I have so many fond memories of visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne as a kid. My family would go and see the ducks, have picnics and roll around in the autumn leaves. We'd explore every nook and cranny of the gardens, it was always a highlight from a day trip to big city.

I do think experiences like this have helped inform my interest in gardens, flowers and the landscape. I've had a deep appreciation for them as early as I can remember.

Fast-forward 30 odd years to 2023 when the buying team from the RBGV Garden Shops asked if they could stock my range of cards! I was beyond excited This quickly evolved into discussions about doing a card collection just for them.

I came back to them with a proposal of a few different concepts, ideas linking the collection together. We landed on a celebration of iconic and emblematic Victoria birdlife and flora. This included the state's bird emblem, the critically endangered helmeted honeyeater as well as Victoria's floral emblem, common heath or epacris impressa. I also included the national floral emblem, golden wattle (acacia pycnantha).

The ever popular blue wren or male superb fairy wren makes a big feature too. On a recent visit to the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens we had a host of the little fellas guiding us to the entry, it was very sweet!

Bringing this series to life brought me so much joy. I was able to dedicated a couple of solid weeks to it in the studio and work on it continuously which is my favourite way to work. No distractions! Below are some moments and insights from that time.

I began with some studies of the birds I wanted to feature. I hadn't painted a helmeted honeyeater before so a few practice runs were necessary!

I like to have all the works in progress visible together so I can see if they are working as a set.