How beautiful Australia’s Eastern Water Skinks are, with their gorgeous, coppery colouring. My associate Editor Des has made friends with the family that live under our old cement terrace, here at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. There are actually two branches of the same family, one in
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For years, in the centre of my Blue Mountains garden, I had a bowl of grape hyacinths sitting on an old terracotta pipe. It was an interesting feature; rustic and simple. However, as surrounding shrubbery grew it became shaded and half the bulbs failed to flower. One
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When we moved to Blackheath (Blue Mountains) twenty years ago there was a large crabapple in our garden. I suspect it was planted by a previous owner, a professor of architecture who established the garden in the 1960s. The tree scarcely bore any fruit and eventually I
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Persicaria is surely among the most under-rated of plants. Here in the Blue Mountains they do very well and require very little attention. Mind you, bees and other insects adore the tiny flowers. Some of the small, immature leaves at the bottom of the stems are quite
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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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