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Category Archives: eco outdoor
glasshaus uproot traditional planting techniques with their hanging trees and string balls
We love a great eco find here at State of Green, and over the weekend we came across the wonderful glasshaus nursery display at the fab Fed Square Design Market. Let us say first up, this is no ordinary nursery. Beautiful, exotic and unusual flowers were on artful display, but it was what hung from the ceiling that had us in awe. Trees and artistic plant balls hung from the ceiling, with their rootballs expertly crafted into balls secured with string.
The humble daisy gets an extraordinary makeover with this string ball
Suspended Silver Birch Tree - Perfect for your Apartment balcony?
Owner Paul Hyland has been a grower for over 20 years, and clearly has a passion and talent for all things botanical. His experience and artistic knack for making an ordinary plant “extraordinary”, was recognised in 2010 at the prestigious Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show where he won silver and bronze medals.
He is very amiable guy too – Admiring the hanging silver birch tree, Paul shared how he had also made a 4 metre hanging version for a local venue – the root ball alone took a half a day to make!. When questioned about their maintenance, Paul explained an upturned bottle placed into the rootball provides a slow drip feed – simply refill when empty! That’s my kind of gardening!
An all year round feature - just decorate at Xmas!
A visit to the glasshaus nursery in Richmond is bound to be a special experience, but if you can’t go in person you can admire all their creations online. Enjoy – we certainly did!
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Add a splash of vibrant colour to your balcony with the Greenbo planter
Apartment dwellers – are your pot plants perched precariously on 20th floor ledges, waiting for a gust of wind to topple it over? Or is your balcony full of pot plants on the ground taking up precious lounging space? Greenbo have come up with the perfect solution for apartment dwellers, with their colourful range of pot planters that sit comfortably and securely atop most types of balcony railings – be it round, square, straight or curved!.
Adding a colourful touch to our concrete jungles, the Greenbo offers various applications – grow herbs and flowers on your high rise balcony, sit it atop a pool railing, pretty up your paling fence or simply place on the ground filled to the brim with your favourite flowers.
Greenbo is the creation of industrial designer, Miki Ganor. Made from recyclable polypropylene in Israel, the Greenbo comes in nine different colours, and there is even a trough available too – No more excuses for dull and boring balconies.
++Greenbo++
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Pedal power becomes even greener on a bamboo bike
How sustainable can bike riding get? No dirty emissions are released into the atmosphere, it’s great for your health and you rarely have parking issues! Melbourne based web designer come bike designer Mik Efford, has just taken the eco friendly credentials of bike riding to a whole new level with his Bamboo Bike designs.
Daisie - the lady's city commuter
Hand made from Australian grown bamboo, Mik has designed 3 prototypes named Daisy, Maisie and Panda. Not only are these bikes real head turners, but functional too – “Bamboo offers very good vibration dampening, giving a lovely smooth ride; it’s easy to work with; and enables a method of production that doesn’t require any welding” says Mik.
Panda – Sporty Road Bike with Campagnolo Veloce Groupset (smart Italian cycling components!!)
If you want to own one of these cool bamboo bike designs, you can sign up to the waiting list to be informed when they become commercially available. Alternatively, there are plans afoot to run DIY Bamboo Bike making workshops in the future!. Renewable. Beautiful. Functional – to a tee.
Photographs courtesy of Bamboo Bikes.
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Get a backyard anywhere with an Edible Island
As backyards get smaller and high rises grow taller, finding the special sunny spot to grow your own vegie/herb gardens or even plant a tree is becoming more difficult. Rising to the challenge is Melbourne based Edible Islands, who have just released a planter box on wheels, that also doubles as a piece of furniture.
Made from 100% recyclable plastic, you have the choice of either planting out the entire space, or strategically placing a custom lid on one side to form a small seat to create the perfect spot to reading a book in your little garden. Mounted on wheels, the planter can easily be pushed into the sun or rolled into the shade on those extra hot days.
Eliza Donald of Edible Islands assures the planter easily fits in lifts, through doors and even up narrow staircases – And as if this is not enough, the designer in you can request it in ANY colour you wish AND request a LED unit be placed within its double wall to emit a soft glow at night! I’m envisioning a bright red planter with a hybrid apple tree underplanted with herbs – How about you?
Edible Islands – Planter Base RRP $817 (wheels, lids etc available separately).
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Create your own fresh produce with the The Little Veggie Patch Co
As the cold sets in each winter I start re-designing my garden in my head. My trees are looking bare and straggly, and our patchy lawn doesn’t fare much better. Efforts to grow herbs and vegies in various pots and corners of the garden has been relatively rewarding …. except when my tomato, strawberry and cucumber loving black labrador gets in first – which is more often than not. Rather than replant the patch with chillis, I think I have just stumbled across the perfect solution to get the garden green and functional again!.
Earlier this year at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, I came across an inspiring raised garden bed display by Melbourne based company, The Little Veggie Patch Co. Owners Matthew Pember and Fabian Capomolla both of Italian heritage grew up around vegie gardens, and are making it possible for everyone to have a little fresh produce in their urban backyard/rooftop garden/balcony. In addition to their partnership with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Gardeners Foundation at the Collingwood Primary School, The Little Veggie Patch Co install raised garden beds all over the State including the very cute “little vegie crates”.
Once placed in your garden the little vegie boxes just need to be filled with rich organic soil, filled with your vegies of choice – or use their vintage heirloom seed collection (commonly grown pre 1950’s!) and you can have fresh produce right at your doorstep. And if you are a little short for time but want to reap the benefits, The Little Veggie Patch Co will deliver, install and plant it all out for you!
Inspired? I am.
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The EcoSmart Fire Stix burns eco friendly bio-ethanol
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being on holidays and warming yourself by a campfire on a chilly night. The slight burn on your cheeks, the crackling and popping sounds and staring into the dancing flames has a captivating effect. Unfortunately we city slickers don’t often get this treat, BUT the new EcoSmart Fire Stix which is a modern twist on the traditional campfire experience may just provide us with the urban equivalent.
You may have come across The Fire Company’s EcoSmart fireplaces before, as they are internationally renowned for their unique designs fuelled by clean burning eco friendly bio-ethanol. This latest design by Barcelona based Hiroshi Tsunoda Design Studio, featuring kindling like stainless steel tubes has recently been selected as a finalist in the Australian International Design Awards.
What is incredibly versatile about this piece, is that not only can you use it on your back verandah or by your BBQ, but it can be used indoors too! Our local farmers may blanche at the thought of this “campfire”, but for us city folk, it may just do the trick. Pass me a marshmallow.
(Images courtesy of the Australian International Design Awards, a division of Good Design Australia).
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Posted in eco design, eco living, eco outdoor, sustainable furniture
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Design by Them introduce the Bar Stool to the Butter Stool range
In February this year we spoke to sustainable designers Nicholas Karlovasitis and Sarah Gibson of Design By Them (see interview here) about their Butter Bench and Stool made from post consumer waste derived from recycled plastic milk containers. Now, we are pleased to share with you the little Butter Stool family is growing, with the recent addition of the Butter Bar Stool.
Available in 8 different colours to suit your décor, we must admit we do LOVE this seasons colour, orange. Suitable for both indoor and outdoor use and stackable too, we think a set of these stools would look pretty cool against our kitchen bench, or outside near the BBQ.
This bright colour combination has us dreaming of summer and sorbet gelati!
The entire Butter stool range comes flat packed for efficient transport and easily snap together, making this one very cool sustainable design piece. Can’t wait to see what Design By Them come up with next!
Photography Georgie Gavaghan.
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Giveaway: Special Preview Screening of Oceans, May 20-22, 2011
For all nature lovers, we have a very special giveaway today. Thanks to the team over at Hopscotch Films we have 15 double passes to giveaway to the limited release of ecological drama documentary “Oceans” by Disneynature.
Just a quick look at some of the shorts from the movie does give a taste of the stunning and dramatic cinematography on offer – birds dive into the ocean from amazing heights to partake in a feeding frenzy, penguins fly out of the ocean onto ice at incredible speed and everything from tiny to huge sea creatures perform amazing aquatic acrobatics.
Directed by Jacques Ferrin and Jacques Cluzaud, Oceans offers “an astonishing look at the world of the oceans, with never-seen-before imagery captured by the latest underwater technology….Shot over four years, it reveals inspiring wildlife, including endangered marine species”. Already grossing over $100million, Oceans is one of the most successful documentaries to date.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS
To go in the running to win a double movie pass to see a preview screening (Valid May 20-22nd), simply leave a comment below (click on link if you are a subscriber!) and tell us in 20 words or less what your favourite ocean creature is and why.
15 lucky people will be randomly drawn on Wednesday 11 May 2011, and tickets sent to you in the mail. Please note, due to the limited release of Oceans, it is only showing in the following selection of city cinemas around Australia:
Sydney: Cinema Paris & Palace Norton
Melbourne: Nova & Palace Como
Canberra: GU Manuka
Brisbane: Palace Barracks
Perth: Cinema Paradiso
Hobart: State Hobart
Adelaide: Eastend
..and if you a budding movie show reviewer we’d love to hear your review if you’re one of the lucky winners!
SUBSCRIBE to the State of Green blog for all our latest news, reviews and interviews! Just pop your email address into the box in the top right corner of this blog, and you will receive our blogs hot off the press.
Posted in Competition/Giveaway, eco brands, eco outdoor
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Inspiring designs in The Great Hall of Flowers
In the last of our series on the 2011 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, we are sharing with you some of the stunning, and sometimes unusual floral designs being exhibited in the Great Hall of Flowers. In this post, we are keeping the narrative to a minimum – Instead just drink in the designs, and I hope you experience some of the visual sensory overload we did as we marvelled at the imaginative genius that went into each of the designs.
Love the brown bottles – Simple but effective. I would love to line these along my kitchen window.
Not only is the physical building absolutely stunning with arched ceilings and decorative walls, but it was hard to know which way to look as one amazing artistic display followed another.
That concludes our coverage of the 2011 Melbourne International Garden and Flower Show – We have provided you with just a small peek, as there were so many wonderful displays and installations – If you like what you have seen over the past week on State of Green, do try and make it next year – we don’t think you will be disappointed.
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Bathe by Phillip Johnson Landscapes wins Most Sustainable Garden & Bronze at the International Flower and Garden Show 2011
If you were fortunate enough over the last few days to visit the 2011 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, you would have seen spectacular garden rooms and artistic flower displays designed by some very creative Australians. This week at State of Green we will be featuring some of the designs and exhibitions that caught our eye. To start off the week, we want to share with you the winner of the Most Sustainable category and Bronze Medal winner in the Show Garden category, Phillip Johnson Landscapes.
We must admit we are ardent fans of Phillip Johnson’s sustainable landscape designs. Early this year, we had the pleasure of speaking to Phillip Johnson (interview here), and last week regularly checked on his creation unfolding for the 2011 MIFGS via their Facebook page. Viewing the BATHE installation in person however is a sight to behold. BATHE illustrates how a stunning urban garden can be created with recycled materials and a good dose of creative thinking.
The small “home” on the site (above) features a rooftop herb and vegetable garden. Inside, a lush vertical garden wall made from moss is sustained by the water from the stunning billabong pool, and also acts as an incredibly functional and natural filtration zone.
The inviting chemical free plunge pool is filtered naturally with native rushes and water ribbons, and sustainably filled through various on site water capture systems. Phillip says “In a natural pool such as that within BATHE, you are swimming as nature intended. Nature is the ultimate scientist and our works aims to recognise and respect this fact”.
Not only has Phillip Johnson created a beautiful habitat, but also tread lightly in its construction. All raw materials were sourced within a 100km radius of Melbourne. The huge sheet of granite which forms the sunbathing platform on the edge of the pool was rescued from the Lysterfield quarry, where it was to be crushed into road base. Old suburban concrete pavers sourced from a local tip have been recreated into a stunning waterfall and steps, and stone walling around the pool is made from reclaimed concrete rubble.
If this installation could be picked up and transported, I would happily put my hand up and volunteer my backyard – Would you?
SUBSCRIBE to the State of Green blog for all our latest news, reviews and interviews! Just pop your email address into the box in the top right corner of this blog, and you will receive our blogs hot off the press
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