Letter from Julia
Dear garden friend,
Unearthed. was launched as a subscription-based online magazine in 2023, about 4 months before my husband and I drastically decided to upend our lives, buy a little butchery (with no previous experience) in a gorgeous village on Banks Peninsula- our favourite place in the world.
This new adventure required my full input and involvement so I made the difficult decision to refund subs and open up Unearthed. where it could remain as a sporadically updated garden-based blog and archive for all interested gardeners until I once again return to my passion!
Telling the stories of others is ingrained in me as a blogger of 16 years, columnist and author of 3.5 gardening books! So I WILL be back, and with the purchase of a lovely little valley home and a new garden to inch toward my new vision, there will updates here again soon.
In the meantime, please explore and enjoy the shared knowledge here, roaming gardens from both down under and the northern lands!
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Julia xoxoxoxoxo
Latest Features
WOVEN WIND BREAKS
My sister Caroline demonstrates how she is turning excess tree prunings into rustic, protective windbreaks in her new exposed vegetable garden.
Follow the easy going tutorial and find inspiration and ideas for your own patch through her relentless creativity in not letting anything go to waste.
SPRING AT FISHERMANS BAY
The greatest source of inspiration and learning I have found to aid my own gardening adventure, is returning to visit seasonally responsive gardens at different times of the year.
Here I give you a window into world renowned Fishermans Bay garden in early spring, with a film and feature to compare it to it’s summer show.
FUNGI AS COLLABORATORS
Explore the concept of fungi as a collaborator in our gardens and natural environments within this extract from Liv Sisson’s fabulous book Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide.
SPRING IN THE VEGE GARDEN
Introducing Anna Hiatt and the first of her monthly columns offering us insights into food growing from her beautiful base in Wanaka, New Zealand.
HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH YOUR GARDEN
An extracted and vastly extended feature from my new book - sharing all the easy-to-action ways you can get creative with photographing your own garden.
ONE BEAUTIFUL TREE
Jenny Cooper celebrates the welcome wonders of spring in her North Canterbury garden before pulling us into a design masterclass of how to be brave and pull trees away from the fences and into focus!
ENTER THE CACTI KINGDOM
Cacti have slipped from ‘collections’ into the spotlight they deserve as hardy and outrageously sculptural elements able to ignite any type of planting. Read on to learn about the plants that cope with the climatic extremes of Central Victoria, Australia.
IN ODE TO THE CHRISTCHURCH BOTANIC GARDENS
Join me for a photographic tour of my favourite spaces within the acclaimed Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
The gardens are a living record and story of both the city’s colonial past and Aotearoa’s ancient vegetation. It supports education, innovation and play while offering us botanical world travel by just exploring the extraordinary, carefully tended plantings. It is a romantic, transporting and active space with a heartbeat - I think quite easily taken for granted by all of us who have stitched it into our own life stories.
LESSONS LEARNED + INSPIRATION GAINED FROM GARDEN VISITS
The further I got into my own garden, the more I noticed others. I became a keen observer of public planting and a very nosey neighbour as I walked my local streets. What people choose to grow in your area is an encouraging signal to you of what your environment and climate can offer your own space.
Read on for the bare basic, but valuable discoveries I unearthed in visiting open gardens.
DON’T MENTION THE WORD BRUNCH
Jenny Cooper delights in the first signs of spring in her North Canterbury garden and once again shares her contemplative process in editing and tweaking her planting for best effect. Discover a wise insight into the use of grasses in the garden! NZ native use and the value of exotic varieties.
THE FRONT GARDEN GETS A MAKEOVER
Join me on the first steps of replacing our formal front garden with a curvier, softer vision! Watch the video to see my bricklayer husband define the new beds and read on for my (experiemental) planting plan.
THE HANNEMANN GARDEN
At first glance, the Hannemann Garden in Alberta, Canada is a boundary-pushing example of the creative potential our suburban spaces hold. A borderless, diverse, and tightly planted little paradise that rises and falls with the extremes of the northern prairie seasons.
Below the surface (quite literally), its sibling curators invite us to explore planting on a deeper level - elevating plants, ecology and cultural considerations to the top of the pile above a purely design-led vision.
THE STONES
There is an abundance to be learned from this story, in particular the importance of letting the environment inspire planting as opposed to dreamy optimism and the punishment that follows. ‘The Stones’ walks a beautiful line of ‘the garden curtsying to the house’ while introducing refreshing, modern approaches of combining architectural succulents with soft grasses and specimen trees.
KNAUTIA
When thinking about what plant to share with you, from the depths of my Christchurch winter, I felt like we needed some uncomplicated cheer - and no garden creature for me is as free loving and happy as Knautia macedonica.
ONLINE INSPIRATION FOR GARDENERS
My gardening adventure has never been in isolation and beyond my growing pile of purchased books I have some favourite spots online that I find myself wandering to - likely in procrastination!
THE POLLINATION GARDENER
This passion that I have for capturing my garden’s moments of magic leaves me very aware and exposed to the way others document their spaces, and the work of Mel Adams has me entirely enthralled.
Enjoy this lovely peek into a photography practice that grew from the depths of Covid isolation and find inspiration to wander your own beds with phone/camera in hand.
VILLALEIGH
I eagerly open Amy Roberts chatty nursery newsletters and pause to enjoy her beautiful posts on Instagram, sucking in their atmospheric seasonal moments.
Elements of Amy’s own story reflect that of so many of us - the discovery of refuge and emotional healing that our gardens and plants so generously deliver.
Enjoy this intimate view into the emergence of a passion and a resulting business.
URBAN REFUGE
Libby Webb and her family transformed their small central Edinburgh yard into an urban Narnia, connecting them deeply to their starkly seasonal climate by creating a private, rich refuge to support their busy lives.
LEANING ON A SPADE IS GARDENING TOO
Jenny Cooper’s July column is a delightful account of her approach to the winter cutback. Join her as she reveals the bones of her garden and reviews the problem plants, unsatisfying beds and precious specimens she is getting tough to save.
MISCANTHUS
As a newbie to the world of miscanthus, I can say that I have thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of their ever-changing annual cycle. From a freshly chopped back clump in late winter to their muted green, lightly variegated fresh growth in spring. Their height and feathery presence seemed to perfectly complement the plants around them at any given time, acting as a soft foil to the shorter spring specimens and then a taller textural support act amid my wild and frothy summer show.
