Culture
‘The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.’ – Stanley Kunitz
Here, we explore the nuances of the relationship between humans and the natural world. We share provocative ideas and thoughtful opinions, and ask plenty of questions about what it means to be here, now.
274 Results
The Poem that Saved a Forest
CulturePoet Jacqueline Suskin on questions of time, transformation and activism.
Tree Songs: Paul Kelly and Siân Darling in conversation
Conversations, CultureWonderground guest poetry editors Paul Kelly and Siân Darling chat with Georgina Reid.
Up the Back
Culture, MemoirAward-winning author Inga Simpson dusts off her wildest self among trampled trees, thistles and birdsong.
Pining for Placefulness
Culture, MemoirRicha Kaul Padte contends with the power of nostalgia.
Undercurrent
Culture, EcologyTanya Massy walks upstream with Richard Swain, amid questions of custodianship and Country.
Patterns Of Time
Culture, EcologyElla Mudie explores the stories told by tree rings.
Gardening The Silence
Culture, Essays, MemoirJane Gleeson-White faces dark histories of war and trauma with help from an olive tree.
Laws of Nature
CultureJess Bineth talks power and possibility with a lawyer on a mission to gain legal protection for Australia’s natural wonders.
Wonderground Issue Four
CultureFind out more about Wonderground Issue Four.
Regeneration: Bringing the World back to Life
Culture, EcologyFind out more about regenerative thinking - why it's important, and where to start.
Indoctrinated by Plants
Botanica, CultureDiving into psychedelic medicine via profiles of three common, natural sources of psychedelics. By Liam Engel and Prue Gibson.
The World we Make: A Musing on Place and Belonging
CultureWhat does it take to fall in love with place, asks Annabel Boyer.
Between the Lines
CultureAn inexhaustive exploration of line and desire.
A Line Across the Deep
CultureThe courage and patience required to make art can be found in unlikely places.
Reckoning with Marianne North
Art & Design, CultureChristin Geall reflects on privilege, art and plants.
Scent and Memory
Culture, MemoirOur sense of smell tethers us unconsciously and elusively to people, places and our past. How? Why?
Love Letters to Country
Culture, PeopleGamilaraay writer Marika Duczynski yarns with Wiradjuri artist, poet and author Jazz Money about language and Country.
A Forestless Path
Culture, Ecology'I wonder whether I walked through a forest at all.' Courtney Adamson comes to ground in a desecrated landscape.
Labour Relations
CultureRecognising the value of life-supporting work in the home and garden.
The Collector
Agriculture, CultureNikolaj Vavilov lived, and died, for diversity.
The Law of the Land
Culture, EcologyWorking towards legal ancestral personhood for Martuwarra, the Fitzroy River.
Desire Lines: An Introduction to Issue Three
CultureA sneak peek into Wonderground Issue Three, due for release in early June 2022.
Subscribe to Wonderground and WIN!
CultureA most excellent giveaway.
Other-Motherhood
Culture, MemoirGeorgina Reid discovers what it really means to care.
Knowing River
Culture, EssaysMarika Duczynski gets to know Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River.
The Lost Flora
Art & Design, Culture, EssaysWhat can the stories of plants teach us about living with extinction?
Keeping Track
Culture, EssaysDavid Whitworth explores new and old ways of seeing nature.
Minding the Garden
Conversations, Culture, GardensPsychiatrist, gardener and author Sue-Stuart Smith in conversation with Georgina Reid
Welcome to the Planthroposcene: A Conversation with Natasha Myers
Conversations, CultureCultural anthropologist Natasha Myers chats with Georgina Reid about growing new worlds.
On Country
Culture, MemoirSome things, like gardening, come late. Others, like Country, are always there, according to Zena Cumpston.
Nurturing Nature: School-Based Nature Education
Culture, EssaysGrowing connections beyond the classroom with school-based nature education programs.
River Garden Diaries: An Aesthetic of Care
Culture, GardensGeorgina Reid explores explore an aesthetic of care that moves beyond the human as source and beneficiary of action. A de-centring of human desire in the garden.
Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t
Botanica, Culture, PeopleFelix de Rosen roams the streets with Youtube botanist Joey Santore
Introduction: Wonderground Issue One
CultureAn introduction to the inaugural issue of Wonderground journal, by editor Georgina Reid.
A Message From the Flood Zone
CultureThe NSW floods are a call to take action on climate change, writes Anna Rose.
A Remnant of Rainforest
CultureWriter Freya Latona finds respite in a patch of remnant rainforest.
Deity, Demon or Somewhere In-between: Eucalyptus Trees in California
Botanica, CultureJeff Perry explores the complex story of gum trees in California.
Saving Grace: Bill Henson Moves his Childhood Garden
Culture, GardensBill Henson moves his late mother's garden, before the bulldozers arrive.
The Dwindling Glades of Gondwana
Botanica, CultureEssayist Peter Grant on the plight of Tasmania's endemic, and imperilled, Pencil Pine.
Growing the Future: A Conversation with Lille Madden
CultureLille Madden is a climate activist, bird nerd and the First Nations Director at Groundswell Giving.
Introducing Wonderground Issue Two: LOST
CultureFind out more about Wonderground Issue Two.
River Diaries: Getting Lost in the Issue
CultureA behind-the-scenes peek into the process of making Wonderground Issue Two.
Dirt is Good: Notes on Gardening in Australia
Culture, GardensAuthor Belinda Probert on growing a connection to her adopted country via gardening.
You’ll Never Plough a Field by Turning it Over in Your Mind
CultureWhat we do to the soil, we do to ourselves. An excerpt from Matthew Evan's new book, Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy.
Tall Tree Tales: Inga Simpson’s Book of Australian Trees
CultureInga Simpson's Book of Australian Trees brings the forest to the living room and classroom, helping kids see the leafy life around us.
Growing Compost and Community
CultureHannah Churton started a street composting hub during the COVID-19 lockdown, diverting over two tonnes of food waste from landfill and growing strong community connections. A gorgeous story.
River Garden Diaries: Playing in the Layers
Culture, GardensA musing by Georgina Reid on gardening in the space between knowledge and intuition.
River Garden Diaries: The Mind is a Garden
CultureGeorgina Reid explores the relationship between gardening the earth and the mind.
Growing Knowledge: The Value of University Food Gardens
CultureWhy universities need to embrace practical, as well as theoretical, knowledge.
Running with the Plants: Women Leading New Conversations about Nature
CultureMeet five women who are shifting conversations about plants and people.
Wonderground Journal: Infrequently Asked Questions
CulturePre-Order your copy of Wonderground Journal now!
The Well Gardened Mind
CultureA review of the Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith.
The New World, Tomatoes and Mortgage Lifters
Botanica, CultureOn tomatoes, discovery and creativity in trying times.
Attention is the Beginning of Devotion
CultureA musing on what it means to pay attention to nature.
The Art of Refusal: Lucienne Rickard’s Extinction Studies
Art & Design, CultureAn extraordinary essay on extinction, art and erasure.
“The still point of the turning world”
CultureA musing by Georgina Reid on the call to garden at times of uncertainty, and always.
A Collection of Odes. To Resilience, Weeds and Wishing Trees
Culture“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh
A collection of Odes: To Dirty Hands, Chairs and Un-Cool Plants
CultureGorgeous garden odes from the Planthunter Ode Project
Untethered
CultureA note from The Planthunter editor Georgina Reid.
Victor Steffensen’s Fire Country
CultureIndigenous Fire Practitioner Victor Steffensen explains how Indigenous fire management could help save Australia
Introducing the Planthunter Ode Project
CultureImagine an untamed and entangled garden of words that whisper, shout, murmur and yell of the beauty and importance and value of the natural world! Ode with us.
The Earth is in Her Hands
CultureA conversation with the author of new book featuring 75 leading women of plants.
Once Upon a Tree War
CultureBede Brennon dives into a complex and venomous debate over weeds and street trees in a quiet country town.
The Man Who Writes Lists: A Fire Story
CultureBird watcher and botanist Max James's property 'vaporised' in the 2020 Australian bushfires. This is Max's story, told by his daughter Clare.
Breathing Fire
CultureAn essay by Georgina Reid exploring questions of relationship and imagination in the wake of the Australian bushfires.
Poem: This Here, This Now
CultureA poem by Georgina Reid.
Into the Darkness: Light Pollution and the Dark Sky Movement
CultureWhat do we lose when the lights stay on? Emma Simms on light pollution, the Dark Sky Movement and more.
What Tree Will You Be When You Die?
CultureCreating new life from death with memorial forests.
On the Other Side of Loss Lies Love
CultureA personal exploration of the relationship between ecological grief and transformation by Georgina Reid
Healing Women, Healing the Earth: An interview with Jane Hardwicke Collings
CultureFreya Latona chats with women's mysteries teacher and founder of the school of sharmanic womencraft, Jane Hardwicke-Collings.
Welcome to Our New Website!
CultureFind out more about our new website design and re-branding
Beauty and Courage: Thoughts on Life, Gardens and the Human Spirit
Culture, GardensThere is a garden near artist Katherine Throne's home that borders on bedlam...
Awakening the Activist: Right Here, Right Now
CultureWriter Freya Latona on what it means to be an environmental activist, right here, right now.
Written in the Trees: The Roots of Arborglyphs
CultureAn exploration of the history of human mark-making on trees.
A Life Without Bugs is no Life at all
CultureA chat with an etomologist about all things insects - their decline, importance, and how to help.
Bonsai and the Cult of Cute
Botanica, CultureAn exploration of our obsession with the tiny world of bonsai!
Say My Name: On Speaking the Indigenous Names of Plants
CultureGeorgina Reid on what it might mean to speak the indigenous names of plants.
A Trillion Trees Can Save the World
Botanica, CultureThe simple solution you can put into action to kick climate change to the curb!
On Politics, Love and Climate Change
CultureAn essay on finding common ground.
From Control to Connection: A New Ethos of Care
CultureAn essay by Georgina Reid exploring an alternate way to care.
The Past, the Present and the Garden
CultureFreya Latona explores the role of nostalgia in garden making.
Out of the Ashes: Fire as a Tool of Cultivation and Care
CultureLeading Australian voices Kate Cullity, Charles Massy, Lesley Patterson & Michelle McKemey on fire ecology in Australia.
Whose Tree is it Anyway?
CultureOn trees and humans co-existing in urban areas. And an elegy.
Gardener with a Capital G: How Words Shape Values
CultureAn essay by Jennifer Jewell on valuing, and encouraging, gardeners.
Where’s a Gardener When you Need One?
CultureOn choosing a career in gardening and horticulture.
The Last Glimpse of Garden: Landscapes and Death
CultureOn seeing plants as partners on the wheel of life and death.
On Being a Settler Gardener
CultureAn honest and personal interrogation of what it means to be a settler gardener in Australia by Annie Farrell.
Seeing the Jungle for the Trees
CultureIs it time we changed the way we depict jungles, from places of fear to reverence?
Horticultural Therapy: Finding Ground in Nature
Botanica, CultureKathryn Tam takes us on a mindfulness walk in the New York Botanical Gardens.
Mind your Words. Because they Matter
CultureA musing on language, landscape, nature and words.
Gumnut, Baby
CultureAn ode to the great Australian gumnut.