Worm tower This option is essentially an in-ground worm farm. Just dig a hole and drop in the worm tower unit. You can have just one, or several dotted throughout the garden. The beauty of going below the surface is that the system connects with the surrounding soil organisms, and the leachate is released straight into the garden to enrich the soil. You can buy a worm tower, or make one using a PVC pipe or a lidded plastic bucket with lots of holes drilled in the sides and the base. Bokashi In bokashi composting, food waste is added to a sealed bucket, inoculated with a blend of bacteria and y ..read more

A serene oasis in the middle of Tokyo, Nezu Museum’s intimate garden offers a quiet retreat from the bustling energy of Japan’s capital. Only 1.5km from the pedestrian scramble and overwhelming neon of Shibuya Crossing, this shinzanyukoku garden, which evokes the tranquillity of Japan’s deep mountains and mysterious valleys, transports you to another world. Entering the museum via a striking corridor lined with bamboo, you start to get a sense of being enveloped by nature. Then, as you step into the garden, you find yourself wrapped in its verdant cloak, even before it has begun to reveal its ..read more

Located in the centre of Perth, Kings Park and Botanic Garden is one of the world’s biggest inner-city green spaces. Visitors love its picnic areas and playgrounds, and nature lovers are wowed by its vast areas of bush and displays of more than 3000 species of flora. While tourists take selfies with city and river backdrops, the space is also loved by locals, who enjoy the changing scenery of the bushland walk trails and immaculate gardens, as well as the popular outdoor concerts, live theatre and films from November to April. I especially love the mighty 750-year-old boab tree, which survived ..read more

When I visited Larnach Castle, I thought I knew exactly what to expect: a historic folly of a building surrounded by established trees and decorated with the occasional Victorian flower bed. The castle was somewhat as expected, as I’d seen lots of pictures, but the gardens were a complete surprise. They have been nurtured and expanded over the past 50-plus years by owner Margaret Barker. There is a number of fascinating sections, including a South Seas garden, a rediscovered rock garden and a formal raised lawn – The Green Room  – which leads through a laburnum tunnel to views of distant ..read more

Maya Quin was on a school excursion as a five-year-old when she realised just how much she loved plants. “There was a line of smooth-barked eucalyptus trees that were so nice to touch. I hugged each one saying, ‘I love you, tree’.” Now 16, Maya’s fascination with plants is unwavering. She enthusiastically tends the family’s Mornington Peninsula garden with her dad, devours gardening books from cover to cover and, as I’m sure most gardeners will appreciate, drools at the sight of a pile of soil or mulch. It’s fair to say, however, that indoor foliage plants have her heart, and not just because ..read more

‘Coral Lions-Rose’ This Floribunda rose (above) produces clusters of double blooms that range from salmon to pink, with a light fruity fragrance. It’s a very healthy rose from German breeder Kordes’ Fantasia Collection, with excellent disease resistance. It was successful at the 2023 National Rose Trials, picking up a Bronze Medal, and it grows as a nice upright bush reaching up to 1.2m high. ‘The Ancient Mariner’ David Austin has delivered another swoon-worthy new rose! The mid-pink flowers are packed full of petals and are terribly romantic. Each flower is quite large and gives off a strong ..read more

If you think chrysanthemums are only filler flowers in floral arrangements or the ubiquitous potted colour that appears just before Mother’s Day, think again. Chrysanthemums offer so much more, with their rich cultural significance and extraordinary array of flower diversity. Many species are native to eastern Asia, and the flowers have long been revered in China and Japan. Japan’s monarchy is known as the Chrysanthemum Throne, and both countries hold important autumn festivals in which chrysanthemum liquor, or sake, is drunk, and the leaves are folded into pancake mixtures. Throughout the yea ..read more

Start seeds in punnets Starting your seeds in punnets leads to far greater returns than direct-sowing. The main reason for this is the control you have over the conditions. No matter what the day throws at you – heat, cold, hurricane – you can always move your punnets to a spot where they’re most likely to survive and thrive. That means fewer losses and ultimately, greater harvests. Also, by growing in punnets, you don’t need to have space available in your vegie patch to start your next crop. If the seedlings fill their punnet cells, you can pot them up into larger containers. When a space in ..read more

If you haven’t visited the Art Gallery of NSW for Art Express 2024, we recommend checking it out! This free annual exhibition is on now until April 21, and showcases a selection of outstanding student artworks developed for the artmaking component of the HSC examination in Visual Arts in NSW. One beautiful botanical work that caught our eye is Emma Simpson’s Second glance. Her intricate drawings of dried leaves, tree-bark and banksias, all found while bushwalking, draw attention to the overlooked beauty of non-flowering Australian flora. Emma’s body of work invites the audience to ‘look again ..read more

Tangled lignum (Duma florulenta) Wrens, robins and other littlies readily use this weird-looking shrub for protection. Grows 2–2.5m high. She-oaks (Allocasuarina spp.) From groundcovers to medium trees, there are species native to all climates. They’re pollinated by the wind so they don’t produce nectar. Wattles (Acacia spp.) There are over 1000 species from all climates. A fast-growing option is hedge wattle (A. paradoxa), a dense, thorny 2–4m shrub. Grasses These are important lepidopteran hosts and create top-notch habitat, particularly for birds and lizards. Grasses to consider include ka ..read more