In the spirit of increasing biodiversity, my partner and I bought a little insect hotel for our Blue Mountains garden. Perfectionist owner-builder Rob decided to seal the back panel with Bondcrete and add a waterproof membrane to the pitched roof. Well, we do get a lot of
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It is mid winter here at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, cold and very wet. I have been watching Monty Don’s TV series on French gardens. Oh dear, the longing it evokes is almost physically painful. How long will it be before we can enjoy that beautiful
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Now admittedly I have been conducting a campaign against sulphur crested cockatoos. Well not against the birds themselves, but against the artificial feeding of them. Over the past 15 years their numbers have skyrocketed in the Blue Mountains. They are now competing with other hollow-nesting birds here
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Just before Christmas, as the bush fires crept ever closer to Blackheath and we all suffered in the heatwave, I photographed a little tractor and water tank in Wentworth Street. I assumed it must be someone’s home fire protection unit. Mind you, I did wonder about the
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Who would imagine that dear old hydrangeas would hold up so well during the recent fires and heatwave conditions in the Blue Mountains? The origin of the name seems to contradict the very notion that they would! ‘First discovered in Japan, the name hydrangea comes from the
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Time to be out and about now the fire risk has subsided. My own garden is a disaster, with only the natives and hydrangeas holding up. But how is everything else going in this awful heatwave I wonder? Well, to my great surprise an ibis has taken
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And so Christmas in the Blue Mountains village of Blackheath has come to an end. The saddest, happiest, strangest and scariest festive season I’ve experienced in the twenty years we have lived here. In mid December my husband Rob and I attended a delightful nativity play at
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Here in the Blue Mountains we have a powerful emotional attachment to the glorious Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens. I remember how surprised I was when the entry fee was removed. How often does that happen anywhere? It’s not the issue of saving a few dollars that delights
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There is no one more upset when a bird is killed or injured than my partner Rob. He is known as Dr Bob, for his ministrations to all manner of feathered creatures in our Blackheath garden. He scrubs out the birdbaths far more often than me, and
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SUEPRISE SNOW……It’s weird when you wake up at the crack of dawn and open the front door to find the whole landscape has changed. Trousers might have been a sensible idea, Editor Des. What one earth! While we were sleeping the snow was quietly falling. We don’t
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