Organic bush crafts at Wildflower Garden

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A "Bush Birthday Party"!
My grandson's classmate had his 8th birthday at the big Ku-Ring-Gai Wildflower Garden in NSW, Australia.

Before they sat down to eat,  the ranger took them on a guided walk on the trails and they collected natural things from the ground, like seeds and pods and leaves.

The ranger held a bowl of brown balls and cautioned the kids not to bite them because they were not chocolate.
They were lumps of moist clay!

Here's my sweet Eyal contemplating what kind of "bush critter" to make from the raw materials.

Here's what came out.

Two girls created these fanciful gardens.

What a fun way to combine nature walks with "organic bush crafts."
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

Trees in the sculpture garden

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I'm still under the good impression of the Beilinson Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, that I visited last week.
Their sculpture garden has some nice art by famous Israelis.

Even the trees are decorated.

Easy to love these hanging pots and special flowers.

This olive tree is dedicated to Leah Rabin, who was a good friend of the hospital (the plaque says).
After Yitzhak Rabin was killed, several hospitals in Petah Tikva together took on the name Rabin Medical Center.
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Healing Garden at the Medical Center

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Next to the helicopter landing pad,  in between the sprawled-out buildings of big Soroka  Medical Center in Beer Sheva,  is this sculpture-filled garden.
In Hebrew its name is Gan Roga', meaning a garden of calmness and relaxation.
In English it became the Legacy Heritage Healing Garden.

Legacy Heritage Fund's motto is  "the light of the past will illuminate the future."

Benches to welcome patients or their visitors.
Shade is needed on the hot days in the Negev desert.
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(For ABC Wednesday,  M is for Medical Center.)
(And also linking to signs, signs .)
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Fun in the cactus garden

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Happy from y'all's enthusiastic response to my cactus posts earlier this week, I revisited the cactus garden on the side of Meitar's central hill.
I gingerly walked around each plant looking for unusual, photo-worthy phenomena.

Like this all-natural bowl of fruit!

They had fallen from the top and the pad caught them.

A single drop of liquid!

Here is the back of that same big plant.

I never realized cacti and succulents could be so much fun.
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An interesting fact from Wikipedia's article on  Opuntia cactus:

In the fall of 1961, Cuba had its troops plant an 8-mile (13 km) barrier of Opuntia cactus along the northeastern section of the 28-kilometre (17 mi) fence surrounding the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to stop Cubans from escaping Cuba to take refuge in the United States. This was dubbed the "Cactus Curtain", an allusion to Europe's Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain in East Asia.

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To each his own

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R is for round rubber gardens.
Libby is three and a half and she has planted flowers in a repurposed tire.

Each kid in her class made a scarecrow face with his/her name on it, brought a plant from home, and with the help of a parent planted it in a tire in the kindergarten yard.

This month's curriculum is all about plants.
And reuse and recycling is always a topic. 

Grandsons Dean (10) and Eyal (6) checked out the other individual gardens.

There are more than thirty little gardeners and gardens in the pre-school.

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Heartwood

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Something new in the quiet gardens of the Sisters of Zion in Ein Kerem!

Is it not a wonderful way to give a tree a new purpose in life?
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Arms

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ABC Wednesday is in its fifth year, an amazing accomplishment for A-Day.
Adding to the group effort, I hereby add ARMY MEN and their ARMS.

Thinking to eat my granola bar in the normally empty little garden adjacent to the Tower of David, I entered and was amazed to see some soldiers there!

And their arms were in piles. Automatic rifles everywhere.

Their backpacks were assembled just outside the Old City wall, next to the Jaffa Gate, with one soldier guarding them.
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In guided tours, IDF soldiers are taught about Jerusalem, Israel, and all the heritage as part of their training.
But the young men and women certainly don't want to schlepp their pekelach all over the Old City.
And the churches and museums do not allow weapons inside.
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But I have never seen such an "arsenal" as was assembled there in the garden a few weeks ago!
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Inside the walls, gardens and huge reservoirs

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I love the old roof tiles like these in the garden of the Notre Dame de Sion convent.
Many of them came all the way from Marseille in the 19th century to roof the houses around here.

Like this precious little outbuilding!

It sits next to one of the huge rain reservoirs that the Sisters of Sion have on the big walled property.
The white yardstick inside goes up to 5 meters.

It finally started to be winter today, cold and rainy; let's hope the pool will fill up this season.

Do you reckon the Rob Roy mixer from yesterday's post contributed some cement to these wall pillars a long time ago?

Just inside the big perimeter walls.
This photo from last spring shows how green the nuns' garden can be.
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A monastic mirror

. I suppose part of an old mirror at the washstand is better than none at all when a nun has to tidy up and hasten to the communal prayer after a morning's work in the garden. . We saw the vegetable garden and the quiet sitting garden of the Congregation of Rosary Sisters here and I posted about their round church here. The church, convent, school, and guest hostel are on central Jerusalem's busy Agron Street, hidden within a surrounding wall.
This photo is joining many others at James' Weekend Reflections. 

UPDATE Dec. 2022:  A nice article about the Rosary Sisters: 
https://www.lpj.org/posts/portraits-of-sisters-in-the-holy-land-final-chapter-the-rosary-sisters.html

Bird bath in a hidden oasis

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Click on the photo to see the wet bird!

Birds of a feather, the sparrows and I share a secret.
They know this is a safe private place for bathing and I know it is a calm empty place for my picnic.

Finding any spot to sit and eat your sandwich in Jerusalem's small and crowded Old City is not easy.
This little garden just outside the entrance to the Tower of David (the Citadel) seems to be like a secret garden because most of the time no one is there. Except birds.
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These birdies are for Camera-Critters Sunday.
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An enclosed garden in the middle of new Jerusalem

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Come, step through the (almost always locked) little door in the big gate, enter a hidden garden.

The monastery wall separates you from busy Agron Street, the big hotels, and modern Jerusalem.

The church was built from the 1880s until 1927.

The convent, school, guest hostel, and church belong to the Catholic Arab women's order called the Congregation of the Rosary Sisters.

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More about them in my earlier post.

Sit in the shade of an old olive tree

and enjoy the lovingly-tended gardens.

A scarecrow in a keffiyeh guards the sisters' vegetable garden!

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Hope you enjoyed today's visit in the secret garden for That's My World Tuesday.

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Give it a whorl

The new neighbors across the street are into permaculture.
Today their young helper built this fascinating garden spiral.

Can you believe, I had never seen such a thing (guess I've been away from Heifer Ranch too long); so I was all questions.
Here's what I learned.
This method combines many permaculture design principles. The base is rubble; this will give some air movement beneath the mound. The height of the raised bed and the placement of the stones create a range of niches and microclimates which can sustain many different kinds of plants.

This one might become an herb spiral. Come back later to see what's growing.