Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden

I think it's 20 years since I last visited the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden in St Ives. I think there used to be an entry fee, and that might have kept me away. There isn't one now, and I can report that it's well worth a visit. They've done lots.

 

There are picnic facilities, lots of educational signage, short tracks, long tracks. Some are bush tracks, and there's a bicycle track.

 

 

There seems to have been some hazard reduction burning here recently. It's a bit contested, whether this does more good or harm, and how best to do it when we do. But from a photographer's point of view, there are always spectacular images to be got,with the resulting colours and patterns.

Hornsby's Lisgar Gardens

 

Hornsby's got quite a few places that are well worth a visit, and Lisgar Gardens is one of them. 

 

I went back there the other day for a reminder. It's looking good still.

More here: Hornsby Council's brochure

The Lilian Fraser Garden

This one's a lockdown recreational space with a difference. It's the Lilian Fraser Garden in Pennant Hills. 

Ms Fraser's family ran a poultry farm in the area about 100 years ago. She herself was an agricultural scientist. When the farm was sold off  for housing blocks, she kept the house and garden, but in later life donated the place to Hornsby Council. You can wander in any time. More here: Hornsby Council brochure

Covid countdown - Hornsby's Neal Park & Edgeworth David Garden

How long have we been living in (sort-of) lock-down? How many weeks ago exactly was it, that PM Scomo told us we could still go about our normal business and that he was still going to the footie? Two weeks, six months? Hard to say, but I just looked it up. It's about nine weeks since his footie remark, and eight weeks since the plan to ban all non-essential gatherings of more than 500.

Then in the following two weeks the legal gathering limit quickly shrank down to two! Since then it's all been a bit strange.

One of my special missions during this time has been to use my legal-exercise outings constructively, and to explore and document as  many as possible of the nearby parks and bushland reserves. I've discovered or rediscovered lots of them, and I'm so glad they are there.



Today's little outing was to the Edgeworth David Garden in Hornsby, which is adjacent to, or part of, Neal Park. It's a small area, but an unexpectedly attractive green and rainforesty patch.


It was the home of  Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David, geologist and war veteran who also led the first expedition to reach the south magnetic pole in 1908. He's got a nearby major road named after him too.





And he and his wife had a very nice garden!

Suzhou scenes