In 2011, Paul and I considered buying The Old Bank in sleepy Bungendore, New South Wales. A stunning stone building, developed through the 1800s, its history not only spans uses as a residence and bank, but also one of a blacksmith’s, solicitor’s, bakery, stock and station store and a bicycle maker, where the first bike in Australia is said to have been made. Continue reading
I think this daffodil sums up English winters for me: Continue reading
I’ve been doing quite a bit of soul-searching over the six months we’ve been back in the UK. Well, perhaps soul-searching is a little overly dramatic, but just trying to work out how we want to live this next chapter of our lives.
Do we live in central London, so it’s convenient for Paul’s work and all the activities this amazing city has to offer? Or do I need more trees? And if we get a house outside London, where do we go and what do we look for? We really have too many options available. Continue reading
“The site was wasteland, a wilderness lying between our farm and our neighbours. It consisted of a long spring-fed hollow where the soil lay black and waterlogged, surrounded by sun-baked gravel…in one of the driest parts of the country. But it was the extreme variation in growing conditions which intrigued us, the possibility lying before us of growing…plants adapted by nature to different situations.” Beth Chatto Continue reading
It is possible to be winded by a garden? For a place to feel so ‘breath-taking’ your body actually shuts down for a second or two? Continue reading
I have something of an obsession with Sissinghurst. I think a little piece of me was left behind when I first visited; a piece of it coming with me forever more. Continue reading
The Exotic Garden at Great Dixter, England
It’s all a bit of a worry, but we Aussies have much to learn from the subtropical gardens of England. Yes, really, we do.
They can’t touch us on our ability to do subtropical temperatures, but Continue reading
Sissinghurst Castle library garden
It may be that you have noticed; I’m quite keen on plants. So it was quite a surprise for me that plants weren’t actually the highlight of my recent trip to Sissinghurst. Continue reading
Autumn Colours at Wisley
This morning I arrived at a very, cold, misty, autumnal Wisley for the launch of my Master of Horticulture. It is at moments like this that you feel extremely grateful Continue reading
Sometimes you visit a garden and become quite lost in it. You forget everything in the world, basking in the joy of it. Then you leave and get caught up in traffic and start thinking about what to have for dinner and frankly, move on.
Other times you visit a garden and it just doesn’t leave you. Nothing can distract you from your thoughts of that garden for any length of time and nothing else seems quite as important or significant. You wake the next morning still thinking of the garden. Continue reading
Janna Schreier Garden Design 