Helen Cushing 25/3/25 Helen Cushing 25/3/25

A Beautiful Brew

When I wrote this article I purged my kitchen of ancient tea bags of all descriptions. Why keep them, why buy them, why use them? Herbs are easy to grow and fresh is always best. Failing growing them, buy them dried but not bagged, and enjoy teapot culture. Tea bags may contain harmful toxins, create waste and we tend to store them for aeons. Old leaves in paper packets with glue and whatnot holding them together! The expensive so-called silken pyramids are the worst and you may be drinking micro-plastics with your ‘healthy’ brew. They are not made of silk, they are nylon. Anyway, I’ll stop raving and let you read the article.

Helen Cushing 17/9/24 Helen Cushing 17/9/24

What’s the Buzz?

Stop killing insects! They are the most important pollinators, essential for life as we know it and for food production. Writing this article was a great opportunity to refresh my love of botany and the relationships between plants and critters.

It's all about plant sex, so read on.

Helen Cushing 26/7/24 Helen Cushing 26/7/24

Sharing the Farm

Farmers enclose vast amounts of land, fencing the public out. But in southern Tasmania, this farmer has thrown the gate open and found ways to entice us to explore. Whilst pioneering the production of Tasmanian Pepper berries, Chris and Sue have created a bushwalk and sculpture trail, community kitchen garden, pop-up cafe, art prize and art events. It’s organic, friendly and inspiring.

Helen Cushing 13/6/24 Helen Cushing 13/6/24

The Pollinator Project that’s Transforming Melbourne’s Streets

Recently I met Emma Cutting, founder of the Heart Gardening Project and the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor. She’s a force of nature on a mission to feed the tiny winged things that keep nature reproducing in Australia’s famously urban city.

Helen Cushing 20/3/24 Helen Cushing 20/3/24

The Landscape Architects Making Singapore Wilder

I met innovative landscape architects, Salad Dressing, in Singapore in 2023. I soon realised that a deep, exploratory philosophy underpins their extraordinary work.

Helen Cushing 13/3/24 Helen Cushing 13/3/24

Welcoming the Wild Things

Published in the Organic Gardener, Feb-March, 2024.

It’s a hot day in Singapore but it’s pleasantly cool as I walk through a rainforest in the grounds of the National University of Singapore (NUS). I’m with a champion of urban rewilding, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Yun Hye Hwang, whose passion for ecological design and planning has transformed the grounds of the NUS campus.

Helen Cushing 5/3/24 Helen Cushing 5/3/24

Beyond Organics: Gardening for the Future

Published by ABC Books in 2005. Foreword by Peter Cundall.

Beyond Organics takes gardening into the realm of nature conservation in every possible way. For many people, the garden is the main place of interaction with nature, and the only part of the natural environment that they directly influence and look after.

Helen Cushing 2/3/24 Helen Cushing 2/3/24

Safe Refuge at Inala

Published in the Organic Gardener, Feb-March, 2024.

A driven conservationist has turned her property on Bruny Island (TAS) into a haven for endangered birds, plants and trees. Including a jurassic garden.

Dr Tonia Cochran is a self-confessed all or nothing person. So it’s not surprising to learn she owns a 600-hectare nature

reserve, an international wildlife tour company and a two-hectare (five-acre) Gondwanan Botanic Garden, all on Tasmania’s Bruny Island. Not that she ever planned any of the above.

Helen Cushing 1/3/24 Helen Cushing 1/3/24

The ABC Book of Gardening for Kids

Published by ABC Books in 2001.

The ABC Book of Gardening for Kids was a best seller…

Helen Cushing 29/2/24 Helen Cushing 29/2/24

Wall to Wall Green

Published in the Organic Gardener, Feb-March, 2020.

Building with rooftop gardens and living walls are part of a revolution to regreen our cities and homes and bring more nature into our lives. Helen Cushing tells how.

Helen Cushing 28/2/24 Helen Cushing 28/2/24

Seeds of Change: the seed savers networks of the world

Published in Simply Living in November 1992.

I was pregnant with my second child. He was due in one week. Plenty of time to send this feature article to Sydney (on a CD by snail mail from Bellingen). Or so I thought. As I was writing, I went into labour. My son was born four hours later. I completed the article, but someone else wrote the practical box (:.

Helen Cushing 28/2/24 Helen Cushing 28/2/24

Working through Winter

Published in Tasmanian Life in July, 2008.

As Gardening Editor for Tassie Life, I contributed a seasonal practical to each issue.

Helen Cushing 28/2/24 Helen Cushing 28/2/24

Cafe Jardin - Wild Temptations

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.