spreading sunshine

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others.


Bernie (of My Dry Tropics Garden and Bush Bernie's Blog) nominated me for this prize ... thanks for the compliment, Bernie. Bernie blogs from cyclone-prone Townsville, Northern Queensland, and her popular blogs document her garden progress and its botanical and wildlife inhabitants.


There's no such thing as a free lunch or a free prize. For this prize I now need to answer 10 questions. 


10.    FAVOURITE COLOUR:   GREEN

The lake at Markdale (Wikipedia)

Edna Walling, influential Australian garden writer and designer who died in 1973, used to remind gardeners (who often still seem to forget) that green is also a colour. 

9.  FAVOURITE ANIMAL

  DOG / POSSUM

Environmental correctness (and my heart) says choose the possum. Loyalty (and my heart) says choose my dog, Potter. Can we have a dead heat, please, whoever has laid down the Sunshine rules?

 

8.  FAVOURITE NUMBER: 3579 


Why 3579??????  Simply because they are the best numbers to achieve natural looking drifts or groupings of plants. On the other hand, if you're after a formal, symmetrical look, you'd do better to go for even numbers.

7. FAVOURITE NON ALCOHOLIC DRINK: TEA


Just give me a nice cuppa tea - in the garden, before gardening, after gardening. Even during gardening, if I can manage with one hand. Any kind of tea - white tea, black tea, green tea - I am not in the least colour prejudiced.


6. FACEBOOK OR TWITTER: NEITHER


Blogland for me is an island. I'm at home on this island. But when I visit Facebook, it feels too crowded. As for Twitter, don't get me started ... there, I've finished, in less than 140 characters.

5. MY PASSION: THE NATURAL WORLD


My passion is the natural world - being in it, thinking about it, talking about it, photographing it, dreaming about it, reading about it and writing about it. 


4. GETTING OR GIVING PRESENTS: BOTH


3. FAVOURITE PATTERN: NATURE'S PATTERNS

I love all patterns in nature. There are no straight lines in nature. The wind blows the sand into wavy patterns, the seagull's claws track across the dunes. The shell forms a perfect spiral.  


2. FAVOURITE DAY OF THE WEEK: DEPENDS


Favourite day is when I garden. Favourite day is when I'm with my grand-babies. Best of all is when I am with my grand-babies in the garden.

1.FAVOURITE FLOWER: LASIOPELALUM


Hard, hard question. For a change I think I'l go for character over pretty, so I'll choose the genus with flowers Wikipedia describes as 'small, hairy, with tiny petals.' 

Now ...   drumroll ...  the Sunshine Awards ... awarded to four creative, inspirational bloggers ... more drumroll ...


1.  Faisal Grant's blog Gardener in the Distance is quirky, poetic, spiritual, creative, sensitive and funny. (It's not all those things in every post, though. I wouldn't like to create unrealistic expectations.)


2. Susan only started her blog, As Long You Have A Garden, at the beginning of this year. She has jumped into the blogosphere incredibly enthusiastically, making loads of cyber-contacts, and showcasing her varied imaginative interests: books, history, the environment, kids, travel, plants - you name it, this bubbly blogger is likely to write about it. Susan blogs and gardens in Canada.


3. Serena of Serena's Secret Gardens is another local Melbourne blogger, like Faisal and me. Serena's blog, reflecting her life, is rich and full, with stuff about her garden, her chooks, her travels, plant information and much much more.


4. Leanne's blog is Bush and Beach (Australia). Leanne lives in suburban Brisbane where she has a native habitat garden. She writes about her garden, and also about the many Australian National Parks she visits. Visiting this blog is the next best thing to visiting lots of National Parks in Australia.