Gardeners: ditch the camellias, embrace the natives. They're beautiful, and ours | Gay Alcorn

It's puzzling why we Australians are not more passionate, proud, curious, even evangelical about our native plants, all 24,000 species of them

This is a story about Australian native plants, but I will not preach. I promise not to take on an air of moral superiority like a vegetarian who looks askance at your meat-eating ways. Let's just say it is puzzling why we Australians are not more passionate, proud, curious, even evangelical about our native plants, all 24,000 species of them, most found no-where else on earth.

We are gardeners - well, a lot of us are. We understand the hope over experience necessary to plant something in the earth and to tend it, to will it to live and flourish. In our meditative moments, we wonder if are a little closer to nature, to the rhythm of life, as we follow the seasons, the sun, the preciousness of rain, of birth, life and death. In a rushed and anxious world, gardening relaxes and nourishes us.