It’s true what The Oz says, it was a stroke of genius to get Kenny to open the newly renovated toilet block at the Abbotsford Convent. The handy summary of things Abbotsford Convent is here, really worth a read. I learnt with interest that the pictured massive oak tree was planted in 1857 and is known as the Separation Tree. It is as old as the state of Victoria, being planted to celebrate the secession from New South Wales. That makes it just shy of 150 years old. (The Age’s version is here, the Herald Sun’s here).
Meanwhile, an article from The Age highlights a new show, Tripping Over, which was filmed in part at the Convent.

And a book has been published on the history of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. Authored by Catherine Kovesi, historian, author and senior lecturer at Melbourne University (pictured), its title is Pitch Your Tents on Distant Shores. Friends of the Abbotsford Convent can get a pre-publication special (save $15) for $55 (plus $10 postage unless you pick it up from the Convent): call Kate on 9419 5773 like today or tomorrow. The offer has already officially expired.
And here’s The Age’s review of the Convent version of Lentil as Anything.

Now I thought up this story before The Age did. I thought I’d give the Jesuits a plug, but they declined my kind offer, saying they would shortly depart Abbotsford. Apparently The Age is still a more credible journal than this organ of citizen mediacrity. There’s Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen then there’s Loretta Sartori’s work at Abbotsford’s Jesuit Social Services teaching hospitality industry skills to youths visited by the troubles. Part of what they do is make Abbotsford biscuits, which are very good, and should be regarded as a very pleasant way to donate to charity rather than as being very expensive. Sartori’s quite a renowned pastry chef. Of course there’s also Know One Teach One (KOTO) in Hanoi, and Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden project which has just won an NAB Volunteer Award (website here).)

I went again for a walk to the Convent today and wandered for the first time in the main gardens. The parents of the Steiner primary school were out in force again forging a garden around the school building. This evening, I found a nice little summary of the Convent’s history in a 2003 Sydney Morning Herald article. It talks of the pictured English Oak, thought to have been planted (if I read the article right) by Edward Curr, the owner of St Hellier’s cottage in the 1850s. The article says, in part:

“This self-sufficient community occupied a series of beautiful Gothic buildings set on a rise amid gardens and paddocks on the Yarra. There was a vast French medieval-style convent, a bluestone church, school, orphanage, re-education centre, large commercial laundry, massive basement stores, a bakery, kitchen and working farm with stables, piggeries, dairy and chicken coops. On the far side of the river, the wooded cliffs of Studley Park created a bush backdrop, adding to the air of remote tranquillity.

The Order of the Good Shepherd Sisters was founded in France in 1835 by St Mary Euphrasia Pelletier to care for women in need. It combined this role with a monastic life of prayer that was not to change until the evolution in religious life that took place after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

In 1860s Victoria, the gold rushes created a huge disruption in family life. Women, deserted when their husbands went to the diggings, often turned to prostitution to support themselves and their children. A concerned Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, James Goold, invited the Good Shepherd Sisters to Melbourne. They arrived in June 1863 in their white serge habits and black veils and, borrowing the archbishop’s carriage, went hunting for a house.”

I reckon there must be some story behind the planting of these palms and bromeliads, some historical precedent, and I want you to tell me what it is. 

“The garden was developed when the Convent was built in 1902. The curved paths and garden beds follow the design work of William Guilfoyle who designed the grounds of Government House and the Royal Botanical Gardens. The present garden replaced an earlier on that was a grid-patterned utilitarian design with precious plants closer to the building and picking and vegetable gardens further away.

Late in 2004 a GreenCorp team and a band of dedicated volunteers transformed the garden. All the pathways in the lower part of the garden the rotunda and the brick paved road running along the fence line were completely overgrown and covered with three-metre high blackberries and ivy. Other garden beds were also overgrown with blackberries.

The Garden always needs volunteers to maintain it.
Volunteers now care for the garden. If you would like to help in the garden, please contact Pamela Jellie on 9836 1881
Volunteers work in the garden on the first Wednesday and the third Saturday of each month.

Self-guided tour notes are located in the rotunda at the bottom of the Garden.”

[Better photos are over at Flickr.] Don’t be tempted to brew up a tea from this powerful drug, which is impossible to dose: the amount which renders you raving is not very differnt from the fatal dose.

Acorrding to Wikipedia (also here) ingesting datura, a plant in the nightshade family, also known as zombie’s cucumber, devil’s trumpet, and jimson weed, occasions wakeful dreaming. Hallucinations caused by anticholinergics can create fully realistic three-dimensional objects that blend in perfectly with the tripper’s view of the world. Consciousness falls in and out, and for days, the affected person may converse with the non-existent.

Tropane alkaloids are some of the few substances which cause true hallucinations which cannot be distinguished from reality, unlike the visual distortions of LSD. This frequently results in dangerous and erratic behavior; in 2003, a German man cut off his penis and tongue with garden shears whilst under the influence of datura tea.

Given that it may be topically applied, the advice of the Kama Sutra should be regarded with some suspicion:

“To Enslave a Lover: anoint your penis, before lovemaking, with honey into which you have powered black pepper, long pepper and datura (the green thorn apple) it will utterly devastate your lady.“

The diagnostician’s mnemonic is “blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as a hare, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone.” Kinetic sense is gravely distorted, often giving rise to a sensation of flying, and it is hypothesised that this may have something to do with the traditional concept of witches flying, since datura was used in witchcraft along with shamanism. Indeed, it is possible that much of the world’s idea of the dark side is related to the ingestion of datura, which is said to be the most widely used psychoactive substance across time and geography other than booze. In my researches on the way to ripping open for you the seedy underbelly of this town, I came across this message in the archives of Erowid, which seems to be about drugs. It is possible that the datura kicked in during the typing out of the last sentence:

Cultivator's Report: Datura

I've been working with different Daturas (stramoniums and inoxias)
for about ten years. Here are a couple of things I've found.
Cultivating the plant is a good way to get to know its properties.
This is probably true for all botanicals. Datura reveals itself over
time. It is not necessarily a pleasant plant in personality but
having it around energizes the household.

Observe and note. Note its companion bugs. Establish communications
with its beetles. The plant needs its beetles so try not to disrupt
their symbiosis too much. Be respectful of their own relationship.

Note everything. Sit with the plant. Get on plant time. Listen in
plant language. Photosynthesize together. Stream together.

Here is one way to "intake" it that is safer than other methods.
Grow it in pots. When it flowers in the evening bring the potted
plant indoors and let its fragrance fill the room. Breathe it in.
Sometimes this makes for a strong experience. You have to have a
certain sort of mind to accomodate the experience comfortably but as
one cultivates a relationship with Datura this kind of mind develops
naturally.

Then when the wild black dog appears, looks you in the eyes, and 

But what’s that in the undergrowth? Sage, proper name salvia, possibly of the genus which is also a powerful hallucinogen. Could this be a witch’s garden (in which case I call for a posse to burn her at the stake) or is it just a plantation of the new generation of herbal drugs right under the noses of the nearby Collingwood police station?

Just down Gipps St is a block of flats with one of the most repugnant gardens of all time, including oleanders pruned by Dr Hackitoff, and that most vile of plants, the cast iron plant. Oleanders are one of the most poisonous plants: 100g will kill a horse, and the fumes from burning oleander wood are also highly toxic. According to no lesser source than the International Oleander Society, “The extremely bitter and nauseating taste of the sap (much like a rotten lemon) causes a mechanical reflex in the stomach which rejects and expels the vile substance,” but still: best be careful particularly with your little kiddies when promenading on Gipps St.