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

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.”
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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