74. SHADOW PLAY
It can be said our world is cracking, has cracked. One of our worlds, anyway. Darkness seems closer these days, waiting for an opportunity to lurch into frame, clouding familiar views. Strange things happen when worlds crack open. Contrivances evaporate. True things reappear. We reach for the people we love. We hold tight to the things that ground us. We garden.
Issue 74.
SHADOW PLAY
Rest, Repose and Race: Leslie Bennett and Black Sanctuary Gardens
GardensA chat with landscape designer and founder of Black Sanctuary Gardens, Leslie Bennett, about race, visibility and action in the garden.
The New World, Tomatoes and Mortgage Lifters
Botanica, CultureOn tomatoes, discovery and creativity in trying times.
Attention is the Beginning of Devotion
CultureA musing on what it means to pay attention to nature.
Light in the Dark: Photographer Jane Fulton Alt
Art & DesignA chat about landscape, creativity and light with Jane Fulton Alt
The Art of Refusal: Lucienne Rickard’s Extinction Studies
Art & Design, CultureAn extraordinary essay on extinction, art and erasure.
Reilluminate: The Garden at Night
Art & Design, GardensAn interview with Allison Watkins - photographer and night-time garden stalker.
“The still point of the turning world”
CultureA musing by Georgina Reid on the call to garden at times of uncertainty, and always.
A Collection of Odes. To Resilience, Weeds and Wishing Trees
Culture“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh
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Gardens
Musk Cottage: Rick Eckersley’s Rogue Garden
GardensAcclaimed Australian garden designer Rick Eckersley is a rogue. So is his garden. So is his upcoming book.
Plant / Life: Artist Lily Langham’s Incredible Country Garden
GardensLily's garden will knock your socks off. A brilliant cure for isolation blues.
Jac Semmler’s Mad Perennial Garden
GardensJac Semmler has created a perennial wonderland in suburban Melbourne. A bit of whimsy, a bunch of madness and a lot of fun!
Plant / Life: Jo Ferguson
Gardens, PeopleA visit to a soulful coastal garden on the Mornington Peninsula.
Fiona Brockhoff’s Sublime Garden Wonderland
Art & Design, GardensKarkalla is one of the great private gardens of Australia.
Life is Complicated and Mysterious and Dogmatism is Boring
GardensOn making unconstrained, ecologically rich, meaningful and beautiful gardens
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Highlights
Seven Billion Burnt Trees
BotanicaA conversation about plants and bushfire with Brett Summerell, Chief Botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
Breathing Fire
CultureAn essay by Georgina Reid exploring questions of relationship and imagination in the wake of the Australian bushfires.
Designing Abundance with Claudia West
Art & Design, PeopleA conversation with trailblazing landscape architect and ecological design advocate, Claudia West
Once Upon a Tree War
CultureBede Brennon dives into a complex and venomous debate over weeds and street trees in a quiet country town.
The Man Who Writes Lists: A Fire Story
CultureBird watcher and botanist Max James's property 'vaporised' in the 2020 Australian bushfires. This is Max's story, told by his daughter Clare.
Bonsai and the Cult of Cute
Botanica, CultureAn exploration of our obsession with the tiny world of bonsai!
Essays
Audacious Gardening: On Daring to Care
I’m rarely the recipient of negativity, of course. Everyone smiles when I mention I write about gardens, that I am a gardener. “How lovely,” they say, seeing me as a simple and wholesome woman, secateurs fused to my right hand and fingernails permanently encrusted with soil. “Salt of the earth!” they suggest enthusiastically. I smile outwardly, and inwardly too, telling myself they have no idea just how gritty this woman really is.Wild: the Healing Relationship Between Nature and Grief
Wild nature, in contrast to the urban landscape, is a place that invites the grieving to grieve. It does not seek to silence a damaged, confused heart or distract it with noise and activityThe Way of the Gardener
I am committed to tending to this world as a gardener. I am committed to cultivating new shoots, new stories, new hopes, new futures. I do this work with dirt under my nails, with curiosity, reverence and respect. And I wonder, is there any better way to be in the world right now than the way of the gardener – aware, engaged and in love?Support The Planthunter
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ARCHIVE
The Value of Front Gardens in a Pandemic, and Always
GardensAn ode to the importance of front gardens in challenging times.
Plant / Life: Artist Lily Langham’s Incredible Country Garden
GardensLily's garden will knock your socks off. A brilliant cure for isolation blues.
Artist Profile: Sally Blake
Art & DesignSally Blake's art practice explores the complex space between humans and nature.
A Celebration of Variegation
BotanicaVariegated plants are the sequins and glitter of the botanical world.
Plants in the Post: An At-Home Project
How-ToYou've got (plant) mail!
Ectopic Plants: Life in the Cracks
Art & DesignPhotographer Chloe Ferres finds hope, and life, in the cracks.
Grasping at Order: In the Garden, in the Mind
GardensA musing on the complexity of gardening in a pandemic.
Jac Semmler’s Mad Perennial Garden
GardensJac Semmler has created a perennial wonderland in suburban Melbourne. A bit of whimsy, a bunch of madness and a lot of fun!
Interrogation and Regeneration with Artist Cara Johnson
Art & Design, PeopleArtist Cara Johnson's works interrogate ideas around land management practices and the human relationship with the natural world.