January 8th to February 15th 2015. Jenie Yolland is one of Melbourne’s most highly regarded original glass artists. Her designs are directly inspired by nature and include soaring clouds, heart-warming sunsets, glistening raindrops on gum leaves and even a macro photograph of chlorophyll cells. Read More.
That’s right, now you are not only growing good quality veg for your dinner table, but YOU have also got a COMPETITION TO WIN! As part of BAAG’s harvest season, we are celebrating the fruits of your labour by giving you a chance to show off some of Mother Nature’s finest works of art. There will be prizes for the biggest pumpkin, the pumpkin with the most (natural) personality, and for those celebrating nature’s mishaps. The veg will be on display as part of the Autumn Harvest Festival in March 2015 at BAAG, with the winners announced at the annual Harvest Feast in Eltham on Sunday 15th of March. What do you need to do? There’s no need to panic, but don’t waste time… Click here for further details.
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Friday 23rd – Monday 26th January
Water gardens and ponds are great additions to any garden – creating focal points, cooling the air and providing valuable water sources to our native animals. Summer is a great time to create a new water garden or get your pond looking great. Many of the water plants, particularly the lilies and lotus are coming into flower and the hot days mean getting a little wet in the process is fun. BAAG has over 50 varieties in stock including water lilies, water lotus, water oxygenators, ornamentals, pond marginals and edible water plants.
To find out more about how to make your own aquatic oasis head to our Aquatic Plants factsheet at http://www.baag.com.au/?p=5924.
Join Angelo on Friday the 23rd of January at 11am for an informative talk on how to best care for your pond. Learn how to keep your fish and plants healthy and happy using non-chemical, environmentally friendly techniques. Angelo will provide tips and tricks on selecting and re-potting pond plants, dealing with excessive algae outbreaks and maintain a healthy pond ecosystem.
Nothing can spoil a great BBQ more than an aerial assault from flies and mozzies. Before lighting scores of eye watering scented candles and pulling out the bug spray that gives everything a slight metallic taste, come down to BAAG and learn about using insect repelling plants in the garden.
Join us for a free design talk on Monday the 26th of January at 11am with BAAG’s senior horticulturalist Joy Froebel where you will find out which plants can help to repel mosquitoes, flies and other unwanted insects. Learn how the plants do it and pick up tips on how to use them in your garden as a part of your overall design.
Saturday 7th March until Sunday 15th March
Autumn is a wonderful time to be in the garden. The extreme heat has all but gone and vegie patches are overflowing with their summer crops. There really isn’t much for us gardeners to complain about. We celebrate edible gardening all year round at BAAG, but the Harvest Festival is the one week of the year that we really cut loose and party hard… in an edible kinda way.
Come down and help us celebrate the splendour and seasonal bounty of fresh local produce at BAAG’s annual Autumn Harvest Festival. Join us for 9 days of fantastic events and specials, all guaranteed to get you gardening enthusiastically and, most importantly, growing your own food. Read on for a list of specials and events!
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We are open every day right through the holiday season, including New Years Day. Slightly shorter hours apply on Public Holidays, click here to view our full list of opening hours.
Have a safe and happy Christmas everyone!
Ms K, off to the theatre, for a production she didn’t book for, in an outfit she never would have chosen, tragic!
While in her garden last Wednesday evening, one of our members was tending her pumpkins when she tripped over some irrigation pipe and smashed her left knee cap. Ms K, aged 21 (hmm hmmm), who wishes to remain anonymous, managed to track down a friend who hadn’t yet retired for the evening, who popped in, took one look at her knee and declared “It’s off to hospital for you”. Five days later she was released with a pair of crutches, a collection of bathroom aides and a clutch purse full of painkillers.
“This is a major blow to my chances in this coming years Pumpkin Growing Contest” says Ms K, who had her hopes set on winning a prize for her “Pumpkin with the most Natural Personality”. Ms K claims she had an advantage, by using a compost recipe which has been handed down through at least one family generation, which is made up of one part animal manure (exact animal species list undisclosed) and two thirds Gardening Australia back issue magazines, Peter Cundall only. She also claims to have had great success in the past with playing her pre recorded cassette tapes of John Lawes talkback radio during the dormant hours of night, to ward off any pests and diseases.
Ms K continues “I had also planned a pagan fertility sacrifice ritual, vegetarian option of course, for the summer solstice”, but her plans were cut short due to her unfortunate accident – the intended sacrificial eggplant will now be left to ripen for an Autumn ratatoui instead. Ms K says that the incident has made her rethink her whole approach to her pumpkin feeding regime, and has now opting for one that uses a “slow release” fertiliser, while she recovers at home in anticipation for the Harvest Feast in March 2015.
Caper Bush (Capparis spinosa) are just taking off in Melbourne as we are now able to supply them (well, at least over the summer months). Even if you are not interested in the culinary aspect of capers, the bush itself is a low spreading perennial (winter deciduous) with tough rounded green leaves that provide a backdrop to lovely flowers with clean pink or white petals surrounding a spray of purple stamens. They really are a very attractive plant.
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5th – 24th December. We are once again celebrating Christmas in the gallery with an interesting and diverse range of work by over 10 different artists for our Christmas exhibition including metal and ceramic sculpture, baskets, prints and paintings. Read More. This will be followed by a new exhibition by glass artist Jenie Yolland in the gallery from 7th January to 15th February 2015.
A beautiful garden makes outdoor entertaining all the more inviting. Longer days along with summer festivities make the garden a perfect extension to your indoor space. Prepare for a lovely time outside this summer. There are plenty of things that you can do in the garden, think summer, think colour.
The end of the school year often means madly grabbing that box of chocolates or bunch of flowers for your children’s teacher while racing about doing a million other jobs. Why not try something a little different this year and help your kids to decorate a small terracotta pot and plant it out with herbs or flowers. These make a very personal and practical gift for their teachers, and the kids will have a blast designing, painting and planting them. Hamlet the cat approves of this project. Read on to find out how to do it.
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The avocado is a versatile and nutritious fruit that, apart from being the perfect baby food, is high in vitamin C, full of anti-oxidants, great for our skin and a good source of beneficial mono-unsaturated fats and folic acid. The avocado tree is a generous, shady evergreen tree that may be pruned as little or as much as you require.
Generally regarded as a fruit of more tropical climes, many varieties of avocado will do just fine in Melbourne, as long as the soil and drainage is just right.
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Nothing compares to the taste of homegrown strawberries, and those monster things you buy in punnets at the shops are generally a poor (and expensive) imitation. So, why not grow some strawberries at home! Good position and good soil are the keys to successful strawberries. Strawberries are actually a European cool-climate plant, and need to be treated with a bit of love in our part of Australia. For those of growing strawberries during the warmer periods of the year, we suggest growing under a little shade cloth cover. This is ‘slip, slop, slap’ for your strawberries to stop the sunburn… they’ll thank you for it! In the cooler months, a nice, warm, full-sun to part-shade spot is perfect… morning sun with protection from the afternoon rays.
31st October to 30th November 2014
An exhibition of ceramic art by Hannah Beilharz, Yukima Breaden, Sharleen Code, Naoko Coghlan, Linda De Toma, Maired Hayes, Rachel Hughes, Christine James, Miyuki Matsuzaki, Annette Nobes, Janet Pezaros, Olivia Pianezze, Gordon Strachan, Choon Yeok (Yeokie). This exhibition features delicate porcelain, ceramics with a Japanese influence, mosaic wall pieces incorporating specially crafted ceramic pieces, figurative and animal sculpture, crystalline glazes, made using the pottery wheel, hand building and sculpting or mosaic techniques. It has been produced in Claydreamers Pottery Studio which was established by Linda DeToma in 1997. Linda has a career in ceramics includes awards and exhibitions.
This is probably the busiest month of the year for gardeners. Warmer temperatures and the recent rains make for perfect planting conditions. As you can see from the pic above, it is also Tomato Time! Cup Weekend is traditionally the ideal time in Melbourne to get your tomatoes into the ground. In the rest of your garden, plants are either busily flowering or pushing out new growth. Birds, spiders, lizards and ladybirds are feasting on aphids, whiteflies and other sap sucking insects that love to feed on new spring growth. Allow predators to thrive in your garden by reducing or eliminating spraying, planting lots of flowers and creating a diverse and nature friendly garden. For more tips on how to deal with pests, what to plant and harvest at this time of the year. Read on for everything you need to know…
As a Horticulturalist, it is always a delight to visit the garden of a fellow plant lover. I recently had the pleasure of walking around, admiring and discussing plants with Heather, a long time Bulleen Art & Garden customer. Heather & her husband Mike live in Lower Templestowe, and their garden has been a labour of love for over twenty years. Heather and Mike are regular visitors to BAAG, and it was fantastic to get the opportunity to go and have a look at the garden where so many of our plants have ended up!
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