Hubby and I have stayed in Venice twice, once with our young children. We took a vaporetto to Murano to visit the glassworks. Fascinating to watch the men work. The kids each were given a beautiful clear glass horse figurine, which all these years later they still treasure and display. On our last trip, we visited a small shop run by siblings. We purchased the last of a collection of seven pendant light globes their father had blown for the shop. They were all the same shape but different colours of glass. We purchased them for the new modern house we planned to build the following year or so. We are pleased and grateful to have such unique, handmade and time-honoured beauty embellish the spaces in our home, and the lights always interest guests and we then have a story to tell.

After I had finished my Archi Masters I was working for an architecture firm who also did a small amount of work for a volume builder. They were actually a pretty good quality builder and at least got the orientation of their 'pre-designed' plans correct. We had the ability to make minor changes to every job and it pained me to see so many simple to implement passive options not being incorporated. Had most of their clients known that they would be saving MONEY over the longterm by making a few minor changes to suit their site, they all would have done it. The problem is unless someone can sell this idea to them as a financial/lifestyle choice, many just think it is about saving the world. It is a no-brainer if you have in interest in it, but for those who don't know, there is no-one there selling it to them, especially on the lower end of the market.

No.1 would have to be solar panels to pay for the cost of running all these new toys. Luke, seriously, we all claim to be green these days and are concerned about our planet and the environment but have we really stopped to think how "green" these toys are? We are becoming like kids at Christmas with them. These toys are all predominantly plastic, just like kids toys, they break we throw away except with adult toys their shelf life is as long as it takes for the next bigger and better model to come out. Emphasis these days is all about making our lives easier but all these labour saving devices are not making things easy for our environment. It is almost a joke that a plastic water bottle takes twice as much water to make than the liquid it holds. We are all proud of ourselves when we recycle but how many of us have actually followed what really happens with our recycling - how much energy and water is required in the recycling process, how much of it is actually reused? We are recycling more product than we have use for - what happens to the excess?? The more of these toys that keep coming, the more excess waste we will have. I read this some years ago and with findings now coming to light, it is obvious things are getting worse faster than we can control them. http://www.worldwatch.org/global-plastic-production-rises-recycling-lags-0 Lets keep technology for the important things - medical science or making our world safer ............. not wiping it out with rubbish.

No plant is going to survive being trodden on or broken apart. The best you can do is choose something fast growing so that if it does get broken it can recover from it. You can also place some larger bush rocks in the beds between the plants to deflect errant balls. Most shade plants are not fast growing which is half the problem. You will really struggle to find a plant that loves full sun in summer and full shade in winter that isn't deciduous. The light provision is so radically different across the year. Your best best might be a strappy leaved plant that isn't going to show up the damage so much. Freesia's are very cheap to buy, $10 will get you hundreds of bulbs and you will have a wonderful fragrant floral display in the spring. A mass planting of freesia's and river rocks would be stunning in those beds and very easy care.Many varieties of iris will also work there. The Japanese iris is particularly prolific and tough and lovely in spring. Star jasmine might also suit this spot although it will look a little sad in winter with the lack of light. There is also a lovely version that is tricoloured. Lomandra/liriope will tolerate both full shade and full sun and will be your best bet for robust year round architectural interest although it isn't highly floral. Another stunning and cheap option is gaura, a grasslike plant that produces a profusion of flowers all the warmer months. The bonus is this plant can be purchased in a punnet of 6 and grows so quickly and is almost impossible to kill. It comes in pink and red too. Camellia sasanqua's will work in this spot they can tolerate that kind of light variance and are fairly robust but I would only put them in containers not in the ground so their roots do not disturb your pavers or foundations. Sasanqua's can grow very large but they do make great floral hedges that flower in the autumn and winter. Their floral colours range from white right through to the deepest reds. Japonica's won't work here because of the sun in summer. If you purchase sasanqua's from a landscapers nursery rather than a retail one, you can get fairly large starter plants as cheap as $6 each. You 'might' also get away with the acacia cognata which is a weeping wattle that appears as a lovely feathery clump low to the ground. While it's small it's not very different to a clump of grass. As it gets larger it develops a woody stem and branches. They are about $15 for a decent sized plant but you would only need 2 or 3 to fill that space. Place river rocks over the dirt while they are little. You can then put a weeping cherry, or rambling rose in pots in that space to make it stunning in summer. Rambling roses are great as once established you can cut them right back to the trunk in winter and they will cover your wall again each summer, they are very vigorous in their growth and you will have a wall of colour and perfume in the warmer months and no care required over winter. By growing feature plants in large pots, you can place those pots on a dolly and wheel them out of the way when the boys want to play basketball so they don't get damaged. Fruiting tree's will also work there in containers since you get so much sun in summer. A cumquat is a lovely smaller ornamental that offers fruit for making jam or squeezing onto a salad like lemon. The possibilities are endless. Most of all enjoy your garden.