From my brief time in a portion of Australia (granted, the portion where the majority of Australians live) I can say the gardening culture there is more "serious" than the US. (Not that it would take much lol.) It is a commonwealth country after all, settled mostly by the English. It definitely helps that it's a climate where year round gardening is possible. Even though they seemingly have a lot of land and very few people, much of the outback isn't suited to conventional agriculture. So the land use patterns reminded me more of Europe (the UK specifically) or the denser parts of the US. Melbourne and Sydney and their suburbs would remind people much more of London or the San Francisco Bay area than say, Atlanta. Even if the climate differences weren't taken into account. There isn't miles and miles of exurban sprawl with hundreds of thousands of housing units on well and septic. It's denser suburbs clustered around commuter rail lines that often quickly give way to open agricultural land past where the lines end. When people have a limited amount of land and/or places with over 1/4 acre of land are hard to purchase and insanely expensive, they tend to make more with what they've got. Just for kicks, for example, I looked for places for sale in the Blue Mountains with 1 hectare or more of land. It would be at least 5x harder and maybe 2X as expensive to buy such places as in say, the outer suburbs of Philly, DC, or Baltimore. Exceptions would be, for example, the Dandenongs outside Melbourne, where there is a lot of older, sometimes stately housing stock on larger lots and quaint village centers, sort of similar to say, Bucks Co, PA, Weston, MA, North Shore of Chicago, etc. (even the western US ended up a little more like Europe in this regard, especially California, more because of water and geographical issues than an absolute shortage of land) But, again, because people had to pay more for such acre or more properties than they would have in various American cities, they are making the most of the garden space. And some of the private gardens I saw driving around were very impressive.

We use lots of compost and very little chemicals in our small backyard garden in NoVa. Does that qualify?

Thanks guys. Johnnieb, WOW, I was down there in September, and did not take any pics, but man those bananas were almost twice the height in Sept 08 than they are in your photo from July. It always amazes me how fast they grow. Ive had Musa basjoo go from 1 foot tall, to 15 feet in just a few months. Definitely the thing to grow if you want fast, and extremely noticeable results. I wonder if they would care if anyone took any of the seedlings? I would guess they would not since there are literally hundreds of them in that planter and the surrounding planters. I wish they would let them go to seed more. When I was there in Sept, I was there twice in two weeks, and the second time I went down I noticed they had removed all of the seed stalks from the Sabal Minor. It was kind of disappointing. I would venture to guess that once enough of those get planted around the DC area, and are left to go to see, we might start seeing them naturalise a bit in and around the city.

Interesting thread.....Here in Utah, where we have snow on the ground for months on end, I don't recall ever seeing a white kitchen...ever. Not at upscale open houses, not in the annual Parade of Homes (where prices range from $500K to $2 Million), not ever. And I think that snow-on-the-ground has a lot to do with this! (When I lived in San Antonio in 1997-99, white kitchens were very popular, and I had one installed in the house I built. And that makes sense given San Antonio's heat and humidity -- it just felt welcoming to walk into the white kitchen from the outside.) So, in Utah wood kitchens with granite and SS appliances are the rage, and have been for several years. Popular woods are alder and cherry -- both stained, and left natural, with some subtle glazing. You'll find oak cabinets, too, but not usually in the more expensive homes. You won't find painted cabinets...people here want the warmth of wood, and the ability to see its grain. Lots of back splashes made of interesting tile (glass tiles really haven't caught on yet) or granite. And granite counter tops are found everywhere. Kitchen floors range from wood floors to porcelain tile to travertine. Styles range from traditional to country to western modern...No cutting-edge Architectural Digest modern or NYC modern.