Monday, May 25, 2026

Marine Rescue NSW volunteers assist search for missing swimmer off Little Bay Beach

Major search launched for swimmer who disappeared at Sydney’s Little Bay Beach

Several emergency agencies have mobilised helicopters, boats and volunteers in a massive search for a man believed to be in his 




 

Marine Rescue NSW volunteers assist search for missing swimmer off Little Bay Beach


Volunteers from Marine Rescue Botany Port Hacking and Marine Rescue Middle Harbour are assisting a multi-agency search for a missing male swimmer at Little Bay Beach.

Marine Rescue NSW Inspector Joel Pemberton said vessels and crews were requested to assist by NSW Police Marine Area Command.

“Volunteer crews were assembled and rescue vessels Botany Hacking 30 and Middle Harbour 30 deployed at 12.30pm.

“Both Marine Rescue NSW vessels are working alongside Water Police, searching an area from Little Bay Beach to Cape Banks in the south.

“Sea conditions offshore are unfavourable, with a 3 to 5 metre south-east rolling swell.

“Marine Rescue NSW volunteers and vessels will continue searching until instructed otherwise by Marine Area Command,” Inspector Pemberton said.

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When the whole world is silent

 “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” 

– Malala Yousafzai, activist


A tale as old as human consciousness: the battle of good vs. evil never ends.


Federal corruption watchdog boss Paul Brereton quits


You Got Screwed During Covid.  Four Chinese companies colluded to restrict global shipping for four years, making prices skyrocket.


Thursday, May 7, 2026

District Judge Dismisses Wire Fraud Counts with Overlapping Facts for Tax Counts Because the Lesser Burden of Proof for Wire Fraud Violates Due Process 

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In United States v. Garza (N.D. TX 3:22-CR-0390-8), Memo and Order dated 5/6/26, CL here  and GS here , the Court dismissed certain counts ...
Saturday, April 4, 2026

Tax Court Sustains Deficiencies Equaling Restitution with No RBA 

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In Thody v. Commissioner , T.C. Memo. 2026-30, the Court sustained the deficiencies asserted against Thody with respect to the tax loss that...
Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Prominent Convicted Tax Shelter Lawyer Fails on Appeal in CDP Case Involving Restitution Based Assessments 

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I start with a caveat: although this posting is on April 1, sometimes called April Fools Day, this is intended as a serious discussion. In...


Top Treasury lawyer resigns as Trump, IRS settlement announced The Hill. This was THE chief legal officer. If Trump had not so surrounded himself with toadies and Congress was capable of getting out of bed, this would be a Saturday Night Massacre level event

Trump’s Own Handpicked Lawyer Quits Treasury in Disgust at Massive $1.8B Grift Daily Beast (Ann). A more pointed telling of the same tale.

Justice Department expands Trump settlement to cover his tax audits Politico

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US Rep. Thomas Massie loses Kentucky GOP primary to Ed Gallrein in another victory for TrumpAssociated Press. This result was the lead story even in the Bloomberg Middle East edition. 

One can hope:

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Trump officials plan to repeal limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water Guardian

Trump Treats Legal Immigration as Intolerable W. H. Lawrence

Trumpworld’s new eyebrow-raising addiction that even health boss RFK Jr admits to using daily Daily Mail

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Sunday, May 24, 2026

Kim Sings Ella - The Sheer Joy of Cut Flowers

Sunday 24 May, Kim Sings Ella: The South Coast’s favourite entertainer, Kim Hair is performing a tribute to the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald at a special performance in the auditorium of Coastal Waters, from 2pm, $25 at the door. The bar will be open during intermission. Kim will be accompanied by a five-piece of sensational jazz musicians, in the village off the Wool Road at Worrowing Heights.






 

The Sheer Joy of Cut Flowers

Sarah Raven, the celebrated British gardener, indulges her obsession with homegrown cutting gardens and shares tips on creating spectacular arrangements.

By Margaret Roach 

May 2026

Sarah Raven had me at “Don’t pick and plonk,” her admonition not to cheat ourselves out of even a moment of delight a homegrown cut flower can give by hurrying it into the vase without some conscious aftercare.

Thanks to “A Year of Cut Flowers,” the 14th and latest book from the celebrated British gardener, nursery owner and podcaster, I will never again carelessly cut a stem straight across. The wrong cut risks it forming a seal on the bottom of the vase instead of remaining open to taking up water.

ImageGlass bottles are placed on a platter to create an arrangement of pink and purple blooms.
Bottles clustered on a pewter tray and filled with stems of homegrown flowers such as Cosmos and Ammi form a simple but stunning tabletop arrangement.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

I won’t unthinkingly trim much lower on the stem than needed for the intended vase, either, because what’s squandered might contain buds representing another potential flush of bloom. Waste not.

Growing cut flowers, Ms. Raven writes, has been her “main gardening obsession” for more than 30 years, a pursuit she describes as “gardening for the optimist and the greedy flower lover.”

Added to that enthusiasm is the disciplined wisdom gleaned from records kept during years of methodical trials of thousands of varieties in the extensive, organically managed gardens at Perch Hill, her home in East Sussex, England.

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A woman walks with two black dogs in a garden planted with dahlias.
Sarah Raven with the family dogs in the dahlia trial beds at Perch Hill in East Sussex, England, where she grows more than 200 dahlia varieties.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Her analyses have divined which roses make top cutting-garden choices, for instance, but also helped her puzzle out other needed solutions — such as how to keep disfiguring fungal diseases like mildew and blackspot at bay without chemicals. Underplanting the roses with Salvia microphylla hybrids has proved effective, presumably thanks to compounds emitted from the sage leaves.

This fusion of sheer joy and hard data is a powerful combination, a formula so convincing on every level that it makes any gardener want to carve out space for a cutting garden.

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Roses standing in bottles with name tags sit on a wood table.
A 2024 rose trial of 65 varieties at Sarah Raven’s extensive gardens in England yielded a list of the best performers for use as cutting flowers.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Success begins by choosing plants capable of cut-and-come-again performance. These potential rebloomers are ones that make embryonic buds in the axil where leaf meets stem.

Some 70 percent of her cutting garden area is devoted to such candidates, most of them annuals, biennials or dahlias, as perennials are generally less likely to offer up quick repeat harvests, she said. (Of course space is also devoted to must-haves like tulips, Narcissus and other bulbs, despite their habit of pushing just one round of bloom.)


Even among the top 70 percent of performers, “there are superlatives and there are OKs,” she said. “And if you’ve got a small patch or a balcony or a window box, you want the superlatives.”

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Flowers with bright orange and deep blue blooms are planted together in a garden.
Calendula officinalis Indian Prince and the blue-flowered form of Salvia viridis are prolific performers that Sarah Raven has grown since she planted her first cutting garden.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Ammi majus reblooms, for example, but is not as fast to recover between cuttings as Cosmos. Other top producers include annual clary sage (Salvia viridis), annual Scabiosa (S. atropurpurea), sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus), amaranth (Amaranthus caudatus), zinnias and dahlias.

With many of the plants that “behave in this generous way,” she said, the gardener must still encourage a stocky plant from early on, by pinching out the top set of leaves once three pairs of true leaves have formed below. Salvias, sweet peas, cosmos, dahlias, calendula and zinnias are among those that respond bountifully.

Later, when we go to cut, we must do it strategically, too — typically above a pair of leaves, so axillary buds stay intact to power the next round of bloom.

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A plant with tassel-like, caramel-colored blooms.
Sarah Raven would not be without amaranths for their foliage and tassel-like flowers, including caramel-colored Amarathus caudatus Hot Biscuits.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Ms. Raven recommends harvesting in the morning (or last thing at night), armed with two buckets. Cut stems at an angle, strip off the leaves from the bottom two-thirds and toss them in the extra bucket, placing the cut flowers into the water-filled one.


In late winter and spring, perhaps three-quarters of what’s picked then gets seared, another treatment to extend vase life. In summer that drops to about one-quarter. The bottom 10 percent of each stem is dipped into a mug of boiling water fresh from the kettle — soft stems for a few seconds, and woody ones like roses or lilacs for perhaps 30. Among notable exceptions, tulips, daffodils and other spring bulbs don’t get seared; later on, sweet peas and dahlias don’t, either.

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A hand holds a bunch of flowers while hot water is poured into a cup.
In late winter and spring, perhaps three-quarters of what’s picked gets seared with a quick dip of stem ends into boiling water, to extend vase life.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Before arranging, Ms. Raven suggests letting the flowers rest in tepid water for at least a few hours or even better overnight in a cool spot out of direct sun. When it’s time to arrange, she adds a little clear distilled vinegar or bleach to the vase water to slow bacterial reproduction that could hasten decay. In a 12-inch vase, she might add half a teaspoon of bleach or five tablespoons of vinegar.

A bonus to using bleach: It also neutralizes the “characteristic pong,” she said, that may offend some noses when bouquets include alliums, Cleome, or brassicas. And yes, the vegetable garden is fair game for red-leaf mizuna or kale or other arrangement elements, like dill and other herbs, vines of runner beans or purple-podded snap peas, or sprays of the smallest-fruited cherry tomatoes.

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Blue flowers are arranged in a row of bottles.
In April, a blue-themed palette includes violas, Muscari, Pulmonaria, Anemone and sprigs of rosemary, arranged simply in a row of bottles on a mantel.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

Her expertise notwithstanding, Ms. Raven resists pressuring us to become master arrangers. In fact she rather likes simpler routes for bringing bits of the outside into her own home. One way: as individual stems or small bunches of goodies, tucked into each of a row of small vessels along a mantel, or clustered on a pewter tray atop a table.

“A galaxy of mini bottles,” she calls it.

If an occasion begs for more formality, anyone who has been rattled by what-goes-with-what worries while wandering about the garden will be grateful for Ms. Raven’s charming conceit for making happy floral marriages.

The palette, she writes, usually includes three types of blooms (with foliar elements to come later). Identify a bride (“the star of the show,” and “the first thing to decide on”) and a bridesmaid (“smaller and a bit less demonstrative,” in the same color or very close “that backs up the bride but does not compete with her”). Finally select a gate-crasher to enliven the mix (a flower that contrasts in color, “like adding a squeeze of lemon to smoked salmon”).

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A grid made of sticks and twist-ties will keep short-stemmed flowers from slipping into a bowl of water.
Clever homemade grids of hazel, dogwood or willow twigs knotted together with flexible twine.Credit...Jonathan Buckley
Or free yourself entirely from design worry — and from using nonsustainable, petroleum-based floral foam — by constructing clever homemade grids that sit atop bowls or deep dishes to support flower heads. The grid keeps the blooms out of the water, encouraging longer life than if they were floated in the bowl.

To fashion a grid, cut twigs, ideally of hazel, dogwood or willow, to extend about an inch wider on each side than the vessel, and lay them out like a tic-tac-toe board. Connect each point of intersection by tying square knots in stretchy garden string (Flexi-Tie brand is recommended), first tying each knot loosely, then doubling back to tighten them all.

The grids are reusable, so when you cut and come again, and again, and again, they — like the most carefully chosen flowers — will be ever at the ready.

Image
White flowers in a blue bowl.
A finished arrangement in a bowl topped with a twig grid supports small bunches of snowdrops.Credit...Jonathan Buckley

So go have a look at what’s blooming outside, shears and buckets in hand. Why wait till it’s time to deadhead when you can pre-emptively “live-head” (Ms. Raven’s word), enjoying the gift of cut flowers while also hinting to the plant to think about starting on another round.

A version of this article appears in print on May 24, 2026, Section RE, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: The Sheer Joy of Cut Flowers. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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