A nice chap from the marketing team for Fiskars looked me up not long ago and asked me to write a review of their new range of garden blades. Having always thought Fiskars were quite good but not really having much on which to base that assumption, I accepted with two provisos. The first was that I’d say exactly what I thought, however harsh that might be. The second was that I’d put them through some testing and compare them head to head with my tools, specifically what I consider to be the finest bladed tools on the market – Felcos. Continue reading »

Its Autumn in Canberra, just starting to cool down but still warm during the days. Its a very pleasant time of year and we have a second flush of roses in bloom at the moment. My ‘Mr Lincoln’ roses were passed down from cuttings from my grandmother and this year I am decided on the matter – I must have more of them! While I’m at it, I will propagate some of my other favourites. Continue reading »

A bunch of my friends have just become first home buyers and so instead of going out for a drink in a stylish cafe somewhere, the other day we had a girls day out for lunch and shopping at the nurseries. One of my friends brought out her notebook and pen, and asked me what she needed to get started on renovating the garden, having never needed to do anything with their rental gardens or even general maintenance before. I sipped my tea and thought about what anyone starting out from scratch would need and which things can wait until time and money permit. I thought this might be a good thing to start off this blog with – beginning at the beginning so to speak – and not for the least reason of saving myself repeating this to all of my other friends in the same predicament.

So here is my top ten list of essentials in any garden for someone who is just starting out. I’ll save a list of things that are very nice to have later on for another post, so keep in mind this is far from an exhaustive list.  Its worth noting that this is my personal opinion and given I’m not getting paid by anyone, I can talk freely about the products that I have used and found particularly good. Here goes: Continue reading »