creative balcony garden for Inner Melbourne tea ceremony school

Chiaki's flowery nook with roses and apple

Today I climbed the stairs of Chiaki and Adam's apartment, finally attending real tea ceremony lessons. The first instructions I received were in how to enter the room in a way that was respectful to the simple flower and the calligraphy scroll, the room's only decorations.

Well, its step in on the left foot, since the flowers occupy the right side of the room, and you want to be open to them from the beginning. There is then a set way of approaching, regulated bows and appreciative gazing. All this, 400 years before Alan Pease' 'Body Language' bestseller.

It so happens that the Formal tatami tea room was least flowery room in the whole apartment. Tea flowers are never showy, they always have a beauty that is only revealed after a patient and dedicated courtship with eyes and heart. Today it was a single sprig of tiny white flowers, hanging in an 'artless' container of bamboo.

Western 'Tea' roses picked by Chiaki for the living room.

Much more approachable to me was the prettiness of the rest of the house, which I suspect is the Chiaki Effect: Flowers seem her natural element, like a goldfish in water. The delicate tea roses here are named after their scent, not purpose - their beauty is to frilly and obvious for the serenity of the Japanese tea room.

Even rubbish bins yearn to be objects of admiration as well as utility.
Chiaki Understands.

In the tea ceremony, not one moment, one object is unworthy of our attention and appreciation.
This spills over into life, I hear.

Their second floor balcony has a forest-like backdrop of green, and is blessed by hypnotic dappled light. I can imagine these newly-weds enjoying sunbeam-lit breakfasts on those warm summer mornings, or defragging after a day Serving the Public, listening to Cicadas ringing.

I'm now wondering what are the best tea ceremony flowers to grow in this sheltered spot. Fragrant small gardinias could be good. Maybe a pond with iris, to evoke the warm rainy season of Japanese June, with its fireflies along misty river banks.


I'm quite fond of the view from this window, the neighbours trampoline nestled in suburban greenery. Just looking at this strange object when my spirits are low has a buoyant effect. All that metal and technology for something so gloriously frivoulous. Tea, flowers, jumping up and down. Ephemral joys, to coax us up and onward when we need it. And we all need it.

Roses for every edible balcony garden

The hot day encoraged my ten-year-old potted rose to blossom. Not wanting the rosebuds to get toasted the next hot day, I brought them inside, and arranged as ikebana.

Inside I could marvel intimately at their unfurling, peaking, and decline over two days. But not wanting the young petals to fade before being appreciated fully, I sprinkled them into in the evenings salad. Rosepetals have a velvety texture, and taste like...salad dressing.

Thai rose petal and cucumber salad by Jill Duplix, photo by Marina Oliphant

Flowers are sometimes maligned as 'Useless ornament' in Permaculture circles, but roses can certinaly defend themselves.

Yes, they give me salad garnish. They also fill the air with fragrance, and give me good endorphins with their beauty. I love blooms as a renewable jewelry alternative, a year-round valentine's day present from God (bless him!).

Cecilia and fragrant rose trout fishing on January 1st 2010 from New Year's Adventure

Aung San suu kyi with her flowers, unsuerpassably beautiful woman.

Some women give more honour to the flower's life than others, by living out the flowers generous, life-giving spirit long after the bloom would have faded. Aung San, I still have lots of good years left, I might still do something special with my life. And my flowers.

Find thorny climbing roses, and they can replace barbed wire and protect your balcony from marauding possums, as the african villages surrond themselves with Briar Hedges to keep out the lions.

Protection by law?
Thorny climbing Rose photo from 'Gardening Resources for Attorneys'

Patio Roses are miniature, prolific flowering, and very tough. The potted one above was reduced to a mere stick after getting lost in the bushes and forgotten. Then with almost no sun, it produced this single brave flower. Lets see how many blooms some regular watering and Seasol liquid will stimulate.

I put its sick mate, the more vividly pink rose, into the ground, where it is taking very good care of itself.

Roses like sunshine and an airy spot, for maximum flowering and to keep any mildew from developing. If their pot is little enough, you can re-position it if its not doing well on a cramped balcony. Better still, gift it to a sunny friend.

For a list of what flowers are good for eating, click on this marvelous website all about edible flowers. I'm now looking for recipes for fuchsias, my favorite balcony garden flower, and now I have a Permacultural excuse for growing them too.

Courtyard garden for dinner

The Desjardins Family cook up lunch at Cecilia's

Last week I got an impromteau 'Vengance Visit' from the Desjardin's family, who I WWOOFed with in November, and found myself asking the courtyard garden to help with lunch ingredients. Being in the city means you get unexpected guests, and having an edible garden means you can fancy up whatever is in the fridge with something fresh and maybe exotic.

Juju picked some chives, mint and 'cats paw' for the Vietnamese carrot salad, a mix of grated carrots with butter-fried nuts, with a sauce of brown sugar, fish sauce, lime and garlic. For a motherless waif, he is a great stylish cook. The pansies in the rocket salad looked extremely gourmet.

Stephan found my sushi-chef housemates knife, and chopped everything in the Samurai spirit that's part of his package - accurate, careful and with rhythm (he is french as well).

Fabian was generally faboulous, as usual, with the angel-rays peeping though the tiredness.

Which got all of us in the end.

We played with the cats, got out the massage bed (best use of time ever), and Cecilia went wild with the hairdryer and 'curls rock' on Stephan. If he grew that mane long and sold it on his 18th brithday, it would pay his way backpacking Europe, I've calculated.

It was wonderful to meet Angelica, the WWOOFer from heaven (via Italy) who was there to soothe and cook for the family in the days after Yukari passed away, in the warm sunny way that have Italians seem put on this planet to do.
Now she is back in Italy, the Desjardins are back in their Sunshine Coast Paradise, waiting for the next lovely wwoofers to come and for a dose of being amazed, amazing, and cooking up love and family. If you go and stay, expect a tropical supermarket of a garden, lots of puppy-like moments of subduing, tussling and being inspired by these beautiful, resiliant boys, and their marvelous Dad.

3D Courtyard Permaculture garden coming to Asaba Art Square, Yokohama bayside

Kazuko Asaba knows how to make children happy. They have been begging their mums to be taken to Asaba's Art Studio after school for decades.


When I first met her 15 years ago, she got me helping out on a kids camp weekend - 20 children camping in her attic. We made face masks, danced on the nearby beach, and had a Dark Universe Experiance, but more about that later. From Mid 2010, Her visitors will be able to add 'Costumed garden Creation' to their list of Asaba-initated experiences.

We have started planning an Edible Sustainable Water-catching garden, and a Fully Costumed, Fully Catered Fantasy Permablitz to make it all happen.Cecilia Macaulay visiting Asaba studio 2008 November

Edible Blue Flowers: Violas, Borage, chive flower, hanging rosemary, sage, and...?

Edible flowers make food spectacular, and gardening a treasure hunt

Blue bottles at Asaba Studio

For sunny spots, yellow climbing roses, chamomille, more violas, yellow nasturtium, day lilly, Japoica honeysuckle, Lotus in ponds.

Useful Cafe herbs: Lemons, limes and Yuzu citrus (potted to be transported to sun and snow-free wintering) rocket, salad leaf, Mint, corriander, salad burnett, shiso, chives, red lettuce,

purple edible water garden with flowform: illustration by Cecilia Macaulay

Tall and shade-creating plants: rasberries on sunny walls, hops and blue grape vines on trellis, maybe with


Share the surplus: Every 2 years Asaba-san gathers a bunch of art teachers, armfulls of donated art materials, and puts on classes in countries where children are so poor, they have never Seen a pencil, and have no idea that you can draw something you can see. Or cannot see yet, but might one day create. Like our garden!

There will be an Aussie Reln wormfarm for making compost, lots of garden art and stepping stone mosiacs, and of course, goldfish in the ponds, and fluffy bantam chickens to turn scraps to eggs.

Cecilia with Grizelda, Madam Bovery, and Marie Antionnete, Rent-A-Chook Bantams

Rare, Useful and Urban - Marie's Herbs at Melbourne's Farmers Markets

Meeting Marie and her Aladdin's Cave of Useful edibles was what really got me hopping at the North Melbourne Farmers Market.

Cecilia and Marie the Horiculturist exchange a meaningful herbal gaze

I bought some Alehoof, which she told me was used to bitter beer before they discovered Hops, and will twine prettily for meters over my blue-flowering courtyard rockery. Till I find an accomplice to brew up something enticing when its ready

Alehoof picture from Cornucopia Seeds another source of rare and thrilling plants.

The Waragul greens are now in, one of very few Australian Natives that are easy to eat (I bet the Megafauna was great though).

Greek Basil, which she tells me is more densely clumping than sweet basil, so good for the aestetic and sharing nature of a tight balcony space, so that was the third of my '4 for $10' deal.

The Salad Burnet with its pretty leaves is the new star of my garden. Won't it look great on a background of tomato bruschetta, or Dramatic on a bed of black wild rice, maybe with red goji berries....


You can find Marie at Weekend Farmer's markets all over the place: Yarraville, Botanic Gardens, Bundoora, Mulgrave, Templestowe, and of course North Melbourne.

Contact Marie on :

economedes@optusnet.com.au

Rachelle buying supplies for her Balcony garden. It seems she lives around the corner from me, and I bet whatever she is growning is gorgeous, so I've been looking up, looking forward to good things.

Delicious Flourishing Tank Gardens at the North Melbourne Farmer's Market

Like a cat in catnip is how I felt visiting the Farmers Market at North Melbourne Primary.

For starters, look how well the above-ground edible gardens are doing, and this is the Second month of our hot Christmas (school) holidays. Two months of 'Home Alone' in a vacant, hot Primary School Yard, yet flourishing. I'm extremely impressed.


This shape of garden is being pioneered by the VEG (VeryEdibleGarden) gang, the same people who got the Permablitz movement going.

The last time I saw the edible educational beds as in-ground gardens, they seemed to flounder.

Apologies to Pat Chapin and the flounder

The cause of success might be Physical - the fluffy compost they are in, the containment of the mulch, or maybe a hidden dripper water supply. But I think its Social - bringing them to the level of our touch and gaze, bringing them to the LoveLine latitude, that makes all the difference. We don't want to step on them, we get intimately interested in their welfare, and maybe start fussing over them.

Balcony garden curtains, ikebana and cord fasteners by Sayaka the Day-WWOOFer

Sayaka the fabric designer:

Holy interlude with roses and needlework

Because I sometimes run out of spare guest bedrooms, but never run out of lovely things to create, I host day-wwoofers - dreamy creatives like myself when I was young, often traveling the world to learn new skills, eat interesting lunches, and add to their ideas bank of domestic possibilities and impossibilities. Then go home till next time.


The day lovely Sayaka came to visit, I happened to have a bunch of fragrant roses my mother dropped off from the countryside. The first thing Sayaka did was an ikebana arrangement, which showed off a beauty Ive never seen in roses - look how the full-blooms arch around the young ones, protecting them, proudly showing them off. And the unruly baby ones just spring out joyfully. "Yes! Its a REAL designer come to visit" - Gazing at what she did to those roses sure made me happy.


Next, she did an analysis on what was wrong with my cord wrapping systems, then designed and created a batch of these. The flower fastener has three functions - since this is after all a Permaculture creation day. For how and why cord fasteners improve your quality of life, see the story at at my Intimate Permaculture blog - Balcony gardens are an excellent place for neat laptops and lamplights but on an edible gardening blog the connection is tenuous.

Lunch under the balcony, the front courtyard, brought to you by Trays.

If you wonder why you don't eat on your balcony or veranda as much as you could, I bet you just don't have trays. Because Aussie shops don't sell trays. The answer to getting the most out of life is often a simple cheap bit of missing hardware. When you visit Tokyo, stock up, distribute them to your balcony gardening friends.

The day was hot, the ceilings high, the curtains long.
The furniture moved, the floor clean and inviting, the work low, focused and mind-chatter quelling.
That's the story of this picture with Cecilia and Sayaka.

I've finally replaced my adequate, factory-made roman blinds my with creamy-lush, tailor made spilling-to-the-floor damask. Invisible hand stiching takes a couple of extra hours, but if you do it with a mate, it becomes two hours of absorbing entertainment. I get though the stitching like a racing car driver. I go near-dizzy with my pace, hypnotized by my steady rhythm. Its a little embarrassing that after all the effort I put into living life, my most dazzling skill is such a maidenly, Victorian-style accomplishment as needlework.


The neighbours kitty is usually quite partial to a nap on my balcony, but hot days require a different stratagy. Here he is enjoying a nap with maximum surface area evaporative cooling posture. Right where my new, heavily-insulated curtains are about to be hung.

Balcony Garden curtains cannot have a seamy side.

Which gets me thinking - that's what Permaculture is all about. About creating a life where there is no embarrassing side to hide. You've just composted it, designed around it, made the arduous fun and friendly, and made it all small enough to manage with yourself and people you like.

Thank-you Sayaka, what a team.