My husband accuses me of being paranoid about rising food prices, but I've got the United Nations on my side.
The 2009-10 season was a bad one for apples, with gale-force winds and cold conditions resulting in few bees on the wing.
The Outram Flower Show is a popular annual event, with flowers, vegetables, children's artworks and an impressive sales table. Gillian Vine meets one of the workers who help make the show so successful.
The upper part of the Dunedin Botanic Garden has a lovely microclimate and great views up the Leith Valley, so - apart from the steep slope - it was the ideal spot for the Otago Acclimatisation...
Gillian Vine reviews the latest round of novels.
"We don't really consider ourselves gardeners," Joy Pringle told judges of the Let's Grow Native competition. "Could have fooled me," muttered judge Jim Mora. More...
The Taipei International Flora Expo has a raft of interesting displays, among them a stunning line-up of bonsai, as Gillian Vine reports.
Many garden gifts have lasting benefits, as Gillian Vine finds.
I made a complete fool of myself last week. I had taken a photo of a local woman at the Taipei International Flora Exposition, and I emailed it to her. Back came a reply in Chinese, so I...
George Scott's grandmother, Euphemia, never threw anything away, something for which George and his wife, Mary, are grateful. Family papers include not only a coloured concept plan drawn up...
We're told that Tasmania is just like home. It is and it isn't. It is because some natives, such as tree ferns, are similar to ours and many introduced plants do as well in Tasmania as in Otago and...
I always thought oka (yams) and artichokes were bomb-proof, resistant to every pest around, but this past season, I've learned otherwise. New Zealand's major lawn and pasture pests, native...
Ruth Ahern has knobbly knees - and she loves them. Her "knees" are at the base of a swamp cypress (Taxodium distichum var. distichum), one of many large trees in her 1ha Waikouaiti garden...
Startled by the click of my camera, a New Holland honeyeater flicks its tail and flies off a railing at Inverawe, then settles to some serious foraging in a patch of Correa reflexa a few metres...
When southern gardeners were huddling inside last month, Andrew Steens was planting out lettuce and spinach seedlings, and putting in his first early potatoes. That is one difference between...
Mild days over the next few weeks often have cold southerlies snapping at their heels, so instead of rushing out to sow seeds - except perhaps some late broad beans - concentrate on getting your...
Four years ago, when she went with her sister to the "lovely" Blenheim farmers' market, Fionna Hill bought some microgreens and discovered a new way to eat vegetables.
Having drifted around Ellerslie, with its acres of space, 2ha did not sound much land on which to stage a festival of 31 gardens and dozens of other displays. What's more, the third Singapore...
Laid out in 1935, during Alfred Buxton's second foray into South Otago, Lesmahagow, in Benhar, retains original elements, including some fine trees, part of the orchard and the remains of a grotto...
Lilies are the world's most popular cut flowers, beating roses into second place. Tomorrow, the Otago Lily Society is auctioning dozens of bulbs, including some rare and unusual species. Gillian Vine reports.