Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

• I love Common Tussock Grass

  Date: 2009.01.20 | Category: Horticulture | Response: 4

  At our beautiful camping site we visited recently there was a plethora of coastal native plants. Some of the most beautiful and enchanting species are the native grasses. I just love they sway in the wind and the sunshine reflects through them.

  Have you ever stopped by a field of tall grass and just watched the most amazing, swirling patterns that are made when the grass bends and moves in the wind? Just one of life’s simple pleasures.

  

  Common Tussock Grass (Poa labillardieri).

  This particular species is very widespread throughout NSW. It can grow to around 1 metre high and is often used by landscapers and gardeners in their designs because of it’s drought hardiness and very attractive habit. It has very pretty seed heads throughout early Summer that are often tinged purple. The whole grass itself tends to go this copper colour in Summer but in the other months it remains green and lush.

• My Stunning Flowering Gum (Corymbia ficifolia)

  Date: 2009.01.14 | Category: home, Horticulture | Response: 4

  It is virtually sweltering here today! It is so hot!!! Actually looking at the gauge confirms that it is 43 deg Celsius which is around 109.4 Fahrenheit. There is no where to hide…ugh…except within the confines of a cool dark house and the most powerful fan money can buy.

  It’s pretty loud in here then as you may imagine, the fan noise competing over the kids watching ‘Fraggle Rock’ on tv. Oh, Fraggle Rock is back? It does seem so.

  A quick escape out into the heat to check the mail led me past this stunning beauty by my front gate

  

  Dwarf Orange Flowering Gum (Corymbia ficifolia). This is a grafted specimen and only grows to around 3 or 4 metres where they usually can get up to 15 metres in their natural habitat. It is a West Australian species and the flowers are so symbolic of long hot Australian Summers.

  

  The bees love it too!

  You can grow this tree from seed but it does not grow ‘true to type’, which means that the flower colour can vary greatly from the parent plant. In fact, seed collected from a red flowering tree may even turn out to have white flowers or pale pink. The grafted species ensure you will retain the colour you desire, whether it be intense red, bright pink or this superb orange. They are usually grafted onto the rootstock of the Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata), as it is a very hardy and adaptable species.

  This particular tree was given to me about six years ago from the guy who grafted and grows them. He has a native plant nursery that specialises in the production of these beautiful grafted gums.

  

  You can even grow these trees in a really large pot or tub. A half wine barrel is ideal.

  I have just recently bought a red one and a pink one too to plant out in my front garden. I had never got around to planting a tree each for my children so these two will be their trees.

  Oh and by the way, can you believe apart from getting waylaid by such a stunner, by the time I got to the mail box it only had bills for me?

  Time to hit the beach….

• Wild Cherries Grow On The River Bank

  Date: 2009.01.04 | Category: family, Horticulture | Response: 1

  Yesterday the kids and I spent an idyllic morning down by our local river. This beautiful river is literally just down the road and around the corner from where we live.

  

  It was a gorgeous morning, sunny and warm with lots of dragonflies flitting about. The kids spent their time swimming in the river while I threw in a fishing line. I did catch a few fish but only small so they were released back into the river.

  

  If you look across the water to the other river bank you can see that big tall, very green tree there. It’s the one to the left of the photo. It is quite conical in shape and actually looks a little like a pine. The rest of the foliage is rather dull and grey but this one always looks vivid and lush. The tree is known as Cherry Ballart or Wild Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis). The tree is native to the Eastern states of Australia and is often admired for its lovely, pendulous growth habit which often turns purple or bronze in the Winter. The other thing that is amazing about this tree is that it is actually a parasite and lives on the roots of it’s host plant, usually Eucalypt’s. This is no way suggests though that it is a menace. It is a native plant species that is an integral part of the Australian bush. The other wonderful thing about this tree is it produces edible fruit and dense fine grained timber too. The timber has been used for fashioning tool handles and other woodturning work.

• Look What I Got

  Date: 2009.01.01 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 5

  

  Well aren’t I the lucky one?

  My uncle came up to visit this Christmas, he has just retired from his job as a lecturer in arboriculture at one of the big universities. He has taught there for many years and before that lived and studied in the United States. Anyway, he has literally hundreds of horticultural and gardening books from information laden text books through to big glossy coffee table numbers.

  Well he decided he needs to pare down his collection a bit and so I was the lucky recipient of many fantastic books. As you can imagine, I’m very happy about it. Loads of inspiration there.

  Happy New Year everyone! I finally planted my coriander and thai basil plants today that have been sitting waiting in their pots for over a week! I deliberated over where to plant a beautiful double white tree dahlia I was given too, but cannot decide where it will go yet. Because we are still building our house and have yet to put on the front verandah, I find it hard sometimes to get an ‘overall’ idea of what the completed picture will look like. Therefore it is at times difficult to know where to plant things. Maybe I should just let the plant decide..I have read about people planting by this method. You take the plant and walk around the garden with it until you get a strong feeling that it would be happy in a certain position. Has anybody else heard of this? Or possibly even tried it?

• A Beautiful Garden Escapee

  Date: 2008.12.29 | Category: Horticulture | Response: 1

  The beautiful flowers of Leonotis leonurus are such an intense, brilliant orange. It is quite spectacular when it is in full bloom.

  

  The plant is known by many common names, including, Lion’s Ear, Lion’s Tail and Wild Dagga.

  This particular specimen is cut back quite harshly when it has finished flowering. It usually looks a little straggly for quite a while but at this time of year it comes into it’s own and looks superb.

  The plant is actually native to South Africa and can grow up to 2 metres high and around 1.5m wide. The flowers appear in whorls around the stem, they are tubular and I find the honeyeaters just love them for their sweet nectar.

  Apparently the plant is used in Shaman rituals also and it has quite a few medicinal uses. I am not sure about what they exactly are. But I have seen seed of the plant for sale on herbal websites.

  In my part of the world the Lion’s Ear is actually declared a weed or a ‘Garden Escapee.’ Some gardeners have been known to dump their garden refuse in the surrounding bush and then the seed within will germinate and the plant prosper in the area. This can have a huge environmental impact on native bushland and sand dunes where native plants find it hard to compete with often aggressive exotic species. I have done quite a bit of work over the years in bush revegetation and the control of environmental weeds. We will have to talk about that in another post, another time.

  

  Many nurseries in Australia are proving to be very responsible in this aspect and will not sell any plants that are considered to be environmental weeds.

  I guess I wanted to make the point too that just because a plant is considered to be a weed, it does not mean that it cannot be appreciated for it’s beauty.

• Overzealous Zucchini’s

  Date: 2008.12.27 | Category: Horticulture | Response: 7

  This morning I took a wander down into my vegetable garden. It has been sadly neglected for about a week or so due to Christmas festivities.

  Now most of you, including myself, should know better than to leave a zucchini on its own. One day they are just sitting pretty, with gorgeous yellow flowers, a promise of whats to follow.

  

  Thoughts of tender zucchini with pasta on my mind…a sprinkle of fresh ground pepper, olive oil and garlic.

  But alas the zucchini has other thoughts and has turned into a virtual triffid, rampaging forth at an extraordinary rate.

  

  My thoughts have now turned to Summer zucchini slice which is where all the big zucchini’s go…

  But there still is promise of sweet, tender zucchini pasta….

  

  I just need to keep my eye on them

• Scrumptious Apple Berry’s

  Date: 2008.12.22 | Category: home, Horticulture | Response: 0

  The Native Appleberry ( Billardiera scandens) is one of my favourite native plants. It is a delicate little climber with beautiful lime green little bell flowers. The flowers are then followed by this lovely edible fruit that falls to the ground when ripe. The fruit was an important Aboriginal bush food and it has a flavour reminiscent of unsweetened stewed apples.

  The plant itself is very commonly seen growing in the bush and in coastal areas of Eastern Australia, from QLD right down the seaboard to Tasmania. It will grow in full sun to dense shade and can be grown quite successfully under large trees.

  

  This is a photo of one growing on my property on the fence. I never planted it there, it is a wild species that has taken a liking to the position. You can see the appleberry fruit in the top right hand position of the photo. The fruit can get quite large, approx 5cm or so and are very squishy when ripe. I wonder what the kids would say if I replaced Granny Smith in their lunch boxes with lovely Appleberry’s…

• On Mulberry’s and Wildflowers

  Date: 2008.11.26 | Category: home, Horticulture | Response: 2

  Just today I was out in the garden, lamenting the inevitable loss of my beautiful black Mulberry tree. The tree was bought just this Winter, as a bare rooted, dormant fruit tree. I actually bought it as a gift for my father, on Father’s Day. But, it has never taken off or grown any new leaves.. I keep scratching back the bark and checking that the cambium layer is green…it is. The little buds continue to promise withholding green growth but they never burst forth I cut back about half of the growth two weeks ago, hoping to encourage it to grow…but alas…nothing.

  Anyway as I mourned the loss today, I wandered over a few feet to the fence line. There it was that a scarlet stunner caught my eye! A beautiful, graceful native wildflower, growing on the fence and climbing sky ward. She is one of my favourites and grows very well around here. The dusky coral pea or Kennedia rubicunda.

  

  Her breath taking beauty combined with the lovely sunshine on my back after three full days of rain, certainly lifted my spirits.

  I guess I’m going to the nursery to buy another Mulberry tree

• Friday is Radio Show Day

  Date: 2008.11.14 | Category: Horticulture | Response: 3

  Every Friday morning I do a radio show on our local community station. My show is called ‘The Good Earth’ and is about everything and anything horticultural! I guess though, that because my passion is food plants, they often tend to dominate my shows. There is nothing I love more than a good tale of tomato growing.

  Today I talked a fair bit about growing tomatoes. It’s that time of year here. So many wonderful selections, so many wonderful varieties to try. I am actually growing ‘Beefsteak’, ‘KY1′ and ‘Cherry Ripe’ this year. I do love my ‘Beefsteak’ tomatoes, perfect for slicing and putting between two chunks of home made bread with lots of fresh butter, pepper and salt. Oh this is the best kind of comfort food! Yum.

  The most difficult part of my show is actually queuing up the music. I have had some people say that my music selection is ‘all over the shop.’ I know this, but I find it hard to stick to just one genre. I actually like a whole lotta music! So today I played Enya for my sister in law. I played Ali Farke Toure for my hubby and then some Dave Graney and INXS just for me.

  Now getting my head around the ‘studio’ and all those buttons and levers. Still very confusing, even though I have been doing this now for well over a year. Getting the voice levels right and then the music levels, etc, aaaargh!

  Anyway this morning I took a photo of my view from the seat. As you can see I have the computer that helps me with all the music and adds or promos. One of the best things about doing my show is the lovely feedback I get. It’s always nice to know that someone is actually listening out there in ‘radio land’. Maybe they are being horticulturally inspired…now wouldn’t that be grand

  

• The Flanders Poppy, symbol of Remembrance Day

  Date: 2008.11.11 | Category: Horticulture | Response: 1

  Today is Remembrance Day. A day for us all to remember the sacrifices made during war time.

  In Australia we have one minutes silence at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month. In our schools, children are asked to bow their heads whilst listening to ‘The Last Post.’ Many people across the country also stop what they are doing and heed their respect.

  The Flanders poppy is a very significant symbol of Remembrance Day. The beautiful, red poppy grew amongst the battle fields and bloomed amongst the slain soldiers. It is worn by people on Remembrance Day and its colour is said to represent the bloodshed from those fields.

  

  This is a photo of the Flanders Poppy, blooming at the moment in my garden. I planted them from a few punnets of struggling little seedlings. I didn’t hold much hope for them but they flourished against the odds and now look wonderful.

  The red poppy is now internationally recognised as a symbol or icon of all our fallen soldiers and civilians displaced through warfare. What a beautiful and evocative symbol it is.