I love plants and gardening, and this page is for sharing photos, tips, resources, etc. I am studying horticulture at TAFE and do some work in garden maintenance. I am interested in therapeutic horticulture and would like to maybe work in that field some day. I have a bunch of plants in pots on my balcony and also have a plot at the local community garden.

Here are some cool gardening resources you might find useful. I am in Australia so most of these resources will likely be Australian-based.

• Yates Garden Hub: Includes a growing calender, advice, how-to-grow guides for specific plants, and a garden problem solver.
• Fleming's Nurseries: Very in-depth catalog of various trees, including fruiting, flowering, and ornamentals. There are many organised lists of different kinds of trees, and each one has pictures and information about its growing habit, care, and maintenance (in webpage and downloadable PDF format.
• Australian National Botanic Gardens: Maps, events, guides, information, etc. for the ANBG.
• Friends of the ANBG: A bit more in depth than the ANBG website itself, FANBG is for the member's group of the ANBG and has information on how to join and what benefits and activities you can do once you've joined.
• Sustainable Gardening Australia: A non-profit that promotes sustainable and community gardening. You can become a member or friend, attend workshops, and get gardening tips on the site.

I was lucky enough to be assigned two beds at my local community garden. They took some maintenance to get going as they had been full of weeds for a long time before I was assigned them, but it was a fun challenge to get all the weeds out and get the beds ready for planting. Below is a photo of what one of the beds looked like before I made it over, as well as the uprooted weeds from the second bed.

Currently (April 2023) I am growing beetroots for the Autumn season ! Beetroots are great roasted or turned into borchst soup, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this crop does come harvest time. Beetroot leaves and stems are also both edible and tasty, so when harvesting you can use all of the plant. Here is a photo of the beetroots soon after they were planted. There's been a good amount of gentle rain recently which has kept them well watered.

My favourite flower is Ixia viridiflora, also known as blue ixia, or African corn lily. They are usually expensive and hard to find and get around here, and I had been looking for them for ages when I happened to come across someone in my town who had a whole garden full of them and was selling the bulbs very affordably, so now I have my own container of them that springs back every year. This is a photo of mine from last flowering season, I can't wait for them to flower again this year.

Some of my other favourite flowers are correas, also known as native fuchsia. There are many varieties of correa and this is one of my favourites.

Another of my favourite plants is Stachys byzantina, commonly known as lamb's ear because of it's soft silvery foliage with leaves shaped like the aforementioned ears.

Photos from the Botanic Gardens