Boot-dwellers

“The first plants I planted when I moved into my new house. No longer do I live in my boots. Now I had some floorboards.”

Tealia, Tempe

Green groupies

“Duck & Croc roll together and have lived in 3 states and have many aunties and thrive in a green loved environment.”

Annie, Redfern

Abandoned gift to be

“These guys are the product of abandonment. They were saved by a work colleague of mine and brought back to the workshop to be given as a gift for his lady. Before his gift is given they will live amongst friends here at Underbelly.”

Edward, Marrickville

farm’s orchid

“Found at my father’s farm after investigating a tree freshly fallen.”

Matt, Redfern

Corporate refugee

“Aloe related. Came from a set. Rescued from corporate flower arrangement.

Given some proper love.”

Alex, Marrickville

Blackberry

“This is a blackberry, the infamous one. Nature’s answer to human’s destruction. One of the pioneers when it comes to reclaim concrete and earth-moving machinery damage.”

Diego, Redfern

Short, strange, underemployed, gentle soul..

“2003 was bad.
Bad for business. Bad for love.
I made the decision to change my love criteria. This time I was on the look out for :
-short
-strange,
-underemployed
but gentle souls who were nifty in the garden.
When he moved house, I helped, of course.
When he couldn’t fit the ficus in the new flat, I helped by taking it to my house.
“A WEED!” someone exclaimed.
“A PEST!” someone else.
I moved house a year later. Nowhere for the ficus. I left it behind.
Not long after, I noticed the short, strange, underemployed, gentle soul was still around.
I left him behind.
I moved house again. I changed partner again.
I left them behind.
One day the ficus came back. It had burst its pot in an attempt to escape.
I repotted it and thought of the short, strange, underemployed, gentle soul. At least he was consistent.
The ficus was consistent. It didn’t get impatient. It didn’t crave change.
It now sits behind the glass, here, between Tracks 3 and 8. It is sheltered from the wind (which it never really liked very much).
Rootbound, but still going.
We have a lot in common, the ficus and me.”

Steve, Redfern

Lisa’s workmate

“This one started from a street plant cutting, which I used in an artwork in 2004. Then I planted it up & it came to keep me company in the library where I work at Sydney Uni – each year it has sat on a sunny windowsill on a different floor in Fisher Library. When I went overseas for a while my work friend looked after it in the jungle of plants around her desk. This year it wasn’t looking good so it’s been re-potted & now lives in the sun on the desk in my studio.”

Lisa, Petersham

Cleopatra

“I found her in the gutter and brought her home to love & cherish. Her name is Cleopatra in memory of that alternative family mum Morticia Addams.

Chris, Petersham

Whiteley & Zebra

“From a small pot on the windowsill, this zebra plant has grown and taken up residence, under the skylight and beside a vibrant Brett Whiteley poster, outside the bathroom. This space has a special lively ambiance and the presence of nature plays an important part.”

Rosanna, Newtown

Staghorn sucker

“Horny Mo-Fo!

I’d like to introduce my horn plant! I was the most prized of birthday prezzies this year! I live on the wall outside at home with snail friends/enemies and my good owners spray me regularly to keep me moist and happy. I’m jealous of Fra n Cesca but I am relatively easy going and a sucker for moist wet corners!”

Andrew, Eveleigh

Succulent kettle

“I took a cutting from someone’s front yard in Bronte while walking home from the beach. I bought the kettle in an op-shop near Barrington Tops. I just trimmed it very dramatically, I couldn’t stop…”

Lee, Mirabelle, Warke & Ubu, Marrickville

Ana’s bromeliads

“These plants are being thinned out from my street garden.
So they are in a pot ready to be replanted after a holiday at Underbelly.
My street garden is 8 years old & now covers a 3-storey factory as well as tubs on the other side of the street.
All the plants & tubs have been scavenged & given by neighbours.
There are doves nesting in the wisteria & cockatoos pruning the Solandra vine on the roof.”

Ana, Surry Hills

Still kickin’ on…

“Still Kickin’ was given to me when I was pregnant with my oldest—- sorry, only baby, who is now 6 months old. I left it at a friend’s place & it has suffered a lot – but there’s one beautiful pink & green leaf, very new & shiny, still going!”

Emma, Redfern

Black Mary’s umbrella

“By 1998, the corpse of “Black Mary” still lay rotting, taking up an entire bay of this building.
Tons and tons of soil were trucked in to form the mountainous backdrop to the story of Australia’s First Aboriginal Lesbian Bushranger. It held great theatrico-socio promise.
If our seating hadn’t collapsed on sponsors’ night, it might have been a different story and Carriageworks in its present gleaming form might not exist … but that’s speculation.
The lake they made downstage of the mountain had long since dried up. The live horses and their riders had disappeared. In their place were the ever increasing piles of waste and building materials from the workers who continued to use the building in its quiet years.
Rats were numerous
The hailstorms had punctured the skylights and let in rain. The rain fell on the mountain of unrealised potential.
Out of the old soil and filth grew this.
The mountain is gone (thank you Sydney Olympic Organising Committee – Ceremonies Department).
But this remains.”

Steve, Redfern

Mr Horizontal

“Mr Horizontal was salvaged from the hard rubbish from just up the street from my house. He was pretty sick & is still lying down”

Marty, Forest Lodge

Alex’s succulent

“This plant came to live with us and is now very happy.”

Alex, Marrickville

Charlotte’s Garden

“Even though I don’t have a garden nature has provided me with these plants that never seem to die, they need very little looking after. I am 83 years old and I have lost much agility that is required to look after a garden. Therefore these evergreen succulents provide me with much pleasure and will do so in the years that I have ahead of me.”

Charlotte, Bondi

Aechmea

“My plant Aechmea is my foster plant. I became its foster mother when my friend Zanny went to Indonesia for a few months. I think it will enjoy its plant holiday in the hanging gardens.”
xx

Claire, Marrickville

Ali’s friend

“I met Sierra when she lived at Lanfranchi’s. She lived in the front room that looked over Cleveland Street. Her room was cozy and colourful and had lots of great light. When she moved to a darker room she really started cultivating the little garden under the stairs and all the poor house plants trying to survive in the warehouse. I think this plant was originally one of them, but I’m not exactly sure. After Sierra moved to a ‘proper house’ I went to visit her and there was this huge plant growing in her bathroom. It was so tall it had reached the ceiling and was beginning to end over with nowhere else to go. She sliced off the top with a knife and gave it to me. ‘Stick it in a pot and it will grow’, she said. I also lived in a new house by this time and was trying to establish a garden in the courtyard so it felt more homely. I stuck the cutting in a pot and it withered and disappeared … Even after six months I couldn’t bring myself to face the fact that it had died … And then miraculously … it came to life … Thank you beautiful Sierra.”
x

Ali, Enmore

Cherie’s ponytail

FRIENDSHIP – LOVE – HOPE
“I love plants. After 7 years in one house, I had many … then there was a house fire … Sitting amongst the ashes a friend asking how I was going I answered that I mostly missed my plants … especially my ponytail plant. In my new house I was beginning to start my new collection … My friend came around with his beloved ‘ponytail plant’. He gave it to me as a token of new beginnings.
What a beautiful friend. Thank you Chris. I gave my plants away when I moved to Sydney … but this one I kept.”

Cherie, Strathfield

Sumu’s little Lucifer

“’Lucifer’ arrived on our balcony one day – he may have emerged from the Jungle or been abandoned by his previous owners – we are also unsure if his current state reflects our neglect or his own nihilistic streak?
Society made him what he is today.”

Sumu, Darlington

David’s

“This plant is the last surviving plant from my mother. She died 6 years ago & all the others have died. She had a spikey but beautiful character, much like a cactus.”

David, Newtown

Brenda’s Gin

“A twig of a tree
in the empty
vessel of the
Empire’s tears.
Monkey do, monkey
see, monkey fears.”

Brenda, Haberfield

Privet rave

One Bonsai Privet’s Story

“Twenty-five years ago I was removed from a chook pen in postcode 2454
and put in a pot.

What could I do to stop it? Nothing.

What have I done about it? Adapted

The carer is not so smart and endlessly resists the reality of being
root bound in a pot.

But we Privets are hardy, so I soldier on, or endure, as a less war
like species would probably say.

If they could.

And it’s not all bad. I listen to Bach, and am treated with moderate
respect.”

Paula, Redfern

chiara’s tale

This plant was left on the desk one early morning.
We loved the presence of a little jumping spider!
Grazie Chiara!

FRA ‘N CESCA

“Fra ‘n Cesca are my two little succulents! They have been living with us since the day I went out to Glebe’s market to find a present for my sister’s birthday – I got her a pendant and two plants for me on that day.

My sister’s name is Francesca (Fra n Cesca) and she loves succulents! Back home, in Milan, Italy she has at least 20 different types of these plants and it was a tradition for me to bring her a little succulent on my way back from every travel. Now I am in Australia. I have been living in Sydney for 15 months and I miss her really heaps, but unfortunately I haven’t go back yet. That’s why I have Cesca ‘n Fra in my house…I’ve shown their pics to the “real” Francesca, and she loves them (Cesca is her favourite). They are lovely little succulent, that remind me of my younger sister! I love them!”

Chiara, Redfern

Lucas’s tale

Mama Cactus

“On new years eve, 2001, a bunch of us went for a big bike ride
around to lots of different parties – in Darlinghurst, Surry
Hills, and Glebe. We figured it was a good way to get around
town because public transport and taxi are a nightmare on
new years, and it’s fun to ride in a pack, getting a little
drunker. Towards the end of our night (maybe half past three)
we were riding through Glebe. Jane was there, and Sara Sauce
and Elaine I think. We stumbled across a party which we hadn’t
known about and just popped in. Everyone loves a few extra
guests on new years. I remember meeting Lisa Pryor at this
party, she writes urban reports for the Herald now days, and I
talked to her about her unreal estate project. As we were
leaving near the wooden fence outside this Glebe house I
spotted the embryo of Mama Cactus – just a fragment in the
dust. I picked it up and shoved it in my pocket. A few days
later I discovered the fragment again, when I put it through a
load of washing. It was looking a bit shriveled but I found a
terracotta pot and shoved it in anyway, and put it on my
windowsill. It lived on the windowsill for ages without
anything happening, but one day a bud appeared (maybe a few
months later) and from then on it began to take off. The new
bud was so youthful and bright green in comparison with the
shriveled original stub. I really liked this cactus. Every
couple of months a new bud would appear on top of the latest
one. I took the cactus with me to Adelaide when I did an artist
in residence at the experimental art foundation. The cactus
traveled on the dashboard of the transit van. After a while
bits began to drop off the cactus. I shared these into new
pots and they continued to grow. One of these I gave to Elena
for her birthday in 2004. Jane and I painted “ELENA’S PETITE
CACTUS” on the side of the pot. but now Elena’s Petite Cactus
is much larger than her mum, and Elena tells me that the E.P.C
has itself given birth to many offspring.

The End.”

Lucas, Petersham.

See below for Elena’s Tale

mark’s special green friend

mark

“My grandmother was such a green thumb. This plant was one of four that she gave me years ago, and the beginning of my personal love of plants.

Nanna nena, my grandmother, passed away late last year, so this plant is extra special now – like she lives with me in my studio.”

Mark, Camperdown

ali’s tale

Yesterday was a great day for the Hanging Gardens & Other Tales.
Many willing plant lovers parted themselves from special friends, to enrich the display of beautiful tales.
below is the tale told by Ali’s green friends:

“I thought I was a total brown-thumb, death to plants, until the day my ex-girlfriend took me around her garden and picked a little pup off each of her favourite succulents, sent me home cradling them gently in my lap. Watching those little plants thrive inspired me like nothing else. I was out every morning exclaiming over each new millimetre of growth. An obsession was born.
Last time I moved house I brought two trailer loads of plants with me.
Finding intriguing objects to contain my plants is my secondary obsession. Tea-pots, tea-cups, colanders, saucepans & boots have all served.
These two plants are descendants of the pups that kick-started this whole obsession.”

Ali, Newtown

Thorny tales

“This plant was given to me as a gift during a Polish christmas celebration. It propagates very easily, you just break a branch off and stick it in the ground, and that’s how I received it. My friend has given away many of these plants, and I have continued to break off parts and give them them away also. This one plant is spreading far and wide.”

Garth, Waterloo
Crown of Thorns

it’s all happening out there, in the big wide space!

The space is slowly filling with plants and stories.
Here’s Elena with her special cactus Petite.
She’s very fond of her green friend, which has been living with her for several years.
And below is Petite’s story:


“For my sixth birthday my dad’s friend Lucas gave me a pot full of dirt, so i thought.
I took it home and a couple of weeks later a little green head poked out.
It kept growing until Petite is what she is now, not quite petite as she once was.
Now that she’s part of the Hanging Garden she can finally be re-united with her mother, as Lucas has given Petite’s mum to the garden to show.
Petite’s mum now gets the chance to see some of her grand-children which are living in the pot with Petite.
And so is Petite’s story.

..a spooky one to start with

“We got this one from the house we were living in,
about 10 years ago, more even.. 14?
This house was haunted, fully possessed …i was nearly snuffed out one night, i woke up from a dream and was in that nearly-awake state and opened my eyes, nothing was there, i couldn’t see anything but the room, but i was fully gasping for breath like if someone was pushing a cushion on my face and i had to extend my arm to push it away whatever it was..
only then it stopped.
Fully haunted house..
Indy was with us and she was always spooked. She would stand up and bark, and follow with her head a point traveling through the room.. and if you looked good, at times, you could see a strange light, a luminescence travelling through the room..
..
This plant was the only plant in the whole garden.
We got it out and took with us..
that’s why of the skeleton.

It doesn’t look very good at the moment.
It’s alrite thou.
It needs a bit of air and sun.
some rain would do it good.

The pot came from house too..”

Matt, Redfern