by Mark Evans
During the Coolagolite fire of October 2023, flames swept through the bush at the Murrah right up to the edge of one property, and stopped at a wide, mown, green lawn. No garden can make a house fireproof, and a lawn is no guaranteed firebreak, but thoughtful landscaping and maintenance can help reduce the risk.
The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) calls the managed area … Read more »
by Mark Evans
Every packet of seed you buy is someone else’s harvest, sold back to you. Saving your own seed is cheaper, more self-sufficient, and satisfying, though it takes more than scooping seeds from a ripe tomato and hoping for the best.
Not every seed grows true to its parent. Open pollinated varieties, sometimes labelled heirloom, will breed true provided they haven’t crossed with another compatible variety. Hybrids, marked … Read more »
By Mark Evans
There’s no such thing as a weed, botanically speaking, just a plant growing where we don’t want it. Years ago, we removed a Lagerstroemia indica (crepe myrtle) from our garden. It had been lovely in its day, but it had to go. The rootstock never got the memo and sends up suckers through our beds – that decision we made then is now the thing we’re fighting to keep out.
by Mark Evans
Bare-rooted plants look like they shouldn’t work. A rose or fruit tree dug straight from the ground with no soil or pot, roots wrapped only in damp hessian or sawdust. Yet this has been the standard way to grow and sell deciduous plants for centuries, long before plastic pots existed, and it remains one of the cheapest ways to build a garden.
The trick lies in dormancy. Once a deciduous plant drops … Read more »
by Mark Evans
One of the advantages of gardening is that very few decisions are permanent. Plants can be moved, divided and rearranged as your garden evolves and your ideas change. That supposedly short plant you tucked in along the edge grows much taller than expected, the one you planted in the shade needs more sun (or vice versa), that climber would be better suited elsewhere, that perennial needs … Read more »
By Mark Evans
In a formal garden, every hedge is crisply clipped, plant spacing is precise and repeated planting patterns create an immediate sense of calm and intention. The effect is composed and deeply satisfying.
Yet this same symmetry carries a hidden vulnerability. When a plant dies, the gap becomes glaring. Replacing it with a small, inexpensive specimen may leave an obvious void for years, whilst buying a … Read more »