We are flattered to be featured on French gardening blog BUD_UP today. Check out the full post here.
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Last night we saw the strikingly beautiful La Grande Bellezza at the Open Air Cinema (check out the trailer here). Before the show we took a wander through the Royal Botanic Gardens. The garden is set on Sydney harbour and is always a nice spot for a picnic. This particular evening the flora was glowing pink, red and orange and I was reminded how charming this spot is.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan & Marie Laubie.
Recently I spent a morning in the OzHarvest garden harvesting herbs and veggies. The garden is run by Sarah of Grow Eat Enjoy, and was overflowing with goodies like flowering thyme, rainbow chard, basil, cavelo nero, cucumbers and kale.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
I dream sometimes of having my own gardening show, wouldn’t that be cool? One of the shows I’m inspired by is the BBC’s The Edible Garden. In this program, horticulturalist, journalist and author Alys Fowler attempts to live a more sustainable life by transforming her Victorian terrace backyard into a beautiful edible garden. She delivers growing tips, recipes and interviews with other likeminded gardeners.
My ideal garden would be one like Alys’s where almost everything is edible, with flowers and foliage for cutting filling up the spaces in between. Her wild design is also a much admired aesthetic. Check out episode one of The Edible Garden below.
Two thousand thirteen was a hell of a year and I am so grateful for all the experiences I’ve had. There were some tough moments, some things I reluctantly had to give up, but I also managed to kick a lot of crap to the side and start doing what I really wanted to do, make a career out of my love of plants.
During the past year I travelled to New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, the US and some places closer to home. To those I travelled with and others that I met along the way, thank you for making it all so incredibly fun. It’s also been a pleasure to return to Sydney after all of this to the birth of my brother’s first child and the sun and glow of family and friends and this amazing city.
I started this blog a little over a year ago and it’s been very gratifying to watch the number of readers grow and to get such nice feedback from you all. Thank you for reading!! Here is the first of a few posts looking back at the year that was.
In January we talked architectural, gardening and design greats Ricardo Bofill, Monty Don, Raf Simons and Stella McCartney, and explored decaying flowers, New York rooftops and some plant based gift ideas.
In February we followed The Little Flower School‘s visit to Australia, enjoyed the beauty of Zippy Seven and Kate Moss, and appreciated and then received a lovely fiddle leaf fig. We explored the Japanese art of kokedama floating gardens, I had my mind blown by nature documentary Microcosmos and happily discovered cabin porn.
In March I commissioned Lucy Allen to create some quirky images, visited the IS./WET exhibition, followed Lisa and Neil’s South African adventures, explored Madison Cox’s Tangiers retreat, took a look into some of Sydney’s kitchen gardens and a peek into the backyard of some friends in Redfern, found some dreamy images from Old Chum, got excited about new Sydney flower delivery business Little Flowers, and last but not least, discovered the incredible floral artist Makoto Azuma.
The rest of the year will follow shortly!
Image 1: Ricardo Bofill, image 2 Billy Kidd, image 3: Tim Walker, image 4: String Gardens, image 5: Beaver Brook, image 6: Lucy Allen, image 7: Neil Francis Dawson, image 8: Shunsuke Shiinoki.
I’ve come home to a city that feels like a jungle. Everything is so green and flowers are blossoming like crazy. Here are some lovely yellow ones from around town.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
Bloom Series is a collaboration between between floral stylist Jardine Hansen and photographers Lisa and Pete. Together they host events where Jardine shares her flower knowledge with enthusiastic students, and all the beautiful floral creations are documented by Lisa and Pete. Check out some pics from previous events below. They’re hosting a posy making class on 19 January in Redfern, Sydney. For more details and to reserve a spot check out the website here.
All photographs by And a Day Photography.
IT. is the clothing label lovechild of Paris based German designer Isabell Thrun. The spring/ summer 2014 collection entitled Blütezeit has a strong floral focus. I put together a flower crown for her lookbook which you can checkout below. Head to her online shop to buy a handmade piece (my personal favourite is the Muscari).
For more info be sure to check out Isabell’s website. Photographs by Agata Wolanska with creative direction by La Vitrine 341.
And a big thank you to the beautiful Mariëtta for introducing me to Isabell and so many other wonderful people in Paris.
For our final weekend in France for the year we went to a friend’s house in Morzine. I learnt (not very gracefully but nonetheless) to ski backwards and we had a great two days on the pistes. Compared to summer (check my other alps post here) when the insects and birds and water fill your ears it was so very quiet in winter. When we stopped yabbering to one another there was a beautiful peacefulness.
It was good to be surrounded by nature once again. We made a wreath for the maison and enjoyed breathing the clean air in the sun that shone all day long.
Thank you all for a lovely weekend x
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan
So incredibly excited to be published in The Planthunter today. My sister and I put together a simple little guide to making foraged floral wreaths. Check it out here. I love what founder/ editor Georgina Reid is doing and very much look forward to contributing again in the future.
The Secret Garden 