Hi Folks, By way of introduction, here's a little about me and where I live. I run my own landscape design practice in Central Victoria, Australia. I have been gardening since I could walk, if not before. My design work is largley informed by natural systems and patterns that you would find in nature, so most of my gardens have a pragmatism along the lines of Permaculture. Some of my work is 'pure' Permaculture, others just borrow some of the good thinking that goes with it. I also enjoy slipping in a little bit of Zen garden influence, not in the iconographic way (lanterns etc.) but in the way the Japanese Masters were able to represent cultural interpretations of inner strength into design. Where I live is as dry as a bone at the moment. We have had less than 1" of rain since mid-December., All of our rivers are dry and the water catchment dams are about 6% full. There are so many challenges for most gardeners right now (I'm still trying to get people to give up the idea of a lawn and English garden!!!), and we need to adopt strategies that are similar to arid design responses, much like you would in Arizona or sub-Sharan Africa. Anyhow, enough rant, I hope to have great exxhanges with you all in the future. Cheers, Earthworm
Hi Earthworm, welcome to GardenStew from north Texas. Sounds like your year is starting out the the second half of last year was for us. Hope you get some rain soon. My project this year is to finally get rid of all the lawn in our front yard, turn it into a xeriscape garden of native plants. Glad you joined us.
Thanks for the Welcome! North Texas...mmm...probably similar to here I imagine, normally we should have had about 3" rain by now. The first frost is due in about two weeks, so if we don't have any rain soon, many plants will suffer as the soil is so dry. I'm seeing some of the natives starting to struggle without additional watering (such as Correa spp., Prostanthera, Westringia and Anigozanthos). Indeed some of the exotic species are performing better, much to the chagrin of local indigifiles. Earthworm
Hello and welcome to you from coastal mid-Norway where the rain falls all the time. Such a nice introduction too, I'm so looking forward to stewing with you. And I hope you'll post photos, since I'm thinking that your gardening is a lot different from mine.
Hi there Earthworm and a warm welcome to GardenStew from West Lothian in Scotland where we get more than enough rain throughout the year. I have friends in Australia that are still trying to recreate an English country garden - complete with lawn. Needless to say they're not having much success.
Hi Earthworm and welcome from Maryland, East Coast of US, where Spring is on its way with average rain. Summer will bring hot temps, high humidity and little rain. We do have four seasons here. Friends just moved to Australia and they are homesick for Spring. I am looking forward to hearing about your gardens and seeing your designs. I am new on this site and love hearing what everyone has to say, including all the other parts of the country and around the world.
Well, thank-you everyone for the warm welcome, I feel there is a wonderful world of garden-love out there in the USA, Canada and the wider Earthian community. I just recieved an e-mail saying that a post I made had been 'promoted to a Super Post'. What is this? If it is my naturally intelligent, elegant and poignant reponse to a design question, well I guess I accept. Seriously, is there a grading to posts on this forum? I sincerely hope we can have an engaing relationship between antipodean gardeners that will share many ideas, philosophies and possibilities for the future of our planet. Do many of your members subscribe to the design thinking behind and within Permaculture? I'm very keen to find out as it was developed intellectually in Australia, perhaps I feel to close to it and cannot fully guage its global influence. Perhaps this is a seperate post that I might start to get a feeling. Earthworm
Your Super Post is the post you made in the Chinese/Japanese garden help needed topic. Check out the Super Post topic for more info on them. Congrats.
Hi Earthworm and a hearty welcome to GardenStew. As Toni pointed out Super Posts are a good thing, a small reward for great contributions. I'm sure you'll earn many more in the future. Don't forget to check out our blogs, member map and upload any plant images you have to PlantStew for all to see Details here: http://www.gardenstew.com/plantstew/help#3 // frank
Welcome, Earthworm, from coastal, NC. We are blessed with rain this spring and hope you soon will be too. I admire that you are an activist for the earth. It's the only one we have.
Hi Eartworm and welcome from east Texas. So glad you joined us. We love pictures of gardens, pets, hobbies, just about anything. Congratulations on your Super Post.
Every day that I visit Garden Stew I learn something else or have a little chat with someone nice. Today, permaculture crossed my screen in Earthworm's post... Being wholly unfamiliar, I googled it and and am now fascinated. I am new to this site, so I don't know exactly how things work, but I am hoping that some great discussions will evolve about how folks incorporate some of the concepts of permaculture that I just read about, into their spaces.
