Avant Gardeners

Emily and Maddie were lucky enough to meet Steven in Victoria late last year, having followed his journey for a long time. Steven began his career as a nurse, before studying horticulture, with no intention of fusing the two. But he delved deeper into therapeutic gardens, gaining a Churchill Fellowship to help support research, and he started the Therapeutic Garden at the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre nearly 20 years ago, providing immeasurable benefit to patients, their families, friends and staff.

Steven recently downsized from a much-celebrated garden in the Melbourne suburbs, Steven now has a lush veranda in the clouds, overlooking Melbourne's CBD. This downsizing has given him time and space to focus on other passions and projects in his life.

Steven lives, works and gardens in Naarm / Melbourne, on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation.  

Before we get to Steven's chat, Maddie and Emily are dreaming of fields of sunflowers - Emily is reminiscing about her time in Europe with sunflowers and cosmos all around. Maddie is reminiscing of her time on a farm stay in Portugal while staying in a yurt. 
We ask Steven for his favourite Evergreen plants, which are:
Agave Attenuata / Foxtail Agave
Variegated aspidistra
Bromeliads
And his tips for Textural Plants in a Sensory garden include Lambs Ear or Kalanchoe 'Oak Leaf'.

It's a Maddie & Emily chat this week.
Maddie is loving (despite calling the colour urine-esque) the White Gate Co White Blend and if you're in Tassie go book and wine shopping at Five Leaves Left. 
Emily was creating new neural pathways and happened upon a great side-street garden stall. Win!
We're lamenting the end of cherry season, but enjoying choc-covered cherries from a local stall.

We're rolling (metaphorically, not literally) in peastraw and alpaca poo.

Lettuce is ON!
Emily has has success with a poppy (yes, just the one), and it's reminding her of her grandfather. Maddie's hollyhocks have popped and it's reminding her of her grandmother.

Emily is recommending Death and the Gardener, and Maddie is recommending Recipe Tin Eats' scone recipe but a shout out to Lady Flo's Pumpkin Scones too.

Jo Thompson is one of the UK's most celebrated garden designers, known for creating deeply romantic, naturalistic gardens that feel timeless, layered and full of atmosphere.  Her projects span the UK and abroad - from wildflower meadows in the English countryside to rooftop terraces in New York and coastal gardens in Italy and Brazil. 
She's a multiple award-winner at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with several Gold medals to her name, and her designs  - ranging from private landscapes to meaningful public projects - are widely admired. 
Beyond her design practice, she's a respected teacher, author and voice in the gardening world, sharing her knowledge through books, lectures and her much-loved newsletter, The Gardening Mind. Jo's work reminds us that gardens can be both art and refuge – spaces that connect us to beauty, memory and the natural world.
Before we get to Jo's chat, Maddie and Emily are talking about:

Agapanthas (sorry!)
Snakes
Wildflower Meadows
Emma Bowen of Rising Farm
Sea salt and olive oil on vanilla icecream
Then we get into glorious Jo's chat and we cover a lot. Highlights include:
Glasshouse Project
Women in horitculture / at the Chelsea Flower Show
Designing a garden
Trypophobia

Damsen Cocktail
Jo lists a bunch of her favourite roses:
Wild Rover
Meg - climber
The Lark Ascending
Felicite-Perpetue
Adélaide d'Orléans
Ghislaine de feligonde
Blush Noisette
Bengal Crimsen
Mutablis 
Gertrude JekyllMILsures
Olivia Rose Austin
Ispahan

We're baaaaaack! And with a slightly new format. We're trying out one week where we release our chat (longer version), and the following week we'll release our guest interview. It means we can get episodes out weekly. We'll trial it and see.

We've missed the podcast so it's awesome to be back. 
Emily has knocked it out of the park with a delicious mulberry bramble (gin, mulberry cordial from our friends' tree, blackberries, lime).

Having taken more than two months off, we have so much to chat about. 
 
Including, but not limited to:
Seed saving - calendula and platypus spinach,
Drying hydrangeas thanks to Anya The Garden Fairy
We're talking about Moths - they need a rebrand.

The Almanac, Cool Climate Sowing Guide
Alnwick Garden and Millie Fleur's Poison Garden (by Christy Mandin).

Aaaand lilacs, daphne, feverfew, calendula, compost bays. 

Catch up next week when we interview (omg!) Jo Thompson!

Jodi Wilson is a bestselling author of four books, a health journalist and postpartum doula. Several years ago, she and her family packed their lives into a caravan, and set off in search of adventure, and a more simple life. After two years on the road they put down roots in Tasmania. It is here where she's embraced gardening, and written her most recent book, A Brain That Breathes, out today. 
Jodi lives, writes and gardens with her partner and their four children on the land of the punnilerpanner people in north western Tasmania
Before we get to this thought-provoking chat, Emily and Madeleine are drinking Archie Rose Straight Dry gin with some home made purple elderflower cordial.
Emily is regretting purchasing a Ginko tree, and the agapanthus keep rearing their ugly head. 
She is loving her Cerastium tomentosum - snow in summer - and Maddie's cutting is also doing quite well.
Maddie is obsessed with Sage, and wants to propagate more. She's also tried her hand at sage sticks. She's got a picnic blanket in the post and is excited for more outdoor eating-and-drinking sessions. Calendula is back, and in some beautiful colours, and she is recommending  Why Women Grow, by Alice Vincent.
Jodi has a HUGE list of books she recommends for summer, and or anytime. We've already read a couple of them and they are excellent. Can highly recommend her recommendations!

-The Mushroom Tapes by Chloe Hooper, Helen Garner, and Sarah Krasnostein
-Heart the Lover by Lily King
-Sandwich and Wreck by Catherine Newman
-The Octopus and I and A Catalogue of Love by Erin Hortle
-The Hiding Place by Kate Mildenhall
-The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
-Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley
We're also banging on and singing the praises of libraries, AGAIN!