Dear God...: Inspiring People: Darren & Jasmine

Darren & Jasmin at The Little Ladybird Nursery

We would like to introduce you to Darren and Jasmine.

We spent a day in their garden today and we felt so excited on our way home we wanted to share some of the wonders we discovered and tell you a little about our beautiful friends and what they are creating in a little country town in NSW.

We love spending time with these guys. Their passion for plants and seed collecting is infectious and it is so beautiful to see their garden changing as they do! They grow a lot of heirloom varieties and natives.

Darren and Jasmine have dreams, passions and desires and they are living them and acting on them with all sorts of awesome results. They are creative and have so many different talents and we find out more wonderful gifts each time we see them. We really enjoy talking to them about their ideas and feelings for the garden and getting to know them more each time we see them.

part of the Garden, seed collecting paradise

The plants in their care are beautiful, they flourish and grow and the ones that don't they are looking to themselves about why they are not doing so well and it is always interesting to hear what is going on and how it is reflected in the environment around them. We feel the land is beginning to feel loved and cared for.

The garden is so different to a year ago. Now it looks like a seed collecting paradise with beautiful plants and their fruits everywhere. During the dry periods we have had lately, the gardens have retained moisture due to the gardening techniques that Darren and Jasmine have employed.

Darren and Jasmine began selling the plants they had grown on the side of the road by donation. Their love of plants and seed collecting and their desire to share it is beautiful! There is now a nursery run my Darren's mum and her partner (Julie and Nevel)*

Each time we go to visit their place there is a new invention often made out of the materials they have on hand or have found or been given. There are piles of woodchip maturing everywhere and all sorts of wonderful experiements. It always feels to us that they can grow anything, their love of seeds and plants is infectious!

An box to keep seeds from cross pollination.

There are nesting birds residing in the trees, insects of all descriptions, various methods including waterless gardening, back to Eden ideas (woodchip), permaculture principles, fibonacci principles and traditional gardening techniques as well as their own ideas and inspirations. They now have their own seeds - sown, grown and collected on their plot for sale in the nursery. They investigate, explore and experiment.

Darren was recently asked to have an exhibition at the Uralla Show where he created a tomato tasting event, a rose out of a watermelon, and won all sorts of prizes for the beautiful produce he and Jasmine grow. They had an heirloom rock melon that was heavenly, it smelt amazing, unlike any supermarket fruit I have ever smelt. The wonder of God's flora is amazing, so many colours, shapes, variations, oddities, so much beauty and always wonder at how perfect each plant, insect, creation God has made is!!

Some Produce that was taken to the Uralla Show

Thank you Darren and Jasmine for your time and passion!

If you want to contact Darren about seeds, native plants, etc his details are as follows or drop in to 'The Little Ladybird Nursery' 162 Bridge Street, Uralla, NSW (soon you will be able to buy his seeds online):