http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/discover-benefits-plants-reducing-crime-and-preventing-zombie-attacks.html
Here is a list that shows some other benefits that plants can achieve, apart from the other benefits I've listed throughout my blog (especially the first post).
Now I know a lot of you out there are concerned about zombies, so read on.
Blooming and Bold
Without the buzzards and bees
Where would we all bee?
In an outdoor room
Searching for shrubs and trees ...
A blog by Nicolle Kuna, author, Green Spin (or) Promoting the Green Message (2012)
A blog about sustainable landscaping and some eco-humour and eco-creativity which helps open up audience receptivity.
Inside this blog we look at everything that is encroaching in to our natural urban landscapes –outdoor rooms (errchkem), weeds, nutrients, and the way these affect our rivers, ground-water and general environment. It's easy to forget that all our eco-systems are interconnected. The first few months of the blog are reflections on the benefits of gardens vs constructed backyards (a la the outdoor room phenomenon). More nature in our midst is a blessed thing! There’s a bit of art to add extra colour and gardenesque inspiration.
Also see our website on social marketing for greenies
TIME FOR A GARDEN CHECK-UP ?
Nicolle and her fellow-workers do site visits from inner Melbourne out to northern suburbs, and can help with all the issues that crop up (pardon the err ... pun) with gardens, as with the wider landscape:
eg. plant recommendations, landscape materials to use (life cycle analysis, inputs, outputs, waste and recycling aspects), fertilisers to avoid, how everything we do affects local habitats, etcetera. Workshops can be arranged, to suit the needs of the group.
To contact us – go to the contact us page http://www.converseconserve.com as the contact facility on this blog has been giving us mischief.
What’s orange and black, homeless
and likes
to pounce?
A hopping mad Xmas beetle
in its new outdoor room.
Proper attribution for above garden design goes to
Andrew Jones, artist and designer.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Friday, 24 February 2012
Arty SGA
I attended a fantastic fund-raiser last night for Sustainable Gardening Australia. It's a wonderful organisation and the website is very extensive, with no end of topics, information pages and factsheets on sustainable gardening.
Some performance art at fund-raiser - there were these paper mache sculptures of skyscrapers (attached to two men crouched below sand-pit tables), and when the haunting music started, slowly came to life, uprooting the soily buildings from the sand-pit and wearing monster masks, proceeded to scare the crowd with their moans and roars, dispersing soil everywhere. The cantankerous monsters obviously represented the earth, having a good whinge at us humans.
I thought with all the art I have posted on this blogspot, I should have a dedication to all artists who help us to give the earth the good press it deserves. So I thought it was time I posted this painting, by Andrew Ioannidis again. Bellisima!
Some performance art at fund-raiser - there were these paper mache sculptures of skyscrapers (attached to two men crouched below sand-pit tables), and when the haunting music started, slowly came to life, uprooting the soily buildings from the sand-pit and wearing monster masks, proceeded to scare the crowd with their moans and roars, dispersing soil everywhere. The cantankerous monsters obviously represented the earth, having a good whinge at us humans.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Today we will deal with the letter 'W'
UK is facing its most diabolical drought in many decades. Sent a tweet just now on this topic.
Wicker beds are just one way of dealing with drought, as the technique actually encourages a kind of reverse absorption, going against gravity, I believe. Wicker beds are something to be researched as I personally have never dealt with them so the Sustainable Gardening Australia website is one to look up.
But on another 'w' topic, I got a call from one of the councils about weeds, and they said they are having more difficulty with chilean needle grass, as this one is harder to detect than the one I have been banging on about ad nauseum. (Us greenies do get a bit nauseatingly repetitive, don't we!)
So just to bore the reader a tad more, the next weed I will raise is the very lofty and weedy Desert ash (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp.angustifolia). Now I only realised at the beginning of my course a couple of years back that this is a naturalised envrionmental weed. It pops up all over my area, and it has a habit of popping up just next to a fence, or a house and if it gets tall enough it will start to uproot your house. Thrice it has popped up in very awkward positions around my home. The trouble is it can grow to literally a height of a 3 storey building, it grows really quickly in all the rain we've been having, and it involves so much maintenance. The one on my boundary with the neighbours is lifting up the concrete path next to the fence. I am happy my neighbours love it as it gives them tonnes of shade on the north western side. However, for me it's not so lovely.
I will attach a photo when next it is light! Perhaps one of my next topics will be non-weedy trees, that don't take so much maintenance.
On another note, the thing I really love about summer is the sound of the cicadas, or is it crickets. Anyway they make a great noise that lulls you off to sleep.
Wicker beds are just one way of dealing with drought, as the technique actually encourages a kind of reverse absorption, going against gravity, I believe. Wicker beds are something to be researched as I personally have never dealt with them so the Sustainable Gardening Australia website is one to look up.
But on another 'w' topic, I got a call from one of the councils about weeds, and they said they are having more difficulty with chilean needle grass, as this one is harder to detect than the one I have been banging on about ad nauseum. (Us greenies do get a bit nauseatingly repetitive, don't we!)
So just to bore the reader a tad more, the next weed I will raise is the very lofty and weedy Desert ash (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp.angustifolia). Now I only realised at the beginning of my course a couple of years back that this is a naturalised envrionmental weed. It pops up all over my area, and it has a habit of popping up just next to a fence, or a house and if it gets tall enough it will start to uproot your house. Thrice it has popped up in very awkward positions around my home. The trouble is it can grow to literally a height of a 3 storey building, it grows really quickly in all the rain we've been having, and it involves so much maintenance. The one on my boundary with the neighbours is lifting up the concrete path next to the fence. I am happy my neighbours love it as it gives them tonnes of shade on the north western side. However, for me it's not so lovely.
I will attach a photo when next it is light! Perhaps one of my next topics will be non-weedy trees, that don't take so much maintenance.
On another note, the thing I really love about summer is the sound of the cicadas, or is it crickets. Anyway they make a great noise that lulls you off to sleep.
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| From this ... |
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| To this ! |
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Another bee in bonnet
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| Agie self-seeding in garden. Oops, using this photo a 2nd time! |
Let's stop Agie imperialism, me-hearties.
Here are some interesting links:
http://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/files/5d70dc8b-8442-4a72-8548-9d2700dd7471/Agapanthus.pdf
http://www.homelife.com.au/garden/plants/agapanthus,5304
Monday, 6 February 2012
Beachside
http://news.domain.com.au/domain/real-estate-news/beachside-gardens-need-careful-planning-20120127-1qk5o.html
Here is a link to some comments I made on an article on beachside gardens, and a few coastal issues which mirror the problems we are having in the city, somewhat.
Will write to councils that agapanthus need to be deadheaded, to stop seed spread, pretty promptly.
Here is a link to some comments I made on an article on beachside gardens, and a few coastal issues which mirror the problems we are having in the city, somewhat.
Will write to councils that agapanthus need to be deadheaded, to stop seed spread, pretty promptly.
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