In the late 19th century, ‘plant hunters’ deliberately removed entire populations of orchids from their high altitude homes in the Andes and cut down cut down whole forests to collect epiphyte orchids from the canopy.

Helen Cushing brings the beauty of the Japanese maple home in a teacup.

Birds provide ecological balance to our farms and gardens.

How two brush box trees provided more than childhood fun.

Doing just fine on my own, thank you.

“You know the bluebells in Hagley Park?”

Do organic gardens have to produce food and compost?

Nelson Mandela is not known for his reflections on gardening.

A recent trip of mine to India was framed by two gardens in Calcutta, a city that is home to almost as many people as live in all of Australia.

It’s time for the ‘Organic Garden Police’ to look more kindly on the rose.

Do gardens have memories?

Surging opposition in India by grassroots groups, farmers and activists is putting the heat on corporate biopirates.

With burgeoning international trade, weeds and pests are gaining free passage around the globe, but gardeners are far from guilt-free when it comes to the spread of problem plants.

The complex interactions between plants, insects and birds are often ignored in horticultures quest for the latest flower fashion.

What inspires gardeners to take the sometimes rough and overgrown road that is organics?

While we tend and treasure our gardens, wondrous forests are clear-felled.

What a weird welcome the 20th century gave the Wollemi Pine Helicopters, film crews, maximum security, the hard glare of laboratory lights.

To GM or not to GM, that is the urgently asked question.

Australia is vast, so let’s continue south on our spring quest.

In the early 1970’s, at the tender age of 16, I went in quest of my first book on organic gardening.