A kimono-inspired river of rocks

This is the top slope of the river bed

Gardeners Tony and Cathy Marker 

Cathy Marker got the inspiration for the flow lines of her dry creek bed garden from a beautiful silk kimono. Cathy woke up one morning, saw the imagery and knew that was the shape for their flowing river of rocks which combines traditional Japanese design elements with an Australian eco-solution that is beautiful, functional and zen-like in its delicate and respectful mimicry of a natural environment.

Cathy, like many of us, has a fascination for Japan shared by her husband. As a teacher of Japanese, she is particularly immersed in Japanese culture and she and Tony have designed an eco-friendly house and garden that integrates many Japanese design principles and traditional favourites observed in their travels. Their dry creek bed is sheer genius, solving a drainage problem when their sloping block is hit by occasional localised flooding due to heavy rain. The dry creek bed diverts water running down the hill and sends it to a settlement pond in the front garden.

There are no lawns to mow and the river bed is an instant hit with all children who visit. My little visitors were balancing up and down the rocks constantly and did not want to leave this beautiful space after our tour. We had been kindly invited by Cathy to look at the potential of the dry creek bed as a natural play space.

Swales of river rock are buffered by plantings which work to stabilise the sand and mortar base. The dry creek bed leads up to an Australian native garden which sweeps around to a terraced herb garden, veggie patch then takes the visitor into a Japanese courtyard with traditional maple and verdant ancient ferns. The combinations all work wonderfully and are a tribute to the melange of influences and ideas the Markers have channelled into their garden.  

Intense shots of colour are an antidote to winter in their welcoming front garden.  Blue and red blooms pop up through the winter coat of fallen leaves from the giant trees in the neighbourhood including a Chinese Sappora. Red coral maple show their winter beauty and complement the colour scheme of the house which includes palettes of red and blue in the various built forms and garden adornments. A Japanese rain chain, for example, links the gutter to an exquisite red-hued pot which also channels water.

Cathy and Tony inhabit a beautiful space both internally and externally. The front garden creates a highly visual and contemporary first impression based on a series of gentle curved pathways that connect and frame the base of the dry river bed which can be glimpsed from the front. Azaleas form some of the plantings  and pay tribute to the Asian species lovingly cultivated for centuries in Japan and Europe. Cathy explained how she briefed her landscaper to plant in multiples of three, five and seven according to one of the rules of Japanese garden design. The deliciously dark slate paving offset by white pebbles, is something you would also see in Japan, Tony and Cathy told me. We left the garden feeling inspired and uplifted. A design solution that is beautiful in itself and unites an Australian bush essence with zen principles in a river of rocks shaped by the forces of nature.

Every window has a vista 

Vegies, natives and lots more

Japanese rainwater chain

This kimono's lines inspired the river bed flow

This Japanese-style path is  set in mortar.

The coral maple adds winter beauty

The front garden takes you on a journey

Beautiful textures and contrast

Unexpected shots of winter colour

A very Japanese paving style

I'm gladioli met May Gibbs

May watched the bridge being built from her studio window. 

The middle of winter is a perfect time to visit Nutcote at Neutral Bay to lift spirits and be inspired by the creative life of a remarkable woman who lives on through her home and garden.

From the moment we stepped onto the ferry from Circular Quay we entered another world as the sun glittered off the harbour. We docked at the ornate arts and crafts gateway of Neutral Bay Wharf and wandered past a miniature beach strewn with little boats and on towards the former home of author and illustrator May Gibbs. Nutcote has been famously restored and is staffed by the Friends of Nutcote.

Those generous and charming women welcomed my children and I in between tour groups and we had the place to ourselves on a sunny Sydney morning. They let my children dress up in gum nut baby attire and we went exploring. The garden is divine and starts to reveal some of the sources of May's inspiration and whimsy. I particularly loved the trumpet-like creamy brugmansia plant which flanked the path down towards the harbour.

Inside her house everything has been restored and retained as a museum of her adventurous and somewhat unconventional life of creative endeavour. The exquisite dark wood joinery inside oozes the charm of the era. The house itself is a departure from the surrounding arts and crafts style and is Italianate in design. She briefed BJ Waterhouse to design a home with compactness and charm and her studio is central to the floor plan. Her illustrations sit in the studio as if she'd just got up for cup of tea from her tiny little kitchen which is compact but functional. The adjoining dining room is set with exquisite deep blue porcelain tableware.

Photos adorn the house including holiday snaps of May setting off with her husband in the car to a tiny little village - of all places - in the Canberra region - one of their regular camping jaunts in the Dodge with their much-loved Scottish terriers.

We became big fans of The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie after our visit. Despite the cuteness of the iconic imagery the stories of the gumnut babies are quite dark as they deal with the dastardly Banksia men and my children were fascinated for quite some time.

Nutcote truly is a place of enchantment and heritage and I will never forget that perfect day.

My own Gumnut babes in front of Nutcote.

Wysteria hysteria, marry gold...literary witticisms abound

The garden of Nutcote is full of whimsy.

Mazes, labyrinths and the good life

The television show The Good Life with Felicity Kendall (as admired by The Young Ones) and my mother's copies of Grass Roots magazine are two things that immediately make my brain manufacture contentedness serotonin. Somewhere floating in that mish-mash of childhood influences is Bilbo Baggins, cups of tea, elevenses and his warm retreat by the fire in that mythical village when the little Hobbit was not out fighting the forces of evil. As an only child in slower times of the 1970s and early 80s with plenty of time and space for reading and dreaming, I would envision my own little world where everything was grown on the plot in a self-sufficient retreat. Throw in the tree-lined country lanes of Anne of Green Gables and my imaginary world of safe and peaceful domesticity was complete.

There is something deeply appealing to most of us of course about the idea of home and growing our own food, baking bread, keeping livestock, producing eggs on our plot of earth that connects us to the idea of the village and the earth and times past. The reality, of course, is far from the romantic idyll depending on where you live and your resources and whatever phase you are in life. Nostalgia is one part reality and two parts fantasy!

Studying economics 101 a decade ago made me consider and appreciate the efficiencies and lower opportunity cost of mass production and specialisation and I felt secretly embarrassed about my childish version of The Good Life which I didn't realise at the time was actually parodying fanatical self sufficiency and middle-class snobbery! Apart from a few conservative diehards, we all know now, however, that the one resource that was always unprotected by economic principles of supply and demand is our planet Gaia.

With our planet in serious need of rescue, the idea of a self-sufficient home takes on a new appeal and a place that does not create an ecological drain on resources and energy is becoming increasingly fused with our ideas of home and what constitutes contentment in our private interior spaces of domesticity. In adulthood I have begun dreaming and imagining again and the idea of a house that regenerates and sustains based on human innovation and technology has replaced the hippy influenced 'Grass Roots' idyll. There's also something sci-fi and futuristic about using technology to heal not harm.

The sustainable house

I've just discovered Michael Mobbs and his sustainable house built 15 years ago. His book Sustainable house has been updated and re-released. This very weekend he opened his house for tours which explain:
What’s happened after 1.5 million litres of sewage has gone into the garden?
How have the solar panels lasted after 14 years?
What’s worked and what hasn’t?
How has the house saved over $30,000 in water and energy bills?
He calls his sustainable house 'the little house that could - and yours can too!' I look forward to buying the updated version of the Sustainable House or borrowing a library copy.

Built for the bush

It's the opening weekend of Built for the Bush which showcases green architecture of rural Australia at the National Archives. I've put this on my to-do list and note it is open until 11 September. The exhibition explores the energy efficient features of Australia's 19th century country homes and the reappearances of these traditional practices in contemporary sustainable architecture. I have planted ornamental grapevine to grow up and over my pergola and can't wait for its foliage to cool our home in summer following in the footsteps of many a 19th century country verandah.

On Friday night I attended the Institute of Building awards in the new hall of the Art Gallery. I met a couple who have designed and built a sustainable house for their family in my beloved suburb of Ainslie. They won an award for the project on the night. The bloke in the partnership is an expert in sustainable design and building. I am looking forward to seeing their house. We have told them that if they want to truly fit in here in Ainslie then they need to get chickens as soon as possible. We were only half joking. A few years ago it seemed like everyone in Ainslie of the yuppie persuasion had a Subaru and a sheepdog!

Children's play spaces

One of the goals I have set myself in starting this blog is to learn more about designing children's play spaces in gardens. I'm currently developing specifications to construct a sandpit at my children's childcare centre and while researching on the internet I have found out lots of exciting things about the value of sand play. For example, did you know that playing in a sandpit can really help calm children down as it is 'soft play' and should balance 'hard play' wherever possible near swings and hard surface play equipment.

I discovered the website of a landscape designer Tessa Rose based in Sydney who creates spaces all over NSW for children including mazes and labyrinths. My friend Libby explained that the meditational and spiritual qualities of the labyrinth help children deal with bad behaviour and give them time out to reflect and calm down. Did you know about the international labyrinth society? Their website hosts an international labyrinth locator. Tessa Rose explains that labyrinths introduce a powerful element of restful movement into children's play spaces. Mazes, on the other, hand, make kids charge around with mystery and excitement as they duck, weave, run and hide immersed in a giant green puzzle. I will never forget that cold crisp and bright winter's day in Berrima a year ago where our kids rampaged with joy.


Harper's Mansion maze 

The maze at Harper's Mansion in Berrima is truly fantastic and last winter I organised a big group of us to meet there for a rampage. The children loved it and the magic of the maze is something I hope will stay locked in their memories. As parents, one of the most important things we can do is create happy memories of childhood - the rest is up to them. They have a fabulous garden at Harper's Mansion which recreates what they grew in the 1830s. You can also get fabulous cheap propagated plants including dogwoods and butterfly bush at the back of the garden from the National Trust gardeners. They get a bit of help from the local prisoners. The maze and mansion are only open at certain times so check before you visit. The mansion itself is a beautiful building and the whole place is quite special.

We also visited the museum at Berrima which explains the floating city during World War I created by German interns - there's a mini-series in that story for sure! Opera, flotillas, music and creativity. These men who were merchant seamen in the wrong place at the wrong time created a beautiful world in their captivity but lived with dignity, beauty and honour in peace with the locals. The kids loved seeing the exhibition of toys from last century.

Bee baths and why I love Lolo!

Okay - I know it's a little unhealthy to worship people you've never met or even those you have met.  But I am starting to ADORE Lolo Houbein. I have ordered her book and The Life and Love of Trees from the Book Depository and as I delve deeper into Lolo's book One Magic Square I realise that it could be one of the best books I have ever owned. I knew as soon as I opened the page where she mentioned the loquat I would be enamoured of Lolo the plant whisperer. The loquat, you see, is a source of fascination for me due to its exquisite glossy unusual foliage. Properly manured every Autumn and pruned after harvest it apparently produces great fruit too.

A bee bath should have a rock placed inside it.

One Magic Square is just SO practical and tells you everything a gardener needs to know in a wholistic manner. The book is deeply enriched by Lolo's years of experience, skill and practical knowledge and those who have learned through trial and error will nod in agreement with Lolo's observations. Everything has an end in mind which is mostly fabulous practical and healthy vegetables to cook - she makes me salivate with her descriptions of salads, soups and stir frys replete with herbs and seasoning. I feel a stirring for healthier eating which is more vegetarian than my current diet but all about flavour, texture and colour.

I could waffle at length about the fabulousness of the information in One Magic Square. Bee baths and bird baths feature in her 'top tips'. Lolo recommends putting many bird baths around the garden so that friendly birds can see the water from the air and be encouraged to visit regularly. She also recommends a shallow bee bath like the charming mosaic dish I photographed. A dish of water with a rock in it gives the bees somewhere to drink in the heat of summer and encourages pollination. How cool is that? I'm off now to read more gems from Lolo such as why you shouldn't pick asparagus spears for the first three years if you want your asparagus crowns to thrive.

One magic square

Last leaves of Autumn in Canberra

 Lots of inspiration this week but not much time for pursuing my dreams in the garden or even reading about them. One Magic Square is a beautiful book by Lolo Houbein that I have flicked through and feel I need desperately to buy. Now I understand why Sheryl, who loaned me the book, was so enthusiastic. It really is brilliant. It has a series of food plot designs and wonderful narrative from author Lolo Houbein who experienced severe food shortages as a child in war-time Holland. The book begins:

To start growing your own food without delay, put down this book, go out in the garden and select a spot in the sun. Dig over one square metre with a garden fork and remove all weeds by hand. Pasta/pizza plots, salad plots, bean plots, winter vegetable plots - the list of combinations and her beautiful designs is comprehensive. She describes how to take your produce from garden to table with practical suggestions for cooking great wholesome food. It's not a book - it's a manual for self-sufficiency and has a magical feel to its pages. She has thought of everything and trawls history, culture and travel to bring in useful vignettes such as the Greek horta - a description of how Greek women would go into the mountains and gather wild greens for their cooking pots.

There is no free lunch. There is no cheap food. The cheapest and best food is the food you grow yourself - food that does not accumulate added costs for transport from other states or continents, needs no refrigeration because you pick it minutes before preparing, does not add to pollution because it only travels from garden to backdoor, is free of costly chemicals and needs no packaging. Consider the real cost of a cucumber in a plastic jacket, grown in a temperature-controlled poly tunnel, refrigerated, put in the jacket, transported a great distance and displayed in an air-conditioned supermarket under burning lights. The cucumber you grow yourself just has to be fresher, tastier and healthier than that, doesn't it.

Lolo warns about peak oil and future fruit and vegetable shortages that may occur. Lolo says food gardening is the most intelligent adult endeavour on earth and her techniques allow people like me to start small, gain confidence and enjoy moving towards greater self-sufficiency.

My living table decoration of alfalfa

Now - don't shoot me but I have a balanced mildly economic rationalist view - I agree we should all be growing our own food and that food shortages and price hikes are real threats.  I also think it's great that we have a horticultural industry and that you can buy tasteless rock-hard tomatoes bred for transport in truck if you want to. I agree the hidden costs are high but our population deserves access to cheap, healthy food - how the real cost of that food is made transparent is another matter.

Conversely, any endeavour in the home or community garden that is real, practical and achievable is what I support.

Dickson Wetland community planting day


This event sounds great. A community planting day at Dickson Wetland, Hawdon St, Dickson.


Saturday 4 June 2011
11am-3pm


Carrotmob at Ainslie IGA 11 June

I've never heard of Carrotmob until this week but this new type of consumer activism is working towards our 40% greenhouse gas reduction target. Here's some of the blurb from their website.

To contribute to and highlight the ACT's newly adopted 40% greenhouse gas reduction target, Canberra Loves 40% and partners present 'Carrotmob'. 

Carrotmobs are a fantastic way for business and the community to work together for sustainability. 

Carrotmobs are a global movement of community organisers who use consumer activism as a way to help change businesses in their communities. In a Carrotmob campaign, businesses compete at how socially responsible they can be, and then a network of consumers spends money to support the winner.

Ainslie IGA has won Canberra's first ever Carrotmob by committing to put 100% of the money spent by the ‘mob’ on Saturday June 11 into reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The SustainAbility Advice Team has donated an energy audit to help Ainslie decide how to get maximum emissions reductions with the mobs money.

The more of us and the more we spend the more they can do! Join the mob that's creating a more sustainable Canberra by registering on our website www.carrotmob.love40percent.org

The Land newspaper

I've discovered The Land newspaper thanks to the gentleman farmer of Crookwell. I so don't enjoy mainstream media (yawn!) but was riveted by stories on how to crack a stock whip and what qualities to look for in a plucky sheep dog. The issue I read had a lift-out on sustainable farming including the lovely free-range pig farmers of Temora who sell at Epic markets and the success of Milkwood Permaculture (see my blog links).

The Land sells out quickly I'm told. This latest issue has a special on eggs in its 'Farming small areas' lift-out. Quail eggs are becoming very popular. There is a feature on Majestic Mushrooms at Murrumbateman, farming in suburbia, alpacas and chainsaw safety - love it. Even the ads are interesting with solar-operated gates and interesting sheds. I note Joel Salatin is back in Australia again - on 2 August he'll lecture at Jamberoo on how to create a profitable, diverse 'beyond organic' farming enterprise.  It's a one-day workshop on the techniques from Poly-Face Farms. If The Land is anything to go by it sounds like farming practices are evolving and regenerating and things are moving in a different direction.

Acoustic soup 

I keep missing Acoustic Soup nights at the ANU due to a clash with children's activities. They are organised by Real Food Canberra for uni students but everyone is welcome. Last Wednesday's theme was Mexican May. This was the delicious-sounding menu:

• Sopa de Zanahorias
• Sweet potato and Bean Chile
•  Mexican Rice
•  Cornbread
• White-bean and silverbeet dip

Art in the garden

As any genuine Canberra local under the age of nine will tell you, some of the best spots at the Australian National Gallery are on the outside, not the inside. I discovered recently that the Eucalypts in that place of beauty and sculpture are intentionally planted to cast shadows on the walls of the gallery. Fern Garden by Fiona Hall is a piece of landscape architecture that I always make a point of experiencing when I visit the gallery with children in tow. Hidden away behind a curlicued gate, it transports us into a secret little world that is both contemporary and layered in history with its references to Islamic courtyards and other traditional influences. I particularly love the swirling pebble paving which are placed to remind us of the flow of the regional watercourses from which they were sourced. The Dicksonia are ancient remnants which remind me of Where the wild things are and create a stark contrast between the contemporary and the primeval. The water fountains in summer are a cool retreat. Someone remarked to me that it doesn't quite hit the mark with what it is trying to achieve but I still believe it creates contemplation and reflection hidden away from the bustle of the gallery main and fulfils its functions as a piece of landscape art.

I have noticed an increasing trend for sculptors to collaborate with garden designers and include their installations either permanently or temporarily. Artists help us interpret, understand and protect our natural world with their interpretations of beauty and the past and present. Since I was able to take time out of the corporate world while my children were younger I have been struck by the impact of artists on my psyche and sense making. From my friend Judy reinterpreting the sacred lotus through screen print to a woman inspired by the Bayeux tapestry to create a 3-D history of Canberra tree plantings in paper mache, artists stop us momentarily and make us think, feel and experience something beyond our mundane and soulless corporate and consumerist culture.

I particularly love the work of the sculptor who makes giant pears out of horse shoes, Victoriana pineapple plants and creations from barbed wire.

Strelitzia

I've learned a lot from Holly Kerr Forsyth about the genesis of many of our introduced plants in Australia and why we have so many species from South Africa as the ships of the early settlers sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Another eminent garden historian Richard Aitkin also explains a similar Brazilian connection and I'm looking forward to reading his book Botanical riches.

It all makes me feel logical about my fusion garden of Banksia roses, camellias from China and tough plants from South Africa especially when I realised that gardeners have mixed and matched plant species sourced from all over the world since they first arrived as non-indigenous occupiers of this land. I have strelitzia reginae about to bloom with 'birds of paradise' in my courtyard nestled under the eaves. They are really tough and love close plantings in the pot so I have also squeezed in some geraniums which cascade over the side. I realise that it probably would have been collected on the way here along with agapanthus and all sorts of other South African 'goodies' although strelitzia were introduced in 1733 to Kew Gardens in England. What I think is quite hilarious is that my strelitzia plants were purchased from Aldi after I spotted them in the catalogue a few years ago - never saw them  advertised again. You can get all sorts of odd things from Aldi - even strelitzia reginae.

City farming, SEE-Change and other innovations

I've been thinking about innovation in the way we grow produce and wondering what's happening around the world particularly in less developed countries. I am partly inspired, I guess, by Terence Conran's book A Chef's Garden - fresh produce from small spaces which is 11 years' old but started a trend and shows gardens growing masses of produce in small spaces using beautiful design techniques. Conran designed a chef's rooftop garden for the 1999 Chelsea Flower Show.


I've already copied his ideas with my new living table decoration of alfalfa sprouts in a blue glass urn. As an aside our first lot of alfalfa sprouts I blogged a couple of months ago were eventually a failure using the jam jar and muslin. They definitely need a soil medium to grow. I have also purchased a sprout kit which is a mini-innovation - the sprouts grow in a stack of four cylinders using a clever drainage system. In three days we had crunchy sprouts to snack on. The Dr Fothergill sprout kits are in all the hardware stores which are stocking an increasing array of herb and vegie starter kits for kids and grown-up gardeners alike.


Two great innovations are transforming people's lives in two completely different parts of the world. In India a new green revolution is taking place but instead of synthetic fertilisers boosting growth, the methods of Dr R T Doshi are using biomass such as sugarcane waste and household organic waste to grow gardens in the city. The methods are fascinating and use a method combining growth and composting waste in the bottom of specially adapted drums and bags with extensive tips on companion planting and general guidance for healthy organic fruit and vegetables in an urban space.


City farming workshops are currently being conducted in Australia and a workshop will be held in Canberra under the auspices of Real Food Canberra. The City Farming website is great and I recommend the video to see what people are growing and how quickly their crops get to harvest stage. The city farming system has been commended by the United Nations Development Fund.


Meanwhile in the United States another innovator has developed a 'freeware' approach to water wise fruit and vegetable containers called Earthtainers. I read the article in slate.com and the person who developed these amazing containers, Ray Newstead, regularly travels overseas leaving his bumper crops unattended with complete confidence due to the wicking properties of the containers he designed. I don't think I could build one but he claims anyone can use his plans and get the gear from the hardware store.

Newstead says on his website:

The EarthTainer is not a "Product" - - there are none for sale, thus it doesn't compete with Commercially available self-watering container products.  Rather, it is a "design concept" that is made available as "Freeware" for your private use and enjoyment.  Just remember to please make a donation to the Feeding America Organization if this design does bring you happiness.

This kind of innovation is probably featured in a film the Canberra organisation Real Food screened recently. I wasn't able to attend (it was tonight) but it sounds great. The movie Fresh by Anna Sofia Jones is billed as a new way of thinking about what we're eating. The Real Food organisation promotes real food that is sustainable and ethical for people and animals. I took my children to a photo shoot and soup meet for their children's sustainable cookbook currently in development.


We took one of our pumpkins and a few morsels of spinach and herbs. The girls were proud, nevertheless, that they could take their own homegrown vegies and donned aprons and wielded wooden spoons to help some of the Real Food people cook up a big pot of delicious soup. It was a great afternoon and the big people showed the littlies how to shell peas and chop onions wearing swimming goggles.

Look what I grew in our pumpkin patch!

The Crookwell connection


Our pumpkins seeded a bit too late and with the likely advent of tomorrow's first frost they might not be quite ripe when the vine withers. Peter and Dell Bungay dropped in for a lovely visit not long after I purchased some of their succulents from Wagga (see my earlier posts). Turns out Dell's family come from Crookwell and in fact are a well-known family of brick makers and bricklayers who literally laid the foundations for many of our beautiful heritage buildings including in the Southern Highlands (the exotic mushroom farm is in a brick tunnel built by one of Dell's forebears).


Dell told me Crookwell is so cold that any diseases or pests that would strike potatoes are unlikely to survive in that pure air. She sent me some beautiful photos of the early potato farming in the 1800s. Her husband Peter gave me some great gardening tips including the importance of removing lateral shoots from tomato and pumpkin vines to boost production. My big pumpkin patch, although impressive, is a Japanese pumpkin which is too thin-skinned to store over winter and needs to be harvested straight away. They should have ripened earlier but have just scraped in. Dell was interested in the location of the gentleman farmer of Crookwell in case she knows the area from childhood. The caption on one of the postcards reads 'Potatoes grown by Mr Vidler Crookwell – weight from 2.5lb to 3.5lb each'.

Crookwell potato seed stock in the late 1800s or early 1900s

Potato farming at Crookwell late 1800s or early 1900s

Dave the horticultural demon inspected my ornamental vegetable garden this evening and said the use of black weed mat on the rises will help protect the seedlings from frost and cold. His tip is that with the water table high at the moment, the risk of frost burn is greater for young seedlings. The ornamental kale I've planted is completely edible but I'll stick with the cabbages and leeks for the moment.

Ornamental kale looking 'showy'

Our new vegie patch in the front yard

Autumn joy


I took great joy in restoring my garden somewhat over Easter with lots of pruning, clearing and planting. I discovered the joy of dividing. My sedum 'Autumn Joy' had flattened out which is a sure sign they need division. I've done some mass planting of this drought-tolerant beauty and hope the crowns survive my novice attempts. I also pulled up about six gladioli bulbs for re-planting in July. Gladioli are a symbol of love at first sight. According to Dell, Crookwell was once the site of a giant gladioli farm to supply floristry for weddings. I also divided my agapanthus and gratefully received a huge box of 'aggies' and irises from my good friend and superb gardener Libby. With the price of plants I'm very keen to re-use what I've got and the 'aggies' have created a beautiful sweeping border in a couch-infested hot spot.


SEE-change


I'm really interested in this organisation as part of my growing awareness of why we all need to make a difference and take small steps towards big change particularly with what we teach our children. I read in my local newspaper about a program called SEE- Change which aims to encourage Canberrans to think positively about the future and act to reduce the territory's ecological footprint. A festival of young ideas will showcase the best innovative ideas the students develop at the end of 2011. I have blogged previously about the work of academic and geographer Paul Tranter and the importance of encouraging our children to embrace science, technology and innovation to solve the environmental problems of the future.


Naomi Wynd is the executive officer of SEE-Change and in The Chronicle on 19 April she said the organisation's role was educating teachers in the subject area and developing tailored curriculum for use in the classroom. She said teachers could then implement the ideas as they wished. Subject areas will include improving the sustainability of transport and how food choices can affect the ecological footprint. Our great lifestyle has a big environmental cost here in Canberra.


SEE-Change was trialled at Lake Ginninderra  Secondary College with Year 12 environmental biology students as part of the curriculum. Students at the college have made solar-powered ovens, have a native plant garden they plan to share with other schools and are experimenting to find the most effective blades to use in wind turbines. Apparently the program will run in all schools next year.


I don't to be a pessimist as SEE-Change wants to promote positivity but did you know wind turbines use so much concrete as base that it potentially outweighs the carbon reduction impacts? They need to run for a long time before all those tonnes of concrete are mitigated by the renewable energy benefits. Cement for concrete is one of our most carbon intensive products due to the pure water and massive energy requirements. There are always costs and benefits and lots to think about.

Gallic version of Heston Blumenthal; the life and love of trees

Zucchini secrets 

I promised one of my blog readers that I would obtain the recipe for zucchini balls made at one of Canberra's very best restaurants. I found out today that it is all in the technique, not the recipe. Here's the secret. You grate the zucchini and salt it in the colander and let it drain but do this several hours before you want to make the balls. After you squeeze out the moisture add lots of beaten eggs so that it is a consistency that sticks together. Then you can add flour and whatever else to taste. Then you deep fry for four minutes. It's not like eggplant though - you don't salt the zucchini to draw out the moisture, you do it to alter the chemical consistency somewhat. Or so I'm told on good authority.

Marc Verat

Speaking of chemical consistency, recently I came across France's answer to Heston Blumenthal but a hippy forest lovin' Gallic version. I begrudgingly admire Heston after seeing his historic Roman and mediaeval feasts but I find his food science a bit over the top sometimes.

Marc Verat is similarly technical with vegetable matter prepared in a lab coat with various scientific looking implements. It's called molecular gastronomy and he uses essences of roots, herbs and plants found in the French alps. He seems like the Willy Wonka of the cooking world to me and wanders around in a black hat. Terribly eccentric but considered the best chef in Europe. He too has had no formal training. His restaurant is no longer open but was one of the most sought after places to eat in France before it closed in 2009 due to Marc's ill health. Located in the mountains, the footage of the restaurant showed exclusive diners eating next to live pigs and chickens happily ensconced in pens. 'In your face' dining to show where your food actually comes from just in case you're not sure. I watched him inject an egg simmered for nine hours with an infusion of cumin and other herbs. While watching the Discovery channel doco that featured him, I was moved by his passion and love for wandering through the forest gathering the food his father had shown him as a young boy.

Vegetables growing in between graves

Oh dear - I thought I was a bit radical planting out our ornamental vegetable garden in the front yard but Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall just reported on real food vegie activitists in Britain who grow plantings in between historic graves. Two women grow vegetables initially without council permission wherever they can find open space. Bus stop leeks, grave yard beans, lovage and other herbs from a verge. Then they have a harvest festival for people in their village using their roadside bounty. The council has since given permission to plant 500 fruit trees on public land and were looking into other plots.

Autumn

Autumn on Limestone Avenue, Ainslie.

Hugh F-W was raving about Autumn in the episode I watched. The change of seasons gives us a sense of purpose and he thinks Autumn is the most productive growing season.  As an Autumn task I have turned my late tomatoes and chillis into chutney and pulled out the basil. I am planting cabbage, cauliflower, snow peas, peas, artichokes, red onions, winter lettuce and broad beans. My coloured silverbeet in a container was planted in summer but is not doing too well all of a sudden - it's a bit mottled. Maybe the compost soil is not right for it as I note silverbeet definitely needs lime. In the front yard I have planted a rosemary hedge inspired by the Albert Hall and I found some ornamental kale which makes the most divine crimson border plant for the vegie garden. We visited the Yarralumla Heritage Nursery this weekend where I spotted the ornamental kale. It truly has some gorgeous and unique offerings including many heritage varieties. I particularly love the way they display their trees so that you can see a range of species. The nursery is aptly located next to many of the original Thomas Charles Weston experimental plantings that greened our gracious city. We dined at the outdoor cafe underneath a Gingko Biloba tree. The distinctive yellow leaves are the last to fall in Autumn.

While at the nursery we splashed out on a Pawlonia Sapphire Dragon Tree and the children planted it today. I've told them it's their Jack in the Beanstalk tree and I am looking forward to it growing fast and tall and producing beautiful blue pendulous bracts in the Springtime. It should shade a hot spot where the house faces north and create a lovely vista.

The life and love of trees by Lewis Blackwell is now on my 'must have' list. It is truly the most beautiful and remarkable photographic book I have seen and features a range of stunning images from around the world. A former editor of Getty images for 10 years, Blackwell indulges his love of nature with a selection of amazing works by photographers. He writes beautiful essays and poetry as an accompanying text. The eucaplyt, giant buttressing ficus in Queensland rainforests and the Wollemi Pine are local features but Madagascan boababs and the world's 'fattest' tree from Mexico are some of the favourites.

Japan's acers, maples and blossom trees feature in this exquisite book. Sadly I read today it is the blossom festival in Japan at the moment but a very sombre time. 14,000 people have been killed. savethechildren.org.au/JapanEarthquake is one place where you find out what's been done to help create child-friendly spaces during the emergency and download instructions to make paper cranes. 'An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand Japanese cranes will be granted one wish...' The appeal is now closed as they've met their fundraising target.

 I have never been there but this country is the source of so much beauty in our lives due to the Japanese mastery of simplicity and design. Tachibana no Toshitsuna wrote Notes on garden making in the 11th Century, one of the world's earliest manuals of garden design: recall the vistas of various famous places, select what attracts you and add your own interpretation. I dream of visiting Kyoto during the children's festival and seeing the bamboo forest walk. I had the chance last year and now I regret not going as I fear Japan will never be the same for many years. Life goes on.