of my former home.

Jan's research and stories opened up a whole new world and I found out about Miss Bibby and the famous Bibby family including Jan's direct forebear who was a famous New Zealand artist and all-round fabulous woman who was anti corporal punishment and home schooled her children. Jan's life story itself is fascinating and her sculptures made from a white volcanic stone, haunt me with their beauty and connection to the forest and the forces of nature.

Please visit Jan's website - her work is amazing. I guarantee you've never seen anything like her sculptures.
The history of Waipawa is great too and Jan organises a rubber duck race each year along that beautiful river I remembered.

One of the photos below shows me standing in front of a bird bath. Years later Jan's mother found the base of the bird bath after the fire and kept it. The photos of the fire came from Jan's family too and I saw these for the very first time recently not that I will ever forget seeing the flames after my father dragged me to safety that dark and terrible night.

Making those memories real and cementing them with local history has been very important to me. That garden was my spirit place for so long and I truly believe children create and infuse spaces with their spirit and imagining. Children need backyards or places where they can play, imagine, explore and believe like I did.

The next day

My garden 

My grandmother Marje, me and a monstero deliosis

Backyard bliss