Cinnamon Bells is the common name of a very strange orchid in my Blackeath garden. Its botanical name is Gastrodia procera. This leafless, Australian native has been dubbed the Potato Orchid, as the tubers the plants grow from were roasted and eaten by Aborigines (particularly the Wurundjeri
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That’s Albert Magic Pudding, for the uninformed; one of Australia’s minor poets; ‘EAT AWAY, CHEW AWAY, MUNCH AND BOLT AND GUZZLE, NEVER LEAVE THE TABLE TILL YOU’RE FULL UP TO THE MUZZLE.’ by A. Pudding What a genius and a national treasure Norman Lindsay was…and is. He
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It has taken over 200 years for we Aussies to start shifting away from a European style Christmas, with its heavy roast dinners and plum puddings. Mind you, there was a push for something more suitable leading up to Federation, when our national spirit was on the rise.
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There was a large gravel pit on the dairy farm I grew up on outside Ulverstone, in north west Tasmania. I don’t think the income from it was huge, but it must have been a big help to my parents when they bought the property in 1952.
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Libraries (well in my opinion) are the most exciting places in the world. That’s because I was born curious. How right Eleanor Roosevelt was when she said; ‘I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most
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Sometimes you see another person’s garden and think, ‘Oh my word, I think I’ll rip all my stuff out and create something like this …well try to anyway.’ This is how I feel about Helen Chadwick’s garden, just up the road from me. It is a little piece
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Whimsy warning…..read no further if you are a sensible soul. ‘Could we please go somewhere without Des, Pauline?’ This pathetic plea came from Milly, who lives in the shade of her famous boyfriend, Editor Des. ‘Well of course we can Darling’, I said. I decided she might
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Hello, Editor Des here, Well I was walking up to the Blackheath Rhododendron Festival last year when I spotted one of my neighbours selling home made lemonade. It was opposite the swimming pool in Soldiers’ Memorial Park. Actually Fergus was minding the shop while the prop, propri…the owner
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Hello, Editor Des here. Well it’s springtime where I live in the Blue Mountains. All the flowers are out and the birds start singing so early they wake me up while I’m still dreamin’. I thought it might be a nice time to go on a little
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Like most people, I have a garden full of plants given to me by friends and neighbours. They are all very special. Some years ago I went on an outing to the home of the late Laurel Phillips, a life-member of our local garden club at Blackheath,
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