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River cruising and garden visiting in North America with Botanica
Judy HortonWhen thinking of river cruising with garden visiting, most gardeners look to Europe but in September 2016 I will be hosting my second trip for Botanica up the rivers, lakes and canals that connect the USA and Canada.
Holiday with heliconias and hospitality in Colombia
Carla BlackFor the last 20 years I’ve loved tramping Panamanian forests, looking for heliconias and marveling at the incredible diversity of humid tropical forests. Recently it’s become possible to get to know Colombian jungles, too
Stunning designer gardens at Auckland Garden DesignFest 2015
Rose ThodeyIf you have been thinking of visiting New Zealand, don’t miss this one-off opportunity to see the work of some of our top designers in private gardens that bring out the best of Auckland’s iconic landscape
The Kiss: Gardening with Gustav
Tammy SchmittHave you ever seen a piece of art and imagined it as a garden? I am not a horticulturalist, garden designer or landscape architect. My only design experience comes from moving seventeen times in thirty four years and always having to cram my stuff into a new house
Chanticleer Garden, near Philadelphia PA
Amanda MackinnonSituated in the beautiful garden state of Pennsylvania, Chanticleer is described as “a pleasure garden.” Whilst I had a giggle over this somewhat quirky term, I must admit that I […]
Welcome to the world’s largest maze, in Fontanellato, Italy
Catherine StewartWelcome to the Masone Labyrinth (Labirinto della Masone) of Franco Maria Ricci in Fontanellato, near Parma, Italy. Covering 7 hectares (17 acres), it is the largest labyrinth in the world. Will you ever get out?
Book Review: ‘Lessons from Great Gardeners’
GardenDrum‘Lessons from Great Gardeners’ is an inviting book, profiling 40 ‘gardening icons’ – gardeners and garden designers. You will respond to their creative ideas and their passion for gardens, and learn from them.
Promenade du Paillon in Nice, France: A Public Open Space that Works!
Helen McKerralNice may be the playground of the rich and famous but, frankly, few Australians will be impressed by its most famous open space: a small, crowded, pebbly beach, oppressively hot on the day we visited. For me, the real attraction lay within the city.
Which gardens make your heart sing?
Janna SchreierWhen I first took an interest in garden design, it was all about the look. Some combination of colours, textures and forms would jump out at me from a page […]
Macquarie Island cabbage at Tasmanian Botanic Gardens
Jennifer StackhouseOn an already chilly day I made my way into the still colder environment of the Subantarctic Plant House in the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) for a glimpse of the native vegetation of Macquarie Island.
Sa Pedra Arrubia: Maurizio Usai’s garden
Carlo GabrieleSometimes I just need to take a quick look at a garden to understand the personality of its owner. I don’t think it’s because I am particularly intuitive; it’s more that for some gardens the aim of the design is so clear and easy to interpret.
Henry James and his Lamb House garden
Susannah Fullerton“I am hopeless about the garden, which I don’t know what to do with and shall never, never know – I am densely ignorant,” said Henry James, whose garden at Lamb House was both refuge and inspiration.
Singapore Botanic Gardens: 5 things to LOVE
Stephen ReadSingapore Botanic Gardens deserves its World Heritage Listing – for its economic botany, orchids, rainforest dipterocarps, dynamism, and its managing of change.
Northern Portugal: like Scotland with more sun
Alison StewartA June trip to the Serra d’Arga mountain region in northern Portugal, just south of the border with Spain, reminded me of one of the many pearls of wisdom to be found in Catherine Stewart’s blog postings for GardenDrum.
Whisper of stars: Daniel Spoerri garden
Carlo GabrieleFor a very special Italian sculpture garden, the Daniel Spoerri Garden in Tuscany shows a collection of artworks made specifically for him and his garden, flanked by mature plantings of oaks, chestnuts and olive trees.
A garden tour of Italy (Part 2)
Anne LatreilleTravelling in Italy, I am constantly surprised at the green planting that defines the gardens and the landscape. So much so that when colours crop up, they’re a kind of embroidery, something that focuses the eye
Sri Lanka garden tour: a piece of serendipity
Fiona OgilvieSri Lanka is rich with tropical gardens that intertwine many influences, from local ayurvedic and spice gardens, temple and boulder gardens, and the British colonists’ love of gardening
Chelsea 2015: 10 things that caught my eye
Helen YoungWhat caught my eye at the Chelsea Flower Show 2015? From moss-covered lampshades to colourful potatoes and a must-have shell-covered pig seat, there really was something for everyone.
Astonishment and surprise: Tarots Garden
Carlo GabrieleI have never seen anything that I can compare to the Tarots Garden: astonishment, surprise, and fascination are some of the feelings I felt exploring this 20,000 square meter Art […]
Chelsea 2015 Fresh: World Vision Garden
Helen YoungOne of the Chelsea Flower Show 2015 gardens in the Fresh category that I loved was the ‘World Vision Garden: Grow Hope’, inspired by the beauty of Cambodia. It won a silver-gilt medal for
London’s ‘Sloane in Bloom’ 2015
Helen YoungIn Sloane Square close to London’s Chelsea Flower Show, retailers compete annually in ‘Sloane in Bloom’, dressing their shops with glorious floral displays, this year themed ‘Fairytales’.
Gardens of southern Italy & the Amalfi Coast
Angus StewartOne of my favourite garden tours visited southern Italy, from Rome south to the Amalfi Coast near Naples. Aside from the spectacular views, there is a surprising range of sub-tropical and temperate zone plants
South African garden at Chaumont sur Loire
Leon KlugeWhen I opened the email last year asking me to be part of the Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival (IGF), I just about fell off my chair, as it’s been on the top of my bucket list
Lights, Camera, BLOOM – and a win at Philly!
Leon KlugeArriving in freezing temperatures, Bayley LuuTomes and I could see this would be a show garden build like no other, but the Philadelphia Flower Show has been a bucket list show for me for a very long time.
The Brontës and their garden
Susannah Fullerton“There is not a knoll of heather, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry leaf, not a fluttering lark or linnet, but reminds me of her” wrote Charlotte Brontë, of sister Emily after her death.
Four favourite parks in Central West NSW
Stuart ReadAlmost off the radar in terms of heritage listings at state or national level, yet uppermost in local communities’ minds and affections and emblems of regional pride as meeting places, […]
Boab trees of the Kimberley
Linda GreenThe 4,000km drive from Perth to Darwin took us through Australia’s boab country, the Kimberley region, where each tree seems to have its life story etched into the distinctive swollen trunk.
Lessons from Italy’s summer windowboxes
Helen McKerralContainer gardening is challenging. Pots often require daily watering, especially on exposed, sunny windowsills. The window boxes of northern Italy’s offer up some handy tips for success
Sir Walter Scott and his Abbotsford garden
Susannah FullertonIn 1811 Sir Walter Scott bought a small farm on the Tweed River in Scotland where he built the Scottish Baronial-styled ‘Abbotsford’, surrounded by gardens and picturesque grounds.
Review: Garden DesignFest tours
Chantelle LeenstraMelbourne’s Garden DesignFest has been Australia’s premier open garden style event since 2004, giving public access to creative, elegant, quirky and pampered private gardens
La Trobe’s Cottage garden wins award!
Sandi PullmanThe Friends of La Trobe’s Cottage are a band of dedicated volunteers and who entered for the second time into the Victorian Community History Awards in the category Historical Interpretation.
Garden oddities – floral clocks
Silas Clifford-SmithOne of the horticultural oddities of the last century is the floral clock. A curious landscape design practice of the 20th C., floral clocks have a history that dates back to the 18th century.
Public parks will save our wildflowers
Angus StewartAustralian designers are evolving a distinctively Australian style for our public parks that can solve the dilemmas of wildflower predictability and tourism damage
The terraced food gardens of Cinque Terre
Helen McKerralForget award-winning landscape design, perfectly pruned hedges or immaculate lawns – be inspired by the terraced food gardens of Cinque Terre in coastal northern Italy
The hunt for red wreath flowers…a WA treasure
Kath BafileThe roads out from Geraldton in Western Australia are lit up in August with the dazzling wildflowers, drawing travellers from all over to a wildflower treasure hunt
Sleepless and Serene in Seattle
Angus StewartI had long harboured a desire to visit Seattle with a vague notion of a spectacular marine landscape against a backdrop of mountains and conifer forests. I found all of this as well as
Great Dixter: a manic masterpiece
Angus StewartI have long been fascinated by the work of the late British garden designer Christopher Lloyd. So it was with great anticipation that I recently visited his Great Dixter garden […]
Guilfoyle and his warm climate plants
Arno KingA few years ago, whilst researching Polyscias (commonly called Aralia) cultivars for a magazine article, I came across mention of their discovery and introduction by William Guilfoyle during his voyage […]
Wordsworth’s outdoor office at Rydal Mount
Susannah FullertonWordsworth is of course familiar to all as one of the greatest of English poets, founder of the Romantic movement and Poet Laureate. What is less well known is that […]
Garden travel to broaden your mind
Stephen RyanI am about to jump on a plane and head off to France to lead a tour of gardens and châteaux of Normandy and the Loire Valley and if you […]
