#the planthunter

[perikali]

River Garden Diaries: An Aesthetic of Care

Georgina Reid explores explore an aesthetic of care that moves beyond the human as source and beneficiary of action. A de-centring of human desire in the garden.

“I break things in my home garden. Ideas, conventions, ingrained behaviours. I plant, weed, work, but the evidence is hard to see. I’ve long downplayed what I’m doing, or not doing, because a part of me still thinks I should do better. Make it prettier. More photogenic. More garden-like. But here’s the thing: I don’t give a damn about pretty. I garden to make a home for myself and others. To grow ideas and futures. To make meaning. Meaning is not neat or understandable or rational or anywhere near aesthetically acceptable. It is mess and wonder, generosity and madness. Meaning is beautiful. Gardens should be beautiful. This is non-negotiable. What a garden looks like is another matter”

[perikali]

The Garden as Ecological Island - The Planthunter

Can a suburban garden become an ecological island? NZ artist Michael Shepherd finds out.

‘I’ve done OK for somebody who only went to school to eat his lunch’

‘I wanted to see if I could create a garden that could have ecological significance’

[perikali]

Saving Grace: Bill Henson Moves his Childhood Garden - The Planthunter

Bill Henson moves his late mother's garden, before the bulldozers arrive.

‘Rather than allowing the bulldozers to erase sixty-five years of gardening which my sister and I and my mother had done on this little area of land, we decided we would try and save as much of it as we could.’

[full-as-much-heart]

Lily Langham, The Planthunter

[ancestorsalive]

(via From Control to Connection: A New Ethos of Care - The Planthunter)

For a very long time, humans have equated care with control. But what if true care is more closely related to chaos? What if, in allowing space for chaos, we can more fully care for ourselves and the world around us?

“Olga Reid, my grandmother, lived in a fibro house on the corner of Edward Street and Bells Lane in a small town in rural Australia. The front fence was low, made of white painted timber posts with mesh in-between. Pushing up against it from inside was a strictly controlled garden of ‘pretties’ as Granny called ornamental plants. A maple stood in the corner, a grape twined its way over a metal arbour framing the front door, and a prunus tree divided the front yard from back “

[elgblog]

Sex: The Masterpiece of Nature

Raffles Pitcher-Plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana) x Icelandic Poppy(Papaver nudicaule)

A somewhat crude and unusual encounter between two geographically and behaviourally different plants, one native to sub-polar regions of the North, whilst beautiful and lightly fragrant, all parts of this plant are considered poisonous. The other, a slightly carnivorous, exotic and threatened plant from South East Asia, feeds on the gooey soluble nutrients of fallen insects actually has many properties beneficial to humans, the roots can treat stomach aches and dysentery and the stem may be used to treat coughs and fevers.

[elgblog]

Sex: The Masterpiece of Nature

Sack-shaped Catasetum Orchid (Catasetum saccatum)

The male of this species of Orchid actually violently ejects it’s viscid pollen sacs with explosive force when touched.

[andrewguidryphotography-blog]

georgina reid THE PLANTHUNTER rooftop web launch party newtown nsw australia 2013