I have a very strange orchid in my Blue Mountains garden. Its botanical name is Gastrodia sesamoides. 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 people of central Victoria). They
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Despite living in Blackheath for 17 years, I’m embarrassed to admit that I still make new discoveries. Hard to believe I know….it’s not exactly a huge metropolis. In this instance it was the small business centre over the railway line in Station Street. What a revelation.
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Hello, Well my guardian Pauline Conolly and I have been documenting the life of a satin bowerbird. It lives in Memorial Park, Blackheath, here in the Blue Mountains. I’ve become quite friendly with him. Sometimes I take him a blue treasure, because he collects them to
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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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‘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 enjoy a walk to Campbell Rhododendron Garden in our Blue
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Hello, Editor Des here, Well I was walking up to the Blackheath Rhododendron Festival today when I spotted one of my neighbours selling home made lemonade. It was opposite the swimming pool in Memorial Park. Actually Fergus was minding the shop while the prop, propri…the owner Luke popped
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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 Laurel Phillips, a life-member of our local garden club at Blackheath, in the
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How very beautiful are old-fashioned aquilegias, or colombines. They are also known as granny’s bonnets. Bees love them. Here is an interesting piece on the plant’s name, published in 1927; A new explanation of the derivation of
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Patrick and Polly, the Australian wood ducks are a very entertaining couple. Patrick is just a little bit of an Aussie bogan. He loves his mullet cut; They reside at Blackheath duck pond in the Blue Mountains of New
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