News

Doused in shading and example, the London home of de Gournay scion Hannah Cecil Gurney is an adoration letter to her family's inebriating backdrops The transformative intensity of stylistic theme has never been lost on Hannah Cecil Gurney. As the little girl of de Gournay author Claud Cecil Gurney, she grew up submerged in a universe of magnificent hand-painted backdrop. Be that as it may, never was this reality more clear than when her three-year-old child, George, expressed his first word: "Turtle." It is no occurrence that his lodging is skimming in a virtual aquarium of de Gournay ocean animals, with a tortoise swimming legitimately above. "We'd generally state, 'Hi, Mr. Turtle!' " Gurney imparts to protective pride. "As he's gotten more seasoned, it's kept such a great amount of appeal for him."When the executive of worldwide advertising and advancement for de Gournay and her better half, Eddie Harden—he possesses and oversees Nanhoron, a Welsh home where his family has lived for around 700 years—obtained their home in London's Battersea neighborhood four years back, they were recently hitched and not yet anticipating. "We were originating from a little level to this enormous house," she says, "and the subsequent we moved in, it was this unusual inclination of having every one of these rooms to fill." Ironically, having quite recently invited twins Oscar and Scarlet, "I take a gander at the house now and I'm similar to, 'It's excessively little. Perhaps we should move to the nation.' "Arranged close Battersea Park, the Victorian living arrangement had decent bones however had succumbed to a "peculiar present day remodel," as Gurney puts it. "I could perceive what a stunning shell it was. My better half stated, 'For what reason would you need this when we can complete one that is delightfully up?' But then you're moving into another person's home," she comments distinctly. She persuaded him regarding the potential and spent the following couple of years taking it back to how it had once been—with period-suitable cornices, joinery, and scarf windows. "Since I was so occupied with work and travel, it implied that when I got around to beautifying, we'd lived here long enough that I had a vastly improved comprehension of how I needed it to be set up for our family." That being stated, the remodel was so serious, she jests, "I discovered that I'd never again prefer to be an inside decorator."Not shockingly, Gurney planned pretty much every room from the dividers in. "All moderately new structures," she says. "For me, it's amusing to utilize backdrops that individuals haven't seen such a great amount of." (Coveted for its couture artisanship, de Gournay is profoundly looked for after among top originators and tastemakers, who trust that each paper will be rendered by hand.) An iridescent coral chinoiserie wraps the main room, where the window ornaments have coquettish scalloped edges. For the couple's shower, she picked a paper of pink flamingos to which she included an ombré yellow impact at the top, notwithstanding coating the shower in it. "I was cited some insane cost for marble, and I recall my father saying, 'That is silly. Simply put backdrop inside, coat it, and introduce a glass shower on top.' It makes the room feel a lot greater on the grounds that the shower sort of ends up imperceptible." The family room includes a chocolate-darker chinoiserie on matte rice paper reminiscent of the Coromandel screens in Coco Chanel's Paris loft. "I've constantly adored that paper, and I've seen loads of individuals incline toward it, at that point be hesitant to utilize it, so I chose, 'I'm going to put it up and show that it is so natural to utilize a shading like chocolate darker.' " The main room in the house that wasn't deliberately planned around the backdrop is the nook, or "cozy," as Gurney alludes to it. "I'd for a long while been itching to do a dull red library, so I began with the joinery and everything else came after." De Gournay had as of late settled a hand-weaving studio in Calcutta, where Gurney's dad has a home, and she chose this would be a perfect spot to grandstand the art, picking one of de Gournay's Alessandra Branca structures in a custom colorway of greenish blue, red, and saffron.By the time Gurney got to the subsequent youngsters' room, she'd experienced practically every shade of the rainbow. So a grisaille African scene is rather encompassed with flies of essential accents: cobalt drapes cut with tomato-red pom-poms, canary-yellow confining, and a realistic highly contrasting rug. At that point there's the youngsters' restroom, furnished in a totally bespoke backdrop enlivened by Hyde Park and the Carlyle inn's incredible Bemelmans Bar. It highlights eccentric scenes, for example, squirrels jumping rope, foxes playing soccer, and mice pushing frozen yogurt trucks. "It's totally cute," Gurney coos. "I didn't figure George would be especially inspired by it, yet the day it went up he got back home from school and stated, 'Mummy! Mummy! Come look at my backdrop! I resembled, 'That is what it's about!' It's so beautiful perceiving how exciting it very well may be for a kid. Each time he has a shower, he needs to pretend with the characters and makes me give him frozen yogurt from the truck." She proceeds with a laugh, "So perhaps he's getting down to business for de Gourney one day and not drive tractors."If the way toward choosing and tweaking each divider covering was fastidious, the genuine outfitting of the home would should be portrayed as jumble. Magnificently so. Gurney and Harden filled a vehicle with Georgian treasures—drinks tables, infrequent seats—from Nanhoron. She additionally squeezed bits and weaves from her dad's home in Kent. An antique bed was sawed down to little child size and canvassed in a Dedar stripe, while a model de Gournay neoclassical-style couch was protected from the animal dwellingplace and set in the lounge room. The rest of the gaps were filled in with antique market discovers, which Gurney reupholstered in "clueless textures." ABOVE AN ARABESCATO MARBLE ISLAND COMMANDS THE KITCHEN. ON CABINETRY, CUSTOM MAGENTA SHADE BY PAPERS AND PAINTS; RANGEMASTER RANGE; DE GOURNAY EMBROIDERED SILK WALL COVERING; ANTIQUE BILLIARD TABLE PENDANTS. It was a great deal of experimentation," she clarifies. "I like reasoning that my home is an accumulation of rejected stuff that I figured out how to revive here and there." Friends appreciate it, as well; the couple engage consistently. Gurney portrays her significant other, the cook in the family, as a "shut-in something contrary to me!" The kitchen, which they extended with the assistance of Simon Smith and Michael Brooke Architects, was planned in a cutting edge open style "so the culinary expert isn't the only one while every one of the visitors are having a ton of fun nearby." Although the children do now and then incline toward the cozy. "Recently we had companions over, disregarded George for 30 minutes viewing a Pixar film, and he found a pen and drew tattoos all over his body." Which prompts the undeniable inquiry: Does she ever stress that his fine art may move to the stunning de Gournay-wrapped dividers? He wouldn't be the first to have a go at them, she says. The day establishment of the backdrop in the kitchen started, the couple went out to supper just to come back to a wrongdoing scene: Their two mutts had bitten off the still unattached corners. "The glue has got sugar in it," demonstrating an overwhelming allurement, Gurney notes. "Extraordinarily, the laborers had the option to fix bits in, and one of the architects covered up it. So now I'm really loose. I've perceived how it can advance." After all, what's another turtle in an ocean of fish?  

Danish genius Bjarke Ingels has structured a portion of the world's most discussed high rises, arenas, historical centers, and the sky is the limit from there. Presently, because of a valiant customer, the designer uncovers his first private house. For a considerable lot of the best draftsmen of the only remaining century, a private house was their huge break. The 1964 home that Robert Venturi worked for his mom in the Philadelphia rural areas propelled his vocation and introduced the postmodern development. Charles Gwathmey's first undertaking was a 1967 Long Island resi-dence for his folks, who gave him unconditional authority to make the Modernist wonder. Also, the Santa Monica house that Frank Gehry remodeled for his own family in 1978 shot him to big name while presenting the Deconstructivist signs of his later blockbusters. On account of these gifts and that's only the tip of the iceberg—Philip Johnson, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Michael Graves, Lina Bo Bardi—private houses filled in as early research centers and calling cards.Bjarke Ingels has manufactured a completely extraordinary way. In the wake of establishing his very own firm, BIG–Bjarke Ingels Group, in 2005, the Danish-conceived engineer earned worldwide consideration for two Copenhagen high rises, one a man-made mountain, the other a mammoth figure eight, with bicycle paths that ascent up starting from the earliest stage to the tenth floor. When he hit 40, in 2014, he had attempted the sorts of commissions that Pritzker Prize–champs have held up lifetimes to handle—towers, social focuses, city parks, and so on. In any case, he had never constructed a house. 108ARCHDIGEST.COM"In engineering you can rapidly wind up unique ized," reflects Ingels during a visit to his immense Brooklyn office, where youthful architects can be seen crossing the floor on bikes. (The firm presently utilizes 540 individuals, with extra workplaces in London, Barcelona, and Copenhagen, and around 80 current ventures that incorporate home office for Google and tempest security for Lower Manhattan.) "In the event that you do one high rise, you are a high rise master. In the event that you do one clinic, you are an emergency clinic master. And afterward you become that archi-tect. Since we had never done a private house, nobody inquired." That is, until a plan clever business person with business in Denmark cold pitched BIG planning to com-mission, as Ingels proposes, a Danish house in Latin America. Says the customer, "I had consistently been pulled in to Scandinavia's straightforward, negligible, however amazingly comfortable plan. Bjarke was an undeniable decision. His work has a really practical side to it, rather than different acclaimed designers who benefit structure over function."Practicality, the customer stresses, was particularly significant, given that "the plot of land was not a simple one." Long and wedge-molded, with houses on either side, and a precarious drop into a forested crevasse, the site requested imaginative arrangements—even more so since two develop palm trees previously occupying the parcel should have been protected. Ingels was down. "What you think would be the perfect circumstance yet is really the most exceedingly awful circumstance is a finished clean slate," he says. "Here there were such a significant number of requirements. Those overwhelming impacts give character."An beginning structure to a progression of symmetrical volumes was rejected because of a miscommunication about structure limitations—generally advantageous. At the point when Ingels began without any preparation, he organized the customer's solicitation for a lap pool. Pressing a 50-meter one onto the property at an inclining, Ingels separated the land into two triangular bundles, one for the house and one for the nursery. That decided the sporadic type of the structure, which ascends from a triangular base to a rectangular rooftop, yielding an upset pyramid with a hyperbolic paraboloid confronting the nursery. (Ingels tried the mind boggling geometry in models, cutting a square of froth with hot wire.) To execute that in glass would have cost a fortune, so he picked solid, cast in situ, with rectangular window dividers set back on each floor to make terraces."In numerous ways the house is in the soul of present day ism—straightforward lines, basic materials, rooms as ordinary as could be expected under the circumstances—however with the serious impact of one noteworthy choice," says Ingels, alluding to the slanting pool, which he analyzes to a characteristic hindrance like a stone or a spring. "We weren't ensured that it would have been an incredible house, however we touched base at something brimming with character."Inside and out, he has arranged a scope of astute encounters. The three patios outline one of a kind perspectives—all nursery at the base, all crevasse at the top. A solitary, straight-shot staircase, in the mean time, cuts the insides fifty-fifty, similar to a separation point, enabling him to part every one of the main two stories into stunned planes. (In spite of the fact that the house has three stories, it feels like there are five levels, not including the storm cellar.) "You scarcely see, however the stair is continually crossing over these changes," says Ingels, taking note of that these slight movements make differed roof statures and a more noteworthy feeling of straightforwardness between floors. "You end up with a house that has three-dimensional complexity."In front, guests enter through a pulled-up corner of the generally solid façade, venturing past the rotating glass entryway into the center level, which contains the living and feasting zones. (Vehicles, in the interim, can plunge by lift into a storm cellar carport that appends a wine basement and tasting room.) The kitchen, two visitor rooms, and staff quarters are altogether focused inside an oak-clad volume inside the house, enabling the three stories to work as one persistent room, with the ace suite up top. Every morning the customer and his accomplice dive to the nursery level, working out in the rec center and yoga room, which watch out onto the pool, a dark rock strip that compromises of the roofline and settles in the house at one end.Ingels fans, of whom there are currently nearly 645,000 on Instagram—incredible for a planner—may have expected a ski slant on the rooftop, as in his Copenhill squander treatment office, or a heap of squares, similar to his Lego House, or even an altogether underground nest, similar to his M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark. The designer's mark, in any case, has never been a style however a system, one that he is presently applying to other private houses, in Denmark and New Jersey. "In a general sense I confide all the while," clarifies Ingels, his leg swung over an armrest with trademark swagger. "I believe that in the event that you nail down specific parameters, without recognizing what the last outcome will be, you can settle on incredible choices and love what occurs. As opposed to forcing an answer, you set off on an adventure certain that you will arrive."    

For a long time, nearly insofar as they've been a couple, Rodman Primack and Rudy Weissenberg told companions they were consider ing moving to Mexico. They frequently went there, Primack in his job as a closeout house official and later innovative chief of the Design Miami fairs, Weissenberg as a televi-sion maker, and both fell hard for its casual pace and social éclat. They constructed a friend network. They began purchasing from the neighborhood craftsmanship exhibitions. In any case, when they unloaded their cases in Mexico City this past spring, "everybody resembled, 'WHAT?!?' " Weissenberg says. "We found there's a distinction between saying you're moving to Mexico and moving to Mexico." They haven't thought back. The thought, hatched for such a long time that it gradually advanced with them, was that Mexico City would be another command post—while regardless they held an a dependable balance in New York City—that would give Primack extra headquar-ters for his flourishing inside structure and–texture business, RP Miller (he made a stride again from the reasonable world in 2019), and give Weissenberg a vantage from which to dispatch new pursuits in illuminated land improvement (he as of late earned a degree at Harvard's Graduate School of Design). "What do you add to New York City these days in the structure space?" he inquires. "Mexico is where you can in any case add something to the story, where you can have an effect." Their companion Tatiana Bilbao, one of the nation's driving planners, was extending her studio in the capital and offered to impart the new floor to them. That equivalent evening, they found out about a two-room condo not a long way from the workplace in a skyscraper they'd since a long time ago appreciated, structured by Augusto Álvarez in the mid 1950s as a sort of quarters for a rich private neighborhood, where the widows, aunties, and grandmas of said inhabitants would in general live. Aside from its account claim—the two men have an affection for their grandmas—the structure was one of the city's first condo towers in the pioneer style, a period they adore. Before the papers were marked, they recognized what the foundation of their inside would be: a bunch of smooth '70s pieces Weissenberg had acquired from his Guatemalan grandparents, including Afra and Tobia Scarpa's trippy caramel calfskin parlor seating, which currently directions the front room. To balance things, they chose to shop locally. As they started visiting specialists and originators around the city, Primack notes, "we understood that there's so much incredible structure happenin in Mexico at the present time, yet not so much a stage for it. It just turned out to be certain this would be something energizing for the two of us to chip away at together." And why not? Their new collabora-tion, AGO Projects (a free interpretation of the Spanish "I do"), will speak to a stable of contemporary makers and help in the acknowledgment of new work. It appeared in September with a show in their common office space, which has been cut up into two adaptable rooms.It helps that the pair's preferences are amazingly all around adjusted, in work and throughout everyday life. "We cherish the high quality—for us the carefully assembled is genuinely extravagance," Weissenberg says, an estimation borne out in the exceptionally lingered rugs, woven surge seats, vintage earthenware production from the Lagunilla swap meet, and a furry sisal seat—kind of a push sweeper crossed with an Afghan dog—swarming their condo. Huge numbers of the creators in AGO's program make appearances here, among them Fabien Cappello, Fernando Laposse, and Pedro y Juana. In excess of an expansion of the undertaking space, however, their house is a spot to demonstrate gatherers what living with experience some contemporary structure can resemble. Grasping is the word Weissenberg uses to depict the couple's maximalist approach, and it is difficult to enhance, particularly as it applies to shading. Huge numbers of the rooms are wrapped in inconspicuous degrees of a solitary shade: aloe green for the examination, a saffron kitchen, ultramarine in the main room, a coral visitor shower. The impact, Primack says, echoes of a portion of his preferred Milanese condos. "I don't comprehend why everybody's so terrified of utilizing shading," Weissenberg includes gaily. "I think right shading makes space and feeling." Uniting the rooms is a hardwood floor recolored profound mineral green, a motivated takeoff from the reddish red so normal somewhere else around town. Weissenberg regulated the demanding months-long remodel; they teamed up on the style. "Rudy was truly cutting tile," Primack says. "That is not valid, yet on the off chance that he could've been cutting the tile, he would've been cutting the tile." Though the floor plan stayed unblemished, pretty much every surface was supplanted or restored, regularly to oblige work from the couple's blossoming craftsmanship accumulation. In the parlor on a dark tile divider drapes a 2018 painting by Donna Huanca, its surface abrasive with sand against a throbbing blue field. In the lounge area, a monochromatic blended media work by Jason Yates hangs over a mahogany table by Lanza Atelier that is turned into Primack's office until the new workspace is done. He couldn't be more joyful, encompassed by the specialists—and the masterfulness—he and Weissenberg love. "We have such a significant number of tutors here," Primack says of his received city, "gourmet experts, exhibition proprietors, style planners, keepers. We came in light of the fact that every one of these individuals were doing such fascinating things—and for us to join this network we've known in an alternate manner is what's truly driving us." And of their enthusiastic new corner of the Mexico City scene, Weissenberg includes: "Moderation is exaggerated    

egg collectıve Just solicit this trio from New York carpenters: The eventual fate of furniture-production is female "We were the principal ladies in the woodshops where we worked before beginning our organization," notes Crystal Ellis of Egg Collective, the New York–based plan firm that she propelled with companions Stephanie Beamer and Hillary Petrie in 2011. After eight years, they have left their friends in the residue, fabricating a notoriety for perfectly created furniture while shaking up the male-overwhelmed field."We experienced childhood during the '80s and '90s, with the ascent of mass industrialism, so we consider our to be as the absolute opposite of that," Ellis clarifies of their all encompassing structure theory. "We need the pieces to outlast us." Locally made—regardless of whether in their very own Brooklyn woodshop or close by stone or metal ateliers—Egg's most recent manifestations guarantee to stand the trial of time. The Finn mixed drink table, for example, fuses three unmistakable kinds of joinery, while the Martie work area sets barrel shaped piloti with a bended top. LOUIS POULSEN X OLAFUR ELIASSON Louis Poulsen presents OE Quasi Light by Olafur Eliasson. Propelled by the connection between scientific structures, the enormous scale pendant uses geometry to shape light and fortifies the common thought that great light approaches great life. The splendid LEDs are inserted in the aluminum edge and sparkle in towards the apparently coasting polycarbonate center DELINEA BY SCAVOLINI If you're longing for a modern kitchen, one where the subtleties genuinely have the effect—a kitchen with a terrific picturesque nearness—the DeLinea model planned by Vuesse could be the ideal arrangement. Amicable and enticing outlines, in vogue materials, and a really contemporary measured quality outcome in the formation of a solid, up-to-date sway and an amazing feeling of inviting warmth. The broad selection of completions likewise makes it conceivable to reproduce intriguing material sensations and modify each part of the DeLinea accumulation TEFAF NEW YORK FALL 2019 OPENS NOVEMBER 1 TEFAF is known all through the world for showing the most noteworthy bore and broadest scope of fine arts. This fall, an energizing new encounter anticipates guests in the second floor time frame rooms at the Park Avenue Armory. TEFAF's broad scope of contributions will be included in charming discoursed as the best old style and present day craftsmanship vendors join in curating shared corners to mirror the manner in which that authorities live and minister their homes today    

Get some information about her work, and the Manhattan creator talks fixings. "There's not one approach to comprehend a mate-rial," she says, calling attention to a gleaming dark table in her housetop studio on Union Square. Made by configuration star Max Lamb and utilized for gatherings just as suppers kindness of star culinary specialists, the thick piece appears to be slashed out of volcanic stone. In any case, it ends up being featherweight, elastic covered polystyrene, a revela-tion that shocks, much like Goto's undertakings for the craftsmanship world (Hauser and Wirth, the Calder Foundation), eateries (Aldea, Corkbuzz, Morimoto), and private customers (gourmet specialist Daniel Boulud). "My all-encompassing vision is to make spaces that permit various elucidations," she includes. "That is the magnificence of engineering—it relies upon who is taking a gander at it.Take, for example, the shining gem box workspace she formulated for herself and her staff. A guardian's shed that was once part of imaginative polymath Jean-Paul Goude's loft, the 1,500-square-foot structure has been dressed with specially reflected dark treated steel that reflects and refracts the horizon, "so the structure isn't static." Indoors is an exchange of hard edges and natural accents. The grain of the Douglas-fir floor floods the space like undulating water. (A similar nectar light boards have been utilized for racks that hold Goto's accumulation of plumb bounces.) The uncovered metal superstructure seems secured with softened cowhide, because of Benjamin Moore's Distant Gray, Goto's mark paint; Flemming Lassen seats are clad in feathery sheepskin; an Alexander Calder versatile tenderly influences; and a vintage Charlotte Perriand entryway prompts a small chamber where a colleague can ruminate as a light emission follows the space. "I'm not terrified of enrichment, yet you can control materials to express that," Goto says, taking note of, with a chuckle, that the floor's grain is "my likeness wallpape    

On an ongoing evening, the Paris condo of Benjamin Paulin and Alice Lemoine is obvious bare put something aside for a solitary shelf and a couple of bits of workmanship—not actually what you'd expect chez the child of the late, incredible French architect Pierre Paulin (1927–2009). "Here and there we don't have anything and once in a while we have four couches," notes Benjamin, clarifying that their missing furnishings, all by his dad, is on credit for displays in London and Frankfurt. On the off chance that that seems like a game of seat juggling, they prefer it as such. "At the point when it's vacant," Benjamin says, "the young ladies run and move. At the point when it's full, they hop from piece to piece. It's a fun game the two different ways." Adds Alice, "We would prefer not to be fixed in something that doesn't move. In French we call it getting too bourgeois."It's no mishap that Paulin plans are at the fore-front of chic by and by. In 2013 the family formally propelled Paulin, Paulin, Paulin, committed to directing his dad's inheritance into another period. In the time since, they have reliably understood his plans, numerous never delivered in his lifetime. (New releases would now be able to be found at Ralph Pucci in the States.) It hasn't hurt that Benjamin and Alice are youthful and hiphe low maintenance artist with a few rap collections added to his repertoire, she a previous style planner with a group of friends that incorporates Joseph Dirand and Virgil Abloh When the couple found their loft, set in the ninth arrondissement, three years prior, a primary selling point was that the structure's staircase would be wide enough for moving enormous, awkward pieces in and out. Paulin was well known for the outsize size of a significant number of his plans, which introduced the provocative, loungy temperament of the 1970s and won him commissions for the Louver and the Élysée Palace. Take the Big C couch, which has recovered its place in their front room. Long and sin-uous, the piece can situate twelve kids or five or more grown-ups. At the point when the model was conveyed to New York City in 2014, the proprietor, a notable draftsman, needed to thump down a divider before moving it in. Notwithstanding a couple of Alice's family legacies, everything in the couple's loft is Paulina blend of new and vintage. The white feasting set that grapples the open kitchen was first structured in 1972 however . 12only acknowledged in 2014 for a Louis Vuitton venture at Design Miami. (There are only two in presence, however there are plans to dispatch a constrained version.) The workplace, in the interim, includes a reedition of the Élysée feasting suite that Paulin made for French president Georges Pompidou in 1971. While it went into a little creation at the time, Benjamin clarifies that the assembling procedure wasn't consistent with his dad's secluded structure. "We are currently doing the principal genuine release," he says, taking note of that the new forms are altogether made in French ateliers by numerous individuals of similar hands that contacted the firsts. "The craftsmans have a genuine love for the structure and for my dad's legacy."Family pride is absolutely noticeable all around at the separated ment, which serves as a survey space for prospec-tive customers. "It's where we are resting," jests Benjamin. "There are kids here throughout the day with pencils and chocolate cakes. It's the way [customers] can envision the furniture in their own place. At last, you need to live with it. Regardless of whether it's lovely, you can't lose the capacity    

Familiar signs of spring are gathering in the garden. Bird droppings move miraculously along the leaves of our lemon trees, while butterfl ies with handbreadth wingspans fl utter languidly overhead. The swallowtails are early this year, their breeding cycle hastened by an unusually warm winter. Our orchard swallowtails usually emerge from their winter cocoons in late September. This year, however, they have already laid their fi rst batch of eggs, and the early instars are chomping into our citrus leaves, ignored by hungry birds unwilling to tuck into what appears to be fresh dung.Over the next fi ve weeks, the instars (caterpillars) will moult and grow, turning greener and sporting two bright red horns that spring out when the caterpillar is harassed, spraying a pungent, irritating chemical over the unfortunate predator.With a wingspan of 13cm, this is one of our largest butterfl ies, and its brief adult life is devoted to dispersal and reproduction. Males often have to search long and hard to fi nd females to mate with, guided by wing patterns that are hidden from our eyes. Each wing bears more than one million overlapping scales. Some are pigmented, while others are transparent and split the light into brilliant iridescent patterns in the ultraviolet and infra-red spectrum.When a male fi nds a female, he shows his readiness to mate by hovering close to her and fl uttering his wings. If she is receptive, copulation may last for an hour or longer.The female lays her eggs on the leaves of plants that provide food for the caterpillars. These include native orange and fi nger lime as well as introduced citrus. Planting citrus trees will encourage these beautiful butterfl ies to visit your garden and help to maintain this species in urban areas.The early breeding of our swallowtails is a sign that climate change is infl uencing the life cycles of plants and animals. Scientists are monitoring these processes, and are calling on the public to help by recording sightings of swallowtails and other species using the free ClimateWatch app.

We harvested our first home-grown bananas this year. I don’t know why it took me so long to plant some, but I’m glad I finally did. They thrive in our subtropical climate, with minimal effort. We didn’t have to wait long for our first crop. In less than 18 months, we were harvesting more bananas than we knew what to do with. Some went to friends – my neighbour laced them with lime juice and chilli before dehydrating them and, thankfully, bringing some back – and many were frozen for smoothies. There’s more fruit forming already. I don’t think we’ll ever need to buy bananas again!getting startedBananas are large, fleshy, suckering herbaceous plants, with multiple trunks, or pseudostems, growing from a sizeable corm underground. Mature pseudostems produce a long flower stalk on which fruit form. The bunches can be huge, carrying up to 12 hands, each with 10–20 fingers. The stems die after fruiting and should be promptly cut out to keep the clump tidy and healthy. Removing excess suckers restricts crowding and optimises fruit size and quality. Sword suckers, which are the ones with narrow, sword-like leaves, can be dug up and planted elsewhere in the garden to increase your stock. Don’t bother planting the broad-leafed suckers, as they produce smaller bunches. While anyone can grow bananas in their backyard, the carefree days of starting a crop from a sucker shared by a friend are long gone. Bananas are susceptible to diseases that are readily transferable. Let loose, they could have devastating effects on our banana industry. The plants you grow should always be sourced from an accredited banana nursery that produces disease-free, tissue-cultured plants. For years, backyard gardeners in commercial production areas needed a permit to grow bananas. Permits are no longer required in Queensland, but are still mandatory in parts of northern New South Wales. Don’t let that put you off, though. It takes little time the lodge the farm and plant supliers are normally willing to help. Biosecurity is important and regulations change all the time, so check with your local Department of Primary Industries o. growing & harvestingBananas thrive in warm, humid, coastal, frost-free areas of Australia. The further south you go, the more protection these tropical plants need. In cooler temperate areas south of Sydney, choose a nice toasty spot in front of a north-facing wall, to keep your plants happy in winter.They like plenty of sun with protection from wind, and do best in close company of other plants, which increases humidity. The soil should be fertile, rich in compost and well-drained, with a pH of about 6.5. Bananas like water but hate wet feet, so mound the soil if drainage is poor.Spring to summer is the best time to plant. Space plants 3–4m apart and bury the stem a little deeper than it was in the pot – this helps with initial stability and discourages early suckering. Keep moist but don’t overwater. A cool way to grow them is in a circle (see overpage).Once plants are up and growing, apply a complete organic fertiliser every 6–8 weeks from spring to autumn. Add a little potash when fruiting stems appear. Water deeply in dry times and keep well mulched.

With growing awareness of the decline in bee populations around the world, and concerns about using glyphosate-based products, today’s gardeners are reaching less for chemicals and more for organic and natural solutions to maintain their homes and gardens.Engineered and manufactured in France (Europe being a leader in the eradication of harsh chemicals), Hozelock Pure Sprayers have been designed for use with naturally derived pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilisers and homemade solutions.Available in 5L and 2L sizes, the sprayers are trusted equipment that allows you to use chemical-free, natural concentrates, and homemade solutions incorporating white vinegar, baking soda, soap and so on, without the risk of damage or corrosion.Specially formulated rubber seals are resistant to the abrasive and acidic solutions that can be found in some homemade and naturally derived gardening and cleaning products.The sprayers also have a resistant fi breglass lance and nozzles, along with a fi lter suitable for homemade manure infusions, such as worm excretions, and other manure-based substances.Additionally, the 2L Pure Sprayer has a 360-degree function for spraying the undersides of leaves or for home cleaning.  

Most plants we grow in our home gardens enjoy a bit of a feed. But what, how much and how often varies widely. Roses and citrus are examples of ‘gross feeders’, meaning they enjoy generous amounts of fertiliser, regularly. Productive plants such as vegetables are likely to grow better if they have access to extra nutrients, while indigenous plants grown in their natural environment won’t need fertiliser to perform at their best.The nutrients that plants require in the greatest quantities are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), and a fertiliser containing all three is described as a complete fertiliser. Many other nutrients – even minute trace elements – are just as essential for growth, although they are required in lesser amounts. Most of these nutrients are absorbed in the water taken up by the plant’s roots.Generally, it’s best to monitor your plants and fertilise only when they are in active growth or about to start growing. Container plants must be fertilised regularly, though, because some nutrients leach out easily, and the ongoing breakdown of organic matter in potting mix competes with the plant for nitrogen.choosing a fertiliserPlants such as shrubs, trees and ornamental grasses can be fed with a general-purpose fertiliser. This can also be used for slower growers, such as orchids, succulents and indoor plants, but at much-reduced levels and frequency.If you’re unsure, choose a fertiliser that’s labelled for a particular plant type. Lawn foods, for example, are relatively high in nitrogen because nitrogen promotes leafy growth, which is exactly what your lawn wants. Citrus and rose foods promote growth and production, but rose food often has added potassium because it enhances disease resistance. A number of Australian native plants have evolved in low-phosphorus soils, so most native fertilisers stay on the safe side and contain little or no phosphorus.Camellia and azalea foods are formulated to suit the acidic conditions favoured by these plants.Fertilisers are either derived from natural sources or synthetically manufactured, and some are a combination of both. If you want to grow an organic garden, look for organic certification on the pack. Although these products are more expensive, you can be sure that organic certification is strictly controlled in Australia.Here are the different types of fertilisers available and how they work:Compost and manures make wonderful soil conditioners, as they encourage microbial activity, improve soil structure and increase the soil’s moisture- and nutrient-holding capacity, but they are relatively low in nutrients. Some manufacturers process manure into pellets, thereby slowing the nutrient release, and chemical nutrients are sometimes added at this stage.Blood and bone releases very slowly and generally doesn’t contain a measurable amount of potassium, so extra potassium is often added to this natural fertiliser. Inorganic fertilisers are sometimes termed chemical or synthetic fertilisers, and come in granular or slow-release forms. They tend to be good sources of nutrients but are based on fertiliser salts, so can damage soil and plants if not applied with care and according to the label.