grandiflora | The Secret Garden

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.

Jardin des Fleurs 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.

For christmas this year I gave my uncles and aunties and family friends a pot of chilli. It’s a simple, pretty, inexpensive gift that I like to think most people would enjoy receiving.

For my brother I bought a truffle inoculated holly oak sapling. I potted it in a wine barrel. When it gets a little bigger he can plant it in his newly purchased house and then in six to seven years they should be able to dig up some truffles!

I was given a terrarium couriered up from bosky in Melbourne which is an incredible little world unto itself and some great books, including a beautiful one by Grandiflora with photography of Saskia Havekes’s amazing floral creations by Andrew Lehmann (available here).