Recently, among my garden branches, lopping tall tips with extended lopping shears. I thought a few prickly leaves had dropped down my back. I was wrong. Venom suddenly flooded my back with stinging fire. Disturbed tree dwelling spiders had attacked me leaving 5 fiery lumps across my back. Lavender oil put the fire out, but […]
Our Garden Sanctuary
One windy day working in the garden, I noticed what I thought were swirls of dust blowing up our side street, but it was bees, hundreds of homeless bees in a mass 80 foot long, battling the gusty north wind. I have never been stung by a bee and with no desire to find if […]
Garden Holiday
Many people swap homes for holidays and one year we did this. We swapped for a bush holiday, and a large brown snake swapped the bush for holiday at our place: Returning from our holiday we could hear the phone ringing. It was a neighbour who told me “Before you unpack check your garden. A […]
Fighting for Eltham’s Local Landscape
What makes your Nillumbik home town/area unique? Who are the characters who have made it so? What sites have significance and why? During 2005 Nillumbik Shire Council and the Literary Reference Group invited members of the community to respond to these questions, to show us the history and flavour of your place – then and […]
Eltham Copper Butterfly
The ”’Eltham Copper Butterfly”’ ”Paralucia pyrodiscus lucida” is restricted to a few scattered areas in central and western Victoria, It was discovered in 1938 at Eltham, and a marked reduction in the abundance of the the butterfly was noted during the 1950’s until, eventually, the sub-species was feared to have become extinct. In 1987 the discovery […]
Charles Draper of Charnwood, Arthur’s Creek
Charles Draper of Charnwood, Arthur’s Creek – Horticultural Pioneer by Bruce Draper (2010) Charles Draper (1825-1909), a versatile horticulturist, florist, pomologist, orchardist and viticulturist, was the first large scale fruit grower in the Arthur’s and Diamond Creek districts of Victoria. He became a member of the inaugural Board of Advice for the Management of the […]
Banyule Flora and Fauna
Banyule is home to a wide range of native wildlife including: 224 species of native birds 23 kinds of reptiles 22 mammal species 12 types of frogs 9 species of native fish and an enormous number of invertebrates Some species such as the Noisy Miner, Australian Magpie, Red Wattlebird and the Common Brushtail Possum have […]
A Friend in the garden
One of the gardener’s worst enemies is snails. These merciless eating machines gobble up baby seedlings, climb up trees to strip leaves and live like lords in your veggie patch. But they have a natural Aussie enemy, our native snail. The Aussie snail is the gardener’s friend. It is not a vegetarian. It is carnivorous […]
A Dropping in our garden
One of the first residents in our garden was a spider. It spun a web from our new fence to one of our first plants. It sat motionless all day in full view of the hungry birds. At no time did I ever see it move. It sat with its legs tightly tucked into its […]
Eltham Lower Park
Prior to the extension of European people into the lands of the Nillum-bik in the late 1830s the Wurundjeri people had been meeting for thousands of years at the junction of the Diamond Creek with the Yarra River, in the area now known as Eltham Lower Park. The first European settlers were squatters or leaseholders. […]