That rosemary plant that you love. Or the gardenia that gives such beautiful flowers. Or that Camellia bush with the red and white striped flowers that your friend has and that you covet! All these plants can be grown for free easily using cuttings from an established plant.

Gardenia flower

What You’ll Need to multiply your plants

All you need to multiply your plants are a few standard gardening tools, pots and potting medium. The instructions follow below if you want to try this.

You need a plant to get cuttings from, sharp scissors or secateurs, honey or hormone rooting powder, potting medium and pots plus a plastic drink bottle.

Sharp scissors or secateurs are most important, to ensure you start with a clean cutting that hasn’t been crushed or bruised.

Using honey or hormone rooting powders encourages the plant to grow roots, helping create a new plant. I prefer honey because it has an anti-microbial action. This helps keep the cutting sterile as well as helping provide some nourishment.

Coir peat for potting medium

For the potting medium you can use seed raising mix or create your own potting medium. The potting medium I use is made from a mix of coir peat and washed sand. Potting mix alone won’t provide enough substance to support the cutting.

You need a plastic pot in which to place the plant cutting. Use several pots if you want to take a lot of cuttings. Only small pots are needed to start with because these allow the plant to get established easily. After the plant has grown you will be potting it up into larger pots.

However, if you only have a larger pot, try placing several cuttings together. Just make sure the cuttings are not touching each other.

To finish you need a plastic drink bottle or other clear container. You use this to create a mini greenhouse for your cutting until the plant has grown.

What You’ll Do

The first step is to identify the plant that you wish to multiply. You need to make sure that the plant is large enough and healthy enough that it can live through the removal of one or several stems!

As I said above, this plant is the one(s) that you want to multiply for free from your existing garden. Or it can be a cutting from a friend or neighbour. I have even taken cuttings from plants that I have admired when walking around the neighbourhood. If you do this, it’s good manners to ask the owner if they mind you taking a cutting!!

Heel cutting

For maximum success it is better to take a “heel” cutting, as the plant will actively produce new roots from the heel cuttings.

To take a heel cutting, find a point where a small branch is produced from a stem and gently pull the branch away. A small amount of the stem will come away with the branch. This is what a heel cutting is. A plant is more likely to grow roots from the heel part than it is from straight stem part.

If you can’t get a heel cutting, make sure that you have at least one leaf junction on the stem. This leaf junction or node should be close to the base of the cutting. These junctions are also areas where new roots can easily grow. To increase the chance of root growth carefully slice up through the leaf node and insert a small amount of sphagnum moss into this opening.

Cut the leaves

Then remove some of the leaves on the cutting so only have two or three leaves are left. With plants like gardenias and camellias I also cut the remaining leaves in half if they are large. This helps to minimise moisture loss until the cutting has established its own root system.

Place some of your potting medium in a clean, plastic pot. Dip the cutting, heel end, in the honey and ensure a good coverage. I normally dip at least 2-3cm of stem into the honey.

Using a pencil or some other implement make a small hole in the potting medium, and push the cutting in the hole. Take care not to rub off the honey. Gently push the potting medium around the stem then press around the cutting with your fingers until it is supported. The cutting should not be more than half covered.

Mini greenhouses

Finally take the plastic bottle (soft drink or milk containers both work well) and remove the bottom with a sharp knife. Cover the cutting with the top of the plastic bottle. This creates a mini-greenhouse for your plant. Water the pot gently, attach a label and place in a cool area out of the sun, but with plenty of light.

How You’ll Know You Have Succeeded

You will know when the cutting has taken as it starts to grow new leaves. When they have sufficient new growth they can be potted up into a larger pot.

Some plants like rosemary grow really easily from cuttings. So if you take lots of cuttings, chances are that you will end up with lots of new plants. This is great as you can share these with your friends and family.

Happy gardening from Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert 🙂

The post Do You Want to Multiply Your Plants for free? appeared first on Delectable Garden.

I was down the market the other day and saw that they had lemongrass for sale – 3 stalks for $5.00!

Honestly, if you don’t know how to grow lemongrass you would think at that price that Lemongrass was a precious, hard to grow herb. In reality, growing Lemongrass is easy!

You can grow lemongrass from seed or seedling. It can even grow it by buying one of those stalks and allowing it to take root in a glass of water!

Lemongrass

Lemongrass is not fussy about soil, water, fertiliser. In fact, it’s not fussy about much. I even had a clump growing in a crack in a concrete driveway!

Actually, I would say there are more “Do Nots” when it comes to growing lemongrass!

My list of “Do Not’s” when growing lemongrass include:

1. Don’t plant it directly in the garden, unless you have a massive yard or a corner where absolutely nothing with grow! Always keep it contained in a pot.

2. Do Not plant it in a small pot. I would recommend a fairly large pot as the plant can be large when established so can look top heavy or even break a smaller pot.

3. Do Not plant it in a mixed pot with other herbs. It will smother the other herbs.

4. Do Not let it get out of control! Prune it regularly, and hard. It responds well to being controlled.

5. Do Not let it go to “flower”! Its flowers are more like a fluffy fringe similar to most grass flowers. If you let it go to seed, the wind and birds will disperse the seed and you and your neighbours will have it everywhere. In fact, lemongrass has become an environmental weed in many parts of Queensland.

6. Do Not fertilise it. The more you fertilise, the larger the clump will grow and the more flower spikes it will send up!

7. Do Not ignore little seedlings that pop up in your garden. These seedling are not cute, as they grow into massive clumps!

So Why Grow Lemongrass?

Well, it is fabulous in curries, stir fry’s, laksa and many Thai and Asian-based soups.  And it makes a really refreshing tea!

If you do use it in cooking, then its better to grow it than pay $5 for a small bunch!

To use lemongrass if you are growing it, just go to the base of the plant, find a thick stalk and twist to break it away from the mother plant. It should come away fairly easily. Be careful with the leaves as they are razor-sharp on the edges. Cut the top of the stalk off, leaving about 20-30cm.

Trim the base, peel off the outer layers until you reach the softer whitish centre. This can then be sliced into thin rings, pounded with a rolling pin or crushed in a mortar and pestle.

lemongrass stalk

If you are buying a stalk, choose stalks that feel heavy. Otherwise, it may have been picked too long and allowed to dry out, leaving it less tasty and woodier in texture.

Lemongrass adds a lovely mild citrusy flavour to many Asian recipes, but I find that the woody texture is an acquired taste. It’s better to cut the stalk into 6 cm pieces and just bruise it with a mallet to release the oils.

I then add the bruised lemongrass pieces to the soup or curry early in the cooking process, and remove the stalks before serving. If I want to add it to a stir-fry, I slice it into thin rings and bash it in a mortar and pestle.

It also makes a refreshing tea. Just add the bruised stalks to a pot or teacup, cover with boiling water and let it infuse. Remove the stalks and drink the tea.

Alternatively, use lemongrass to add a lovely citrus flavour to a bottle of vodka for cocktails. Just peel and bruise a lemongrass stalk, put it in a nearly full bottle of vodka, allow to steep for 3-4 days, shaking occasionally and remove the stalks.

lemongrass plant

Like many herbs and spices, it is high in vitamins including vitamins A, C and traces of B group vitamins. It is also high in minerals including magnesium, folate, iron, potassium, copper, phosphorus and manganese. The human body needs the vitamins and minerals to function effectively.

Lemongrass has an extensive history of use in Asian countries for its medicinal properties including its anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties and it is reported to reduce the symptoms associated with colds and flu’s.

It has been called fever grass for its ability to reduce raised body temperatures and is also said to be good for arthritis and joint pain, lowering cholesterol and the risk of heart disease and delaying age-related chronic diseases!

So why not grow some lemongrass today?

Happy Gardening

Rohanne, Your Personal Garden Expert

The post Growing Lemongrass in Australia appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Here are five new year resolutions that have been tweeted as popular this year. And how your garden can help you to keep to achieve these resolutions in the next the 365 days.

Resolution 1: Exercise more

Exercise more

A lot of people start the New Year with a resolution to exercise more. This may be because they want to get fitter or because they want to lose weight.

You may already be getting some exercise. But most of the time you just sit around at home and at work, and this can have a negative effect on your health and your posture. In fact, sitting has been called “the new smoking” because of the negative effects on our health.

The garden can help you keep this resolution! You could actually grow some things that you can eat.

Gardening is a great activity for increasing your health and fitness.

Don’t have much space? It’s amazing how much you can grow in a pot or a vertical garden.

A patch of greenery can be a great positive influence for you in the concrete jungle we live in!

Resolution 2: Engage more with people and less with Social Media

Engage with more people

It’s even more fun if you share your gardening activities with friends and family.

Invite them over to help you set up your garden. Even better, invite them for a meal, where you can serve them something you have grown! Another way you can meet people and connect is to attend gardening clubs or join gardening groups on Meet-Up or Facebook.

Resolution 3: Eat Healthier Food

Vibrant veggies

There is soo much fast food around today that it sometimes seems harder to actually make healthier choices. Again, your garden can help.

When you get to eat something that you have grown and nurtured, it brings a whole new meaning and flavour to your food. Growing your own lettuce is easy. And the bonus is that you only pick what you need for your meal and leave the rest still growing in the garden, instead of getting slimy in the bottom of your fridge!

Try growing herbs such as Basil, Thyme, Sage or Mint and add them to your salads. It will add a huge flavour boost and the added bonus of knowing you grew them. Therefore they haven’t been treated with nasty chemicals that aren’t good for the bad bugs, but they aren’t good for you either!

Resolution 4: Reduce Stress

Even if you don’t have a green thumb, digging in the dirt, planting and nurturing plant life can be very therapeutic and stress relieving. Gardening has been proven to reduce stress.

Doctors have been able to test levels of the stress hormone cortisol. These tests show that cortisol levels decrease massively after we have been gardening and playing in the dirt.

I know that life can get busy and it can be hard to find time to do some gardening, but even a few indoor or outdoor potted plants have been shown to have these stress-reducing benefits.

Resolution 5: Start saving money.

There are lots of ways that your garden can help you save money.

By making healthy lifestyle changes, like cutting back on fast food and eating fresh salads from your garden. Gardening can also be a physical activity, which helps burn calories. So why not trade in your gym membership which costs both money and time and trade it for exercising at home in your garden?

The benefits are that you actually get an end product that you can use in your kitchen!

Don’t know where to start? Contact us at The Delectable Garden. We’d love to help you.

Happy gardening 

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

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The post 5 Great New Years Resolutions and how your garden can help you achieve them! appeared first on Delectable Garden.

tomatoes on the vine

I have a great crop of Black Russian tomatoes just about to ripen, some fantastic Russian Kale and some really yummy honey snap peas among my winter crops.

I find the biggest problem with growing peas is that you have to have to plant a huge crop, for some to even make it to the dinner plate! They are so sweet and yummy, I love eating them straight from the bush

Sugar snap peas with kale

I planted the Black Russian tomato as they perform really well in our climate. They have a great flavour and colour, as long as you don’t mind your tomatoes dark purple! In fact I love that we are finally celebrating the whole rainbow of colours that our tomatoes naturally appear in! Eat A Rainbow of Healthy Foods

My winter crop of green zebra tomatoes has thankfully kept me going for almost a year. But they are between crops at the moment, with me having picked all the ripe ones!

This has meant I have managed to avoid the worst of the store-bought tomatoes, which I find bland and tasteless!

Green zebra tomato

I really can’t wait for more home-grown tomatoes to ripen The tomatoes in the shops are a disgrace to the name. Not to mention the price

As my neighbour pointed out to me the other day, if you wanted to throw tomatoes at anyone, (as used to be done in the theatres of Shakespearean times) and you purchased these tomatoes from the supermarket, you’d brain the person, instead of squishing them with rotten tomatoes!

I hope that you are enjoying growing some of your own vegetables in your veggie patch.

Happy gardening

Rohanne, Your Edible Garden Guru

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Happy Mothers Day

If you, or someone you love was lucky enough to receive a Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis) as a gift for Mothers day, then Now is the time to repot that orchid!

These tips will help ensure that you maximise its chance of living and reflowering for you!

Phalaenopsis or Moth orchid

Moth orchids, correct name Phalaenopsis Orchid (try saying that when you’ve had a few drinks) are a beautiful orchid that has gained an unfair reputation for being difficult to grow.

But if you follow my tips you should be successful!

When you are given a Moth Orchid they will invariably be potted up in sphagnum moss.

The growers wrap them tightly in sphagnum moss to minimise plant shock during transportation to the store.

And because they want to ensure the plant is well watered while they are in store before purchase.

Cutting away inside cage from roots

They do not mean them to live in this sphagnum moss permanently!

This sphagnum moss will kill them unless you re-pot them into another type of orchid mix.

The moss holds too much water around the roots and leads to the plant being drowned and the roots rotting.

How To Repot Your Phalaenopsis Orchid

Phalaenopsis orchids are one of the only orchids you can safely re-pot while it is in flower.

The first thing to do is remove them from the pot and remove all sphagnum moss from around their roots (see photo).

With this particular Phalaenopsis, I found the roots tightly crammed into an even smaller pot when I removed the outer wrapping of sphagnum moss. You may find a similar problem.

This plastic cage has to be cut away carefully with minimal if any damage to the root system.

Roots completely clean of sphagnum moss

Luckily it was easy to cut with normal kitchen scissors.

You then need to find a suitable-sized plastic pot, generally smaller than the outer one they came in, or at best the same size, as all orchids like to be pot-bound.

Plastic pot for orchid

I tend to use clear plastic pots as they have better drainage and are lighter weight.

And, as the orchids breathe and photosynthesise through their roots, it helps the plant to breathe and therefore stay healthy.

Also you can them place these inside whatever decorative pot you want to use. Just make sure that the outer pot has enough drainage.

The orchid can still drown, even if it is potted up in orchid bark, if there is not enough drainage and the roots sit for too long in water.

Place orchid plant roots in the pot then fill all around with a fairly coarse bark orchid potting mix and water well.

Repotted orchid

The orchids need bright diffuse light, but no direct sunlight and will grow and flower well on a brightly lit windowsill.

The Moth Orchid pictured is in almost constant flower and receives very little care.

Phalaenopsis flower stalk

Happy Gardening

The post Tips for growing a Phalaenopsis Orchid appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Maidenhair fern growing in between the cracks

Is growing Maidenhair Ferns easy?

I was speaking with a client this week who was lamenting the fact that another maidenhair fern had died.

He wasn’t really happy when I said that he had probably killed the fern with kindness!

Whenever ferns come up as a gardening topic, I am amazed at how many people think that, because they look fragile they must be difficult to grow. It is a myth that is perpetuated on several blogs and websites.

This really couldn’t be further from the truth. Providing you give them the conditions they need to grow, Maidenhair ferns are easy to grow.

Mind you it’s easy to say that now, but there was a time when I had maidenhair ferns die on me too. That was in the days when I used to pamper them before I learnt the “treat them mean” philosophy!

They like light. Don’t try and grow them in too dark an area!

Holly fern growing in mop head

Many people try and grow Maidenhair ferns, and other ferns, in situations where they don’t get enough light.

Maidenhair ferns generally don’t do well in direct sunlight, but give them enough diffuse light and keep them barely moist, they will generally be pretty happy.

Depending on your location, Maidenhair ferns will grow outside in semi-shade, providing they are protected from the summer heat. In fact, they grow quite well in shady spots in normal garden soil in Brisbane.

Don’t overfeed or overwater

Many gardeners also tend to provide the ferns with too much water and too much fertiliser!

As I said, there was a time when I had maidenhair ferns die on me too. Now, instead of killing them, I have almost the opposite problem. If they weren’t so attractive they could almost be considered a weed at my place. They self-seed everywhere, turning up in a lot of pots and they just grow!

The only thing that saves them is that they don’t need much food and they don’t seem to compete with the host plants!

Self-sown maidenhair and holly ferns

They also grow in between cracks in the cement, along with Holly ferns and painted lady ferns.

In fact, one Holly fern has planted itself in a mop head from a squeegee mop that I left in water for too long while I was trying to clean it. My cleaning lady finds this fascinating, and it probably explains why I need a cleaning lady in the first place

So, if you are thinking of giving Mum a potted plant for Mother’s Day, don’t ignore the beautiful Maidenhair ferns. Just be sure and point Mum to this Blog for advice on How to Keep them Alive.

Happy Gardening.

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

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The post Maidenhair Ferns: How to plant and grow Maidenhair Ferns appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Top 21 perfumed plants for your sub-tropical garden

I was reading a blog article the other day about the Top 10 Perfumed plants to grow in your garden. Now I knew, even as I clicked on the link, that I was probably going to be disappointed at the plants listed. Sadly I wasn’t wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the perfumed plants listed. They were just sooo boringly Bog standard! First of all, there are just so many beautiful perfumed plants that you need never live without fragrance in your garden.

Consequently, I decided that I would compile my own list of the Top 10 perfumed plants in my garden. My first problem was, of course, to limit the list to 10 favourites!

I decided that if I only looked at shrubs this would be easier. Not quite!

Similarly, I decided to try and limit it to shrubs that grew in the sub-tropics, and notably my garden. This means I have to remove Lilacs and Peonies from the list as, sadly, these will not grow in the sub-tropics. Believe me, I’ve tried!

Finally, I got the list down to my top 21 favourite perfumed plants.

I’m sure others will probably disagree, as I did with the blog that I read, but I hope you find something that makes you think “I must get one of those for my garden”!

Camellia	Sweet Emily Kate	All camellias produce the most beautiful, perfect flowers that look almost fake they are so perfect, but sadly few of them are perfumed plants. I have two beautiful perfumed camellias in my garden. Sweet Emily Kate has delightful double pink blooms that are borne freely on the shrub over winter and perfume the whole garden. I have under-planted this with Fairy Blush, which has single pale pink fragrant flowers that cover the bush.
Citrus	Lemon citrus flower	All citrus plants have the most exquisite perfume when they are in flower. The bonus is that you also get fruit from the flowers when they have been pollinated. Choose from the lemony scents of lemon trees or the orange or lime scents. They really smell like the fruit they later produce.
Coco (Michelia)	Sweet Coco	Closely related to magnolias, Coco is an attractive plant, with beautiful pure white blooms that smell a bit like sweet bananas. The buds are a furry brown and look insignificant until they burst open with the pure white flowers. Everything I have read says that this plant has a slight perfume but I would disagree as it easily perfumes my garden when in flower.
Daphne	Daphne	When I first moved to the sub-tropics, I tried to grow Daphne as I had always had it in my garden growing up in the ACT. It didn’t like the sub-tropics and would generally die within a year or two. They have now released a Daphne that loves full sun and grows well in the sub-tropics. I have two growing in my garden and both have produced the customary gorgeous perfumed flowers.
Frangipani	Frangipani	Growing up in the ACT where Frangipani will not live, I always appreciated visits to the cousins in Sydney where I would pick as many Frangipani flowers as I could to take home. Sadly the flowers are short-lived but living in the sub-tropics has allowed me to grow several different Frangipani from the classic white with its yellow throat, through to the blood red, hot pink and apricot-yellow flowering cultivars. The bonus is they grow happily in pots so you can keep the size down.
Gardenia	Florida Gardenia	I love Gardenias, though I am puzzled by the number of websites that label them difficult to grow. They are my go-to plant for difficult locations and I have everything from the ground covering Gardenia radicans, to the medium shrub Florida and the larger Grandiflora and Professor Pucci. Gardenias can suffer attack by scale, with the attendant black sooty mold, but this is easily controlled using Eco-pest oil and Neem oil.
Heaven Lotus tree (Gustavia superba)	Heavenly Lotus flower	I picked this plant up just because it said it was perfumed and all I knew was that it came from the Brazilian rainforests. It took 6 years for it to flower but it was well worth the wait. The flowers look like a lotus, hence the common name of Heaven Lotus tree. New leaves are a lovely deep pink and it loves its position as an understorey plant under two large magnolias. I am currently trying to propagate it from seed.
Heliotrope	Heliotrope Cherry Pie	The Heliotrope plant is one of those plants that are easy to overlook. When my friend Alice first recommended I get one for my perfumed garden I was a bit underwhelmed. The Heliotrope plant didn’t look anything special at all, and then I smelled the beautiful strong vanilla perfume. It only grows to about 30 cm tall, grows best in full sun and well-drained soil, so it is an easy shrub to find a home for. Plus, it’s easy to propagate from cuttings.
Henna		Henna Blossoms would have to be one of the most insignificant looking flowers that I have ever seen, but they are so fragrant that they have been used in the perfume industry since time immemorial.  Thanks to the hot dry summer we had, my Henna plants has consented to flower for me this year. Sadly it doesn’t flower every year and will not grow well outside the tropics and sub-tropics, but is worth finding a place in your garden for the exquisite perfume produced by the flowers.
Lady of the Night	Lady of the Night	This is a much less common variety of Brunfelsia (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) and is known as Lady of the Night because its perfume only comes out at night. It smells a bit like jasmine but with undertones of cloves, spice powder and cinnamon. Instead of colouring from violet and fading to lavender and then white, the Lady of the Night starts white and colours to lemon and then gold. Not commonly available in nurseries but worth seeking out.
Magnolia	Little Gem Magnolia	There are so many beautiful varieties of Magnolia and all of them are perfumed. I love my Little Gem (so-called cause it only grows to 5 metres high!). It has the most beautiful massive cream flowers that are delightfully perfumed. I also have the highly fragrant Joy perfume tree (Magnolia champaca) and the deep pink Soulangeana Magnolias that are not supposed to grow in the sub-tropics.
Mock Orange	Philadelphus Mock Orange	There are several plants known by the common name of mock orange, including plants of the murraya family and the philadelphus family. I grew up in a cold climate with the philadelphus “Mock Orange” and I prefer this to the murraya, which I find too strongly perfumed. Therefore I am really pleased that a philadelphus is growing and flowering well in my sub-tropical garden.
Native Frangipani	Native Frangipani	I don’t have a lot of native plants in my garden, primarily because I have difficulty growing them! The native frangipani is an exception and it has beautiful perfumed flowers that start out whitish cream and age to deep yellow. It has a mix of white and yellow flowers all at the same time and this gives a lovely display. The flowers are perfumed a bit like a frangipani hence its common name.
PawPaw	Male PawPaw flower	Most people grow Pawpaw trees for their fruit. To do this you need either a female tree or a bisexual tree which self-pollinates. However, I love the perfume of the flowering male Pawpaw tree. It took me quite a long time to track down a male pawpaw, as most nurseries sell the bisexual trees these days and the flowers of these are not perfumed! As a reward, my male Pawpaw even gave me some fruit last year, although I still value it most for the gorgeous perfumed flowers.
Port Wine Magnolia	Port Wine Magnolia	Port wine magnolias are one of those really hardy shrubs that require very little attention, fill in gaps, stay green and glossy and reward you with highly perfumed flowers throughout the year. Although they look and smell quite delicate I have managed to grow them in gardens with heavy frost right through to tropical gardens. I have several residing in my sub-tropical garden where they provide a great privacy screen from passing traffic.
Roses	Black Boy Rose	No list of perfumed plants would be complete without roses! They were my dad’s favourite flower and for that reason alone deserve a place in my garden. My favourites are the beautiful deep red Papa Meilland, the aptly named Father’s Love and the supreme Double Delight. I always try and include a Cecile Brunner rose in my garden as this tiny, thornless climbing rose was the first rose that I fell in love with as a child.
Star Jasmine	Star Jasmine	Although more a climber than a shrub, I have trained my star jasmine into a low growing shrub. It is definitely the best behaved of all the jasmines and rewards with delightful perfumed flowers that can cover the whole bush and perfume the whole garden. The variegated plant is a fabulous ground cover but doesn’t flower as prolifically.
Stephanotis	Stephanotis	One of the benefits of living in the sub-tropics is being able to grow Stephanotis or Madagascar jasmine in your garden. This plant is an evergreen climber that has shaped itself into a shrub over a climbing trellis. It produces clusters of white, powerfully-scented, bell-shaped flowers throughout the year. The native bees love it so every year I am rewarded with several seed pods that look a little like avocados but filled with white feathery seeds. It grows easily from seed.
Sweet Osmanthus	Sweet Osmanthus	Sweet Osmanthus is one of those really low care shrubs that flowers pretty much throughout the year in the sub-tropics. Flowers are tiny, cream coloured and borne in clusters along the stem. The fragrance smells of sweetly spiced apricots and you can smell the flowers from several metres. As a result, this plant really deserves to be better known. It grows well in most climates in Australia and even copes with frost! I like it so much I have 5 shrubs growing in my garden.
Tropical Daphne	Tropical Daphne	While I was on my quest to try and grow the traditional Daphne (daphne odorata) in the sub-tropics, I stumbled across the tropical or sweet daphne (Phaleria clerodendron). It is a rainforest tree that grows well in the sub-tropics and when rain is expected it will send out fragrant white flowers all along its trunk. The flowers have a pineapple, coconut fragrance with just a hint of spice. While it is a lovely plant in its own right, I personally would not call it a Daphne.
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow	Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow	Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’s common name comes from the fact that its flowers open up a deep purple colour and slowly fade to lilac with a white ‘eye’, then soften to white. All three coloured blossoms will be on the tree at the same time, giving it both colour and perfume. It grows well in pots as well as in the ground. In pots it generally stays to about a metre in height but will grow up to 4 metres in the ground.

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Rohanne, your Personal Garden ExpertSave[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Davidson Plums

I was soo excited the other morning to find that my Davidson plum tree has finally given me some fruit!

This tree has been in my garden for 6 years. While it has been happily growing skyward, up to this year, it has refused to give me any fruit.

Everyone else has been boasting about the fruit they have picked, often off younger trees. So last winter I gave my tree a severe talking to, and told it that unless it started to fruit we would be considering its future! I’m not sure if that is what worked, but it has given finally me some plums! Yay

So what is a Davidson Plum?

For those who haven’t heard of Davidson plums, or haven’t tried them, they are an Australian native rainforest tree. The tree a produces a very tart plum-like fruit. Davidson plums were an important part of bush-tucker that has found its way onto high class restaurant tables!

They look very similar to a blood plum in colour, with a beautiful dark purple skin and blood red flesh and soft juicy pulp when ripe. However the fruit is generally considered too tart to eat raw, although the aboriginals didn’t seem to mind the tartness!

Plum jam

It makes a fabulous jam that makes normal plum jam taste bland by comparison.

Possible Health benefits?

Most noteworthy though is the fact that the Davidson plum is being researched for its possible health benefits. It is high in antioxidants, being rich in both anthocyanins and lutein. These are two micronutrients which are believed to protect against age-related diseases such as dementia, deterioration of sight and heart disease as well as some cancers.

Davidson plums are an excellent source of potassium. They are also a significant non-dairy source of calcium. The plums are a good source of Vitamin E and zinc, which help improve skin health and reduce the signs of aging.  Finally, the Davidson plums are being researched for their potential ability to reduce high blood pressure and obesity.

If you should be lucky enough to stumble across a source of Davidson plums, whether fresh or as a jam or cordial then I recommend you try them out. Not only will your taste buds thank you, but so may your health.

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert

The post It’s Raining Plums appeared first on Delectable Garden.

Gardening in a Changing Climate

We have just had the hottest January on record, and the heat looks set to continue. I think all but the hardened sceptics agree that climate change is a reality. And it’s here!

So, is there anything we can do to help moderate the impacts of climate change, both on the planet and on our homes and families? The simple answer is Yes!

Climate change, put simply, is the heating up of the earth because of increased levels of carbon in the atmosphere. This increased carbon is due, in some measure, to the burning of fossil fuels and the cutting down of trees.

So, what we need to do is try and reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The cheapest and easiest way to remove carbon from the atmosphere is to grow green plants!

Now, I know not everyone has a huge parcel of land in which they can plant a few hundred trees. However, despite what you may have read, trees only remove some of the carbon from the atmosphere. The best way to remove high levels of carbon quickly is to increase the amount of organic matter in your soil, as organic matter is largely made up of carbon.

When you increase the organic matter in your soil you not only remove carbon from the air and into the soil, but you also improve the composition of the soil. This means that plants grow better, the soil stays cooler and retains any water that it receives. And, ultimately, you don’t have to water your garden as frequently.

This won’t just help your garden. It will also help the earth cope better with periods of intense rainfall, which are forecast for many parts of Australia as the climate changes. As long as the soil can absorb the rainfall, and the better it can absorb and keep the water where it’s needed, the less run-off and soil erosion will happen.

So, how do you increase the amount of organic matter in your soil?

The easiest way is to add compost, preferably your own, but any compost will help. Compost is just organic matter such as leaves, grass cuttings, vegetable peelings and such. You can start a compost heap easily without much in the way of materials.

Add organic matter

I think people have come to believe composting is difficult, smelly and attracts rats or mice. However, a good compost heap is easy. It stops organic matter (i.e. carbon) from going to landfill and gives you great organic matter for your garden.

Still worried about the smell and rats? Why not try a compost tube? Not enough space? Why not investigate Bokachi bins or setting up a neighbourhood compost bin? Ask me if you want some tips on this.

The next way to increase the soil’s organic matter is by adding manure. If you were worried about the smell of compost, you will love this tip! Again, manure doesn’t have to smell bad. Just buy the stuff that has already been aged! Even better, cover your manure with sugar cane mulch, pea straw, straw, lucerne or any other mulches. You won’t smell the manure and you will have done your garden and the planet a huge service! In addition to increasing the organic matter in your soil you will have fed the worms and microbes, which help keep your soil healthy!

Using ‘Hard’ Mulches

One thing that a lot of people do to try and reduce the amount of work they have to do in the garden is to put large amounts of crushed stone, pavers, brick, or concrete paths around. Sadly this is promoted a lot by some lifestyle programs. While this initially does reduce the work, there is a lot of work involved with blow-vacs to remove leaves etc to keep it looking nice! And these add more fossil fuels into the atmosphere!

Also, pavers, bricks and concrete absorb a lot of the heat from the sun. Therefore they keep your garden hotter during the day in summer. They also continue to release this heat after the sun sets. This means that you have to spend a lot more money on fans and air-conditioners to cool your place down. You can keep your garden (and therefore your home) a lot cooler by surrounding your garden beds with grass or organic mulch.

Finally, to help plants keep cool as the hot spells increase, look at creating shade and wind protection. Whether this comes from trees and taller plants, or from creating man-made structures is up to you. You can make these protective barriers from simple shade-cloth or you can use them to create works of art that are features in their own right. This way you improve your garden while protecting your plants, fruit and vegetables.

Another trick is to pick any fruit as soon as it ripens. This is so that the fruit doesn’t keep draining water from the plant. Also try planting your fruit and vegetable plants closer together so that create a microclimate and don’t need to be watered so often.

By undertaking any or all of the actions listed above, you can not only reduce your impact on the planet, but you will have gone some way to having a beautiful, productive and useful garden.

Happy gardening 🙂

Rohanne, your Personal Gardening Expert

The post Gardening in a Changing Climate appeared first on Delectable Garden.