Sydney Gardening Show

Visit the brand new Sydney Garden Show, on at the Rosehill Gardens Racecourse at Rosehill on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (15 to 17 September 2017). A host of well-known experts and personalities: Michael McCoy, Toni Salter, Costa Georgiadis, Phil Dudman, Judy Horton and Paul Plant will be speaking at the ‘Garden Inspiration Theatre’ and holding ‘Ask it, Solve it’ panel sessions to answer your questions.

There will be lots to see, and buy – plants, tools, equipment, and garden related products. With the weather forecast looking fine, kick-start your spring gardening activities with a day out at the show!

Pollination at The Calyx

Pollination is the new floral display at The Calyx opening on Friday, 15 September 2017 at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. Curated by the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney’s horticultural team, the display will feature a collection of plants and flowers that showcase the role colour plays in natures magnificent act of pollination – the colour of love!

Large topiary Blue-banded Bees will be a highlight, along with the expansive and impressive “green” wall featuring a pollination themed display of words, plants and flowers. Elements will be grouped together by colour to reflect pollinator attraction, with the types of flowers on display changing throughout the ten-month display period as seasons and availability change.

A new program of events will include tours (day and night), creative workshops, science and educational events, and family fun with ‘Butterflies up Close’, a butterfly enclosure on The Calyx Island, where children can enter and be surrounded by butterflies and find out what their role is in pollination.

Entry to Pollination is free, with gold coin donations going to the Foundation and Friends of the Garden to support the Garden’s scientific, conservation and education works. Click here for further details.

Bulb Growing workshop, Mt Tomah

Join our horticulturist to learn the secrets to bulb growing success. Learn about general cultivation and care tips for growing both spring and summer flowering bulbs with a hands on propagation workshop.

Location: Waratah Education Centre
Date:26 Aug 2017
Time:10:30 AM
Price:$25.00 per person
Contact:4567 3000

National Tree Day, Australia

National Tree Day is when we celebrate our lifelong relationship with trees. Nature elevates the human spirit. It ignites passion, inspiration, creativity and purpose. And it’s the driving force behind why more than a quarter of a million people participate in National Tree Day each year.

There’s no better time to bare your heart and soil than National Tree Day. We want everyone to know the inspiration that nature can bring.

Find a National Tree Day event near you HERE

Botanica – in Sickness and in Health

Don’t miss this exhibition of superb botanical art and illustration featuring work from Australia’s best and also international botanical artists. 2017’s Botanica theme draws its inspiration from the multiple ways we need, love and should appreciate plants – medicines, oxygen, poisons, fragrances, in celebrations and so much more.

Open 10am-4pm daily at the Lion Gate Lodge, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

FREE admission

Planty Fierce

Visit 3 horticulture industry private NSW Central Coastal gardens; be inspired by designer gardens and buy interesting plants for your home garden – all on the one day!

“Sea-Changer” garden by garden designer Peter Nixon, 21 Lavinia Street, Forresters Beach

“Paradox” garden by plantsman Ray Henderson, 25 Curringa Close, Glenning Valley – sun bromeliad sales and advice

“Living Edge” garden & nursery David Fripp & Blake Jolley 1483 Peats Ridge Rd, Peats Ridge – rare plant sales and advice

ENTRY: $5 at each of the 3 gardens, cash only, children free & no dogs

EXTRAS – hard to find designer plant sales at all 3 gardens for your garden or client’s

Garden Releaf

Independent garden centres across Australia will be holding Garden Releaf Day 2017 on Sunday March 19. Amongst other things there will be loads of fun, COLOUR themed activities and focusing on the benefits of plants and gardens to enrich our lives. Garden centres will be exploding with beautiful plants and informative displays.

Established in 2014 by Garden Centres Australia (GCA) Garden Releaf is an innovative program to help people understand the benefits that; spending time in a garden, being surrounded by living plants and enjoying healthy fresh produce can have on a person’s health and wellbeing. The program aims to provide the community with ideas and inspiration, information and events through its supporting Independent Garden Centres about how they can get involved with immersing themselves in plants and gardens; whether they are apartment dwellers, city block residents or on the land. The Garden Releaf program also focuses on raising money to support selected charities, such as beyondblue

Check out the program at your local independent nursery HERE

Collectors’ Plant Fair, Sydney

Make a day of it at Collectors’ Plant Fair: shop, chat, and be inspired. With over 80 plant and gardening products stalls, Collectors’ is Australia’s largest plant fair; brimming with plants, pots, books, more great food, the best coffee and much more. It truly is Australia’s most treasured garden event!

Tickets prepaid Saturday $14, Sunday $12; at the door sat $15, Sun $13. Open Saturday 8am to 4pm and Sunday 9am to 3pm. Hawkesbury Race Club, Clarendon

In Stillness

Open Wednesday to Sunday and based on the theme from the Irish proverb, ‘In stillness, the world is restored‘ this photographic exhibition of landscapes and nature features the work of Blue Mountains photographers Louise Bishop, Fiona Huddleston and Dilshara Hill.

Open Wednesday to Sunday  from 11am to 3pm at the Everglades Gallery, 37 Everglades Avenue, Leura in the beautiful Blue Mountains only a 1.5 hour drive west of Sydney.

Free with Everglades entry: $13 adult, $8 conc, $4 child (National Trust members free entry)

Wild About Waratahs

Celebrating the iconic waratah, spectacular flower and New South Wales state floral emblem. Festival includes a state-wide waratah flower competition, a botanical illustration exhibition and workshop, guided garden tours, cut flower display and plants sales. Nearby Gadara Wildflower Farm will be open for one day only on Sunday 25 September from 1030am to 3pm.

Free entry, open from 9am to 5.30pm daily.

Leura Harvest Festival, Blue Mountains, NSW

Scarecrows, chooks, chocolate cake and jam – they’re all part of the fun and festivities of the Leura Harvest Festival held recently in the Blue Mountains. The festival ads said there would be outstanding produce, fine fare and innovative sustainability initiatives, and its tireless creator Barry Jarrott just happens to be a professional gardener. It all boded well for an interesting and feast-filled time. Continue reading “Leura Harvest Festival, Blue Mountains, NSW”

Daffodils at Rydal, NSW

Rydal is a pretty village on the bank of Solitary Creek, surrounded by rolling rural countryside. It was named after a village in England where the poet William Wordsworth lived. His poem ‘The Daffodils‘ has helped make these lovely flowers popular.

Rydal has some wonderful heritage buildings dating from the time when it was the terminus of the Western Railway.

For 2 weekends each September, Rydal is aglow with thousands of daffodils, in open fields, public parks and private gardens.

Open gardens include Chapel House, Karingal, Bark Ridge, Rydal Cottage, Rose Cottage, The Old Police Station, Rydal Mount, Featherstone and Solitary Creek

Daffodils at Rydal, NSW

Rydal is a pretty village on the bank of Solitary Creek, surrounded by rolling rural countryside. It was named after a village in England where the poet William Wordsworth lived. His poem ‘The Daffodils‘ has helped make these lovely flowers popular.

Rydal has some wonderful heritage buildings dating from the time when it was the terminus of the Western Railway.

For 2 weekends each September, Rydal is aglow with thousands of daffodils, in open fields, public parks and private gardens.

Open gardens for 3017 TBA

Review: Why I don’t like Mayfield Water Garden

Mayfield, a huge, private, cool-climate garden near Oberon in the NSW Central Tablelands has been described as “marvellous” and its public Water Garden a “masterpiece” and “magical“. I first saw greater Mayfield in 2010 and wasn’t that keen but thought it just needed maturation time. Continue reading “Review: Why I don’t like Mayfield Water Garden”

Four favourite parks in Central West NSW

Almost 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, beauty spots and centres for social or important gatherings, local public parks across NSW are one of its glories. A handful of the hundreds spring to my mind as my favourite places, historic, beautiful, rich in detail (be that layout, embellishment, plantings) and well-loved and used to this day. Continue reading “Four favourite parks in Central West NSW”