#Botanical Gardens in Brisbane

[iamadarshbadri]

Brisbane: Places to Visit and Things to Do

Brisbane is Australia’s third-largest city after Sydney and Melbourne. I moved to Brisbane for my studies at the University of Queensland in early January 2024. I must admit I haven’t travelled as much as I wished. But I have travelled around a bit. The commute is worthwhile, given the use of Go-Card for all services—ferries, trains, and buses—across Queensland. Travelling by ferry is one of the…

[statelibraryqueensland]

Wading through the vanilla extract flood memes of February 2023.

(Wooden boat being used to ferry pedestrians in Brisbane's 1893 floods, LINK)

[urlocalbone]

Love is the flower you've got to let grow- John Lennon

City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane

all photos mine

[earthhammer]

[faggotfungus]

Tree in the City Botanic Gardens (aka: Brisbane Botanic Gardens) Alice Street, Brisbane (1936)

[infirmux]

[finelytaylored]

[steventureau]

"Why is the Nepalese Peace Pagoda at South Bank Parklands?

The Nepalese Peace Pagoda was originally commissioned and installed at South Bank for Expo 88. Following its success, it became a coveted item, with several international bidders vying to keep it. It remains here today thanks to a generous donation from philanthropists Frank and Myra Pitt, in addition to contributions from Brisbane locals, the Australian Government and Brisbane City Council."

[mooiphotography]

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[dazzlerswatch]

Everyday Can Be An Amazing Adventure

Many say they “live vicariously” through us as we travel to exotic ports and see things relatively few people will ever see. But, the truth is everyday can be an adventure if you just....

So often over the years we’ve had people tell us how much they enjoy following our adventures. Many say they “live vicariously” through us as we travel to exotic ports and see things relatively few people will ever see. But, the truth is that everyday can be an adventure if you just take time to look around you and participate.  As we sit here on Dazzler, who is by all accounts empty, we are…

[westsidefloodservices]

water, flood, and fire damage restoration services in Melbourne

Our flood damage restoration services in Melbourne are designed to help you recover from the aftermath of a flood. Our team of experts works tirelessly to restore your property and belongings back to their original state. We use advanced equipment and techniques to ensure quick and effective restoration, so you can get back to your normal life as soon as possible.

[obversity]

Found some frogs at the Brisbane botanic gardens 🥰

[avidreadersandemergingwriters]

Fabulous light show at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens.

[thebearthatreads]

April Fools Reverse Write Game (I know I'm super late)

So @maskedemerald tagged me for this way back in April and well my schedule and life have been chaotic the last few months so I'm only getting to it now - my apologies.

Rules: Write a scene from your WIP or in your WIPs setting where the character's roles are reversed! Make it as short or as long as you like! Then tag some people! Don't forget to tell us a little about the original roles too!

WIP: Chimera

For the sake of ease I'm using Ginny and Adrian from Chimera. In the original version of the story Ginny is a chimera (mixed race witch with multiple mythical creatures mixed into her lineage) on the run from a creature specialist. Adrian is said creature specialist's adopted son, a warlock with no training, who is trying to prove himself.

But what if Adrian was the chimera and Ginny the creature specialist's child?

A very different story would unfold

Dad's been making a lot of trips lately, leaving me in Charity's care. It's tedious and frankly should probably be considered abuse... but I do my best to make it more of a torture for the ghoul than for me.

"Want to help paint my nails?" I snigger as Charity wrinkles her nose, for all her ghastly threats nothing gets under her skin like treating her as if she was human. "No? Guess, I'll just do it myself. Right here, in the middle of the room."

"Suit yourself." She's seething, stalking off to presumably chew on a leg in the basement or something. Another win for me.

I pay careful attention to the click of her nails against the tiles, staying still as possible until I'm sure of her destination. Nimbly tip toeing after her I pull the basement door shut, locking it with a satisfying click.

She's going to be mad. Fuming, foaming at the mouth probably. I can hear her gnashing her teeth as she stampedes back up the stairs, but I'm not sticking around waiting for her to find a way to free herself.

"I'll be back for supper, don't fret."

Casually I leave the house, setting out for the train station and a quick foray into the city. These little escapes have to be relished, I can't make them too frequently as Charity would start to catch onto my escape plans. And I know just the place to enjoy my freedom.

-

Slipping my rose tinted sunglasses down over my nose I enjoy the sight of varied creatures intermingling with the population from the observation point. The botanical gardens are a great place to witness the thriving magical community present within Brisbane, you never know what you'll see...

All though, is that? Surely, it couldn't be?

Splashing his feather rimmed face in a fountain is a boy with deep ash grey skin. Bright splotchy yellow scales pepper his arms, and if my eyes aren't deceiving me there's a tuft of charcoal fur poking up from the back of his neck.

Well knock me dead, unless I'm poorly mistaken that's an actual chimera out in the wild. And what a fine specimen he is, a peek of chiseled muscle just visible as he dries his face in his singlet.

Dad would be absolutely beside himself if he knew there was a chimera in Brisbane, in his line of work they're a prize too precious to turn down. Unfortunately for dad I don't wholly agree with the ethics of his work, and this poor lamb looks like he's taken enough hard knocks as it is.

Sliding from my seat, I carefully approach the chimera.

"Excuse me, but your glamour could probably use a bit more work if you're planning to stay in Brisbane."

His shoulders jolt, I've startled him. Slowly he turns to me, big purple eyes wide with panic.

"Don't worry, I'm not looking to hurt you. Just offering a little advice, there's some nasty types in this city you'd do well to avoid. Creature specialist and ghouls, I'm sure you know what bad news they are."

After Thoughts

This would be a hard story to write, Ginny without her chimera heritage and her ability to see death omens is almost an entirely different person whereas Adrian with those traits would still be riddled with anxiety and fear. Instead of enemies to lovers they'd realistically probably just have this one interaction then go their separate ways. The roles they have in Chimera are more than just roles. Still it was fun to give this a try!

Gently tagging (no-pressure): @keysandopenmind, @kelefox, @the-aranea-chronicles, and any one else who might want to play!

[bumblebeeappletree]

Jerry meets a botanist who is transforming his suburban backyard into a living laboratory.

Professionals in the horticulture arena often turn their hands to projects that challenge on a large scale, like vertical gardens, green facades, and roof garden technologies. Botanist and plant pioneer, Erik van Zuilekom, works on some of these high-profile projects and says, “My role is to bridge the gap between botany, horticulture and ecology. I design living architecture systems... My job is to find plants and ecologies that will work well in the urban sphere.” Examples of Erik’s work adorn Brisbane’s city streets, drawing on species from niche ecologies that need more research into how they can be utilised. “I have to conduct a lot of that research myself.”

Two years ago, Erik transplanted his career and family from cool temperate Melbourne to subtropical Brisbane and has continued his research. He is experimenting growing new plants for his innovative work in his own backyard. "One of the pioneer canopy species we're working with is a very rapid growing Brazilian fern tree,” says Erik who planted it by seed just two years ago. The tree has “remarkable growth, it's got the largest compound leaf of any tree. The idea is for it to quickly ascend, produce shade for the trees below but also to be a host for our Aroids,” says Erik. Philodendron warszewiczii is a deciduous, tree-like Aroid and Erik is experimenting with one in full blistering sun and one in shade. “The first thing is I'm exercising reading a plant,” says Erik, “In this case we've got a great example of a plant with leaves that are heavily fenestrated... That tells you that it most likely is trying to conserve moisture, so it possibly comes from a very dry environment.” While the trunks of each plant thicken as they climb and attach to their supports, the impact of the dramatically different environments is evident. “The exposures are talking to the plant’s genetics and stimulating it to conserve a bit of moisture in case there’s a dry period,” says Erik, “But because it's in the shade, it doesn't feel too stressed. It doesn't have to go too far with being succulent, so in this case it's putting out a lot of vertical growth but retaining quite a thin trunk.” In the full sun and higher winds, exposures are higher, and Erik says, “You can see from the base, all the way up, it's grown and thickened dramatically becoming very succulent. When it goes deciduous through a dry winter where it comes from, it can survive those periods of stress.” This experiment reminds us as gardeners that ‘standardised care’ doesn’t always apply.

Erik has long-term goals to establish an edible rainforest and says, “We've modelling it on how a rainforest naturally evolves, so we've got pioneer species, frontline species that will grow really rapidly and produce protective open canopy that allows a lot of light through. Then a secondary canopy of slower growing, emerging species that are our fruiting species.” This will not only feed the family but also extend the botanical collection for research. There are three shade houses for Erik’s experimental collections, which he introduces by saying, “they're not pretty collections, they are hardcore research.” One has controlled humidity, one has ambient conditions, and the third, Erik says, “is my too hard basket, where work and life get in the way.” Erik deliberately stresses these plants to push them to their outer perimeters and tolerances to observe how they respond and find ways to translate this into living architecture projects. But it's not all work and no play. Eric still finds time to tend the family vegie patch and says the move from Melbourne to Brisbane was "quite a gear shift... We got to discover new foods, new herbs and spices, tropical and Asian foods that we really enjoy.” Erik practices what he preaches and leads by example, and with this garden just two years young, it’s a testament to his ability to read the climate and read the plants.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.28 (after 1960)

1961 – Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International. 1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is founded, with Yasser Arafat elected as its first leader. 1968 – Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892 crashes near Nala Sopara in India, killing 30. 1974 – Northern Ireland's power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement collapses following a general strike by loyalists. 1975 – Fifteen West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos, creating the Economic Community of West African States. 1977 – In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 people inside. 1979 – Konstantinos Karamanlis signs the full treaty of the accession of Greece with the European Economic Community. 1987 – An 18-year-old West German pilot, Mathias Rust, evades Soviet Union air defences and lands a private plane in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. 1991 – The capital city of Addis Ababa falls to the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, ending both the Derg regime in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Civil War. 1995 – The 7.0 Mw  Neftegorsk earthquake shakes the former Russian settlement of Neftegorsk with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Total damage was $64.1–300 million, with 1,989 deaths and 750 injured. The settlement was not rebuilt. 1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud. 1998 – Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of nuclear tests by India with five of its own codenamed Chagai-I, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions. Pakistan celebrates Youm-e-Takbir annually. 1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display. 2002 – The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site. Cleanup duties officially end with closing ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, New York City. 2003 – Peter Hollingworth resigns as Governor-General of Australia following criticism of his handling of child sexual abuse allegations during his tenure as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane. 2004 – The Iraqi Governing Council chooses Ayad Allawi, a longtime anti-Saddam Hussein exile, as prime minister of Iraq's interim government. 2008 – The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty. 2010 – In West Bengal, India, the Jnaneswari Express train derailment and subsequent collision kills 148 passengers. 2011 – Malta votes on the introduction of divorce; the proposal was approved by 53% of voters, resulting in a law allowing divorce under certain conditions being enacted later in the year. 2016 – Harambe, a gorilla, is shot to death after grabbing a three-year-old boy in his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, resulting in widespread criticism and sparking various internet memes. 2017 – Former Formula One driver Takuma Sato wins his first Indianapolis 500, the first Japanese and Asian driver to do so. Double world champion Fernando Alonso retires from an engine issue in his first entry of the event.