It is important to learn from other women. We have a lot to offer and to learn from each other out of our separate and common experience. The sisterhood (including the boilers - the old chooks!) is important to me. The dialogue between women is a rich field, but change does not come without a lot of reading, asking, listening, risk taking and hard work.

The Garden Was My Delight. I grew up with gardeners and I just love gardens. I was always very much aware that gardens were important and they were for sharing.

I think that women of my generation have had a real need to form networks and friendships because it's been, as they say, a man's world, and women have felt excluded and isolated to a large degree. When women get together in numbers their strength compounds and is seen and felt by themselves and others.

Beautifully Bleak. I likened the hills encircling Canberra to the sea. They, like the sea, could be a sunny beguiling blue, or deep and inky. They could be distant and mysterious, or beautifully bleak as the wind tore across the plains from their snowy peaks. The hills were ever changing like the sea.

A Garden Is Not Passive. It has its own way of responding to your involvement and commitment to it. When you walk into a garden, you know whether it is loved or not.

Women's networks are a necessary part of life. A mixture of empathy and brainstorming can move mountains.

Living Things. The garden can be as unlimited a resource as you want it to be. It's an escape from everything if you just want a break. It is something to do with living things, not a static piece that you put there and look at but something that changes every day. You're committed to it. If you don't look after it, it dies on you. And if you do look after it, it will give you rewards - pleasure, and a feeling of achievement. There's a sense of responsibility developed in a garden.