Open Gardens..... in changing times

 I have visited a few open gardens today. They are all gorgeous and the owners have done an amazing job getting them ready, with all the rain etc that we have had. Some had magnificent, old trees, some massess of prettiness, one had fabulous, very old rock walls, most had a pond.

The thing about them all was that they could have been anywhere in the world that had an appropriate climate. None of them were what I would call Australian. I know 2 gardens that say Australia, without being just natives, and that is what I particularly like.

None of them had much in the way of food gardens either or an ecosystem that encourages any life except human. One had a beautiful, gently sloping, north facing, manicured lawn..... totally perfect for vegetables, but, alas, just lawn. Clearly not a fan of Peter Cundall!

For some reason, most middle class, white people think about gardens in this English kind of way; way more English than the English in England. I had hoped that the threat of food insecurity, shortages of potatoes etc, massive crop losses from floods, endless climate change disasters, programmes about insect collapse etc etc might have started to impact people's perceptions of what a garden is and what it can do for life into the future. Sadly, here abouts, they have barely raised an eyebrow.

Well, here are some of my garlic which are looking magnificent. They are Dunganski and Music. I have never seen garlic so tall.... this makes the stems look thin in the photo but they are not thin at all. Come late January/ early February, they will hopefully have good garlic bulbs and be ready for picking.

I know where I would rather be.