The lanes and arcades of Melbourne have collectively become culturally important. The Melbourne central business district's numerous lanes mostly date to the Victorian era and as a result of the original Hoddle Grid, they evolved as service laneways for horses and carts. In some parts of the city, notably Little Lonsdale area, they were associated with the city's gold rush era slums. Among the most notable are Centre Place and Degraves Lane.
Melbourne's numerous shopping arcades reached a peak of popularity in the late Victorian era and the interwar years. Among the most notable include Block Place and Royal Arcade. Some notable demolished arcades include Coles Book arcade and Queens Walk arcade. Since the 1990s, Melbourne's lanes, particularly the pedestrianised ones, have gentrified and their heritage value officially recognised as well as attracting interest from Australia and around the world. Some of the lanes, in particular have become particularly notable for their acclaimed urban art. The city has several festivals which celebrate the laneways, they are major tourist attractions and frequently feature in tourism promotions, film and television.
This post is part of the My Town Shootout meme,
and also part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Best meme.
Prunus triloba var. multiplex: Prunus triloba var. multiplex (known as Flowering Plum; Flowering Almond; Double Flowering Plum) of the Rosaceae family is one of the showiest of all garden shrubs when in bloom, this tall spreading shrub becomes a uniformly frothy cloud of double pink flowers in early spring; bears no fruit, makes a wonderful specimen or garden shrub, needs full sun and well-drained soil
Reaching a height of 4 metres with an equal spread, Flowering Plum has beautiful, double pink flowers which appear in spring. It provides a wonderful accent in a residential yard or courtyard when in flower. Be sure to locate it in a groundcover or mulched bed, as mechanical injury or stress of any kind hasten the demise of this short-lived tree. It is also very suitable in a shrub border as a tall accent. It can be sculptured nicely into a unique form with proper pruning and training and is well suited for container gardening. Regular pruning is needed for best flowering performance. Branches cut in early spring can be forced into bloom indoors.
This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.
As the wind is blowing outside and the temperature falls, with showers expected to turn to rain tomorrow, I am recalling a lovely sunlit Summer day in Frankston, at the beach... So it's time to dip in the archive and post some Summers-past photos for sympathetic magic!
This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.
St Kilda is a Melbourne bayside suburb situated on one of the most picturesque points of Port Phillip Bay, only 6 km South of the City. It has safe sandy beaches, a lively nightlife, many attractions and some very pleasant streetscapes. Add to that the Luna Park, several large entertainment venues and some wonderful restaurants and cafés. However, for decades St Kilda was shunned by Melburnians because it was the haunt of prostitutes and druggies. It wasn't always like that...
Back in the first half of the 20th century, St Kilda was one of the most fashionable suburbs of Melbourne with grand homes and grand people. Today, it is enjoying a resurgence. The prostitutes and druggies have largely been pushed out by rapidly rising real estate prices and St Kilda is fast returning to its heyday glory. It is now one of the main tourist destinations and is renowned for its picturesque bayside setting, close proximity to the city, beaches, music venues, restaurants and café lifestyle. St Kilda is also the home of the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron.
This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.
You may have seen those photos where a panoramic shot is taken and converted into a round, "tiny planet" structure in Photoshop. Well, I watched a short video on YouTube and created one myself. The results are below, with the original photo and the "tiny planet" version underneath. Try it yourself!
This post is part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.
The Werribee River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment that is located on the plain West of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The headwaters of a tributary, the Lerderderg River, are north of Ballan near Daylesford and it flows across the basalt plain, through the suburb of Werribee to enter Port Phillip. A linear park follows the Werribee River along much of its course.
In total the Werribee River completes a journey of approximately 110 kilometres. The river flows through the Werribee Gorge State Park before being utilised for irrigation of market gardens at Bacchus Marsh, then through Werribee where it is crossed by the Maltby By-pass. It then flows through the Werribee Open Range Zoo in Werribee Park, and finally the small coastal settlement of Werribee South before entering Port Phillip.
This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Best meme.
Rapeseed (Brassica napus), also known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed (and, in the case of one particular group of cultivars, canola), is a bright-yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family), cultivated mainly for its oil-rich seed. It is the third-largest source of vegetable oil in the world.
It is also consumed in China (油菜: Mandarin Pinyin yóucài; Cantonese:jau⁴coi³) and Southern Africa as a vegetable. The name derives from the Latin for turnip, rāpa or rāpum, and is first recorded in English at the end of the 14th century. Older writers usually distinguished the turnip and rape by the adjectives 'round' and 'long' (-'rooted'), respectively. Rutabagas, Brassica napobrassica, are sometimes considered a variety of B. napus. Some botanists also include the closely related B. rapa within B. napus.
Canola was developed through conventional plant breeding from rapeseed, an oilseed plant already used in ancient civilisation as a fuel. The change in name serves to distinguish it from natural rapeseed oil, which has much higher erucic acid content. In the 1970s, the Rapeseed Association of Canada chose the name "canola" to represent "Can" for Canada, and "ola" for oil. One dictionary purports that it stands for Can(ada) + o(il) + l(ow) + a(cid).
Canola oil is made at a processing facility by slightly heating and then crushing the seed.[Almost all commercial canola oil is then extracted using hexane solvent which is recovered at the end of processing. Finally, the canola oil is refined using water precipitation and organic acid to remove gums and free fatty acids, filtering to remove colour, and deodorising using steam distillation.
Throughout Melbourne, canola plants can be found as escapers from cultivation. These are considered weeds, although the leaves, seeds, and stems of this mustard variety are edible. The plant appears in some form in African, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and African-American (soul food) cuisines. In Greece the young flower-bud shoots are collected, boiled and served with an oil and lemon juice dressing as salad greens (one of the greens collectively known as "horta").
This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Food Friday meme.
