TEA FOR TWO, OR MORE

As a child I was only allowed to drink milk or water until the age of twelve, with a soft drink as a special treat during an occasional visit to town. My parents drank Bushell’s tea with their meals.

Nowadays there are multiple drink choices available for adults and children alike. One has only to walk into a supermarket to see rows of bottles and cans stacked high containing cordials, fruit juices and carbonated drinks. At the dairy counter there will be different sized containers of milk, in plastic or cardboard, offering a variety of flavours.

Move to the racks of tea and coffee and you will have a choice of roast coffee beans from all over the world. You can buy beans or ground coffee, some of it decaf. Usually in the same aisle it is possible to select dried teas in surgical dressings, as one of my friends once described the sachets commonly called tea bags. You will be confronted with brands and varieties from many countries.

It was on a trip to the USA in 1981 that I first encountered the powdered concoctions mixed with water which the local people called iced tea. Later, when I visited my German in-laws in 1990 I was offered a choice of herbal teas with the evening meal. These were always served as a hot tea.

In 1992 we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B. Amongst our first visitors were Meg and Peter Stevenson with their children Darren and Belinda. During an excursion they discovered a herb farm and returned with several pots for my garden. One of these little plants grew into a Lemon Verbena bush.

Lemon verbena

Read the rest of this entry »

ORGANIC SUSTAINABILITY

It takes faith to persevere with the establishment of an organic garden environment. The first year that you establish your plants is bliss as they are going into fresh soil. The next year every pest imaginable seems to have discovered your garden and be gratefully chomping their way through your vegetables. By the third year the predators, like the lady beetles who eat the aphids, will arrive. By the fourth your garden should be coming into balance. You will still see some pests, but if your plants are not stressed they will thrive. To keep a garden thriving not only does it require good soil, it needs thick mulch to keep that soil moist and to allow the earthworms to prosper.  My compost bins have been worked over by generations of compost worms since I introduced them to this garden in 1992. As they convert each bin of waste to compost it is spread out on my gardens. The ground is covered with hay and they continue their work under this layer, aiming to break the hay down and incorporate it into the soil. Thus the hay must be replaced over my gardens each year. One of my flower garden beds is permanently planted with deciduous shrubs. Every year self-sown Californian poppies emerge from the hay mulch to bloom amongst the shrubs. Peter Andrews would like these poppies, which I have seen flowering wild over the hills of California, as they are tap-rooted plants. They will be bringing up nutrients from deep within the soil to finally rot down again as mulch and they will be preventing a build up of salt in the soil.

Californian poppies

These mulched shrubs and Californian poppies are part of the hill forest segment of the farm adding nutrients to the soil. Read the rest of this entry »

SUSTAINABLE GARDENING

I spent some time this week reading a book by a fellow Australian, Peter Andrews. The book is called Back from the Brink and in subtitle How Australia’s landscape can be saved. He writes of the natural geography of Australia, and to my surprise, describes how the rivers previously ran in a series of shallow ponds across high country like arteries feeding the water into capillaries that spread the water down over many terrace like flood plains. With the coming of white settlers the country was quickly changed so that all the rivers now run deeply in eroded channels through the countryside, with tributaries draining water, often salty water, into them.

I am the same age as Peter Andrews, who has worked farms in South Australia and New South Wales, while I have spent much of my life on farms in Queensland. Just as people on the land learn to read cloud formations and understand rainfall patterns, they also learn to read their land. I believe I have these skills, but in reading Peter’s book I came to better understand two things. Salinity and how water moves underground. Peter does not believe in applied irrigation or the way water is stored in many farm dams, but espouses storage of water, moving water, within the ground.

Garden poppies

This morning I photographed these red Flanders poppies in my home garden. Note that they are waist high.

Field poppies

The red Flanders poppies in the field are only knee high. Why is there a difference in growth? Before this post finishes I will explain the reason. Read the rest of this entry »

SPRING FOLIAGE

I began planting the trees that provide the foliage structure of our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B in 1994. Although it was then a young garden, reliant largely on annuals for colour, we were asked to open our garden in November 1997 for the Australian Open Garden Scheme as the selectors said it was inspirational. The gardens selected by the AOGS are not competition gardens. The purpose of the AOGS is to inspire more people to take up gardening. There is a misconception amongst many people that a garden should be well established  with mature trees before it can be placed on display. Yes, such gardens are wonderful places and give great pleasure, but often they daunt the new gardener who believes they will never achieve equal splendour.

Now this year, 7/8 November 2009, we will once more open our garden under the auspices of Australian Open Garden Scheme. Only the Radiata Pine trees I positioned at the northern end of the Remembrance Field of Flanders poppies have grown into tall trees. Other trees and shrubs are well grown and well spaced to continue their purpose of providing structure to the garden in the years ahead. As of yesterday, the first two red Flanders poppies appeared in the Remembrance Field. They will continue to double in number until the field is a blaze of red.

First poppies

The work of thinning the poppies has been completed. They will now bush up and grow past knee height within the month. Meanwhile the flowering perennials planted along the edges of pathways in the main garden have begun to bloom. Note the perennial Petticoat acquilegias beside this path. Also note the manner in which the Radiata Pine trees add depth to this view.

Garden path

Guests enter here at the front gate and proceed up the brick pathway to the office to immediately be confronted by the massed blooms of the Apple Blossom Hawthorn. There are over 1000 varieties of the crataegus plant, which are mostly thorny with red berries and much loved by birds.

Apple Blossom Hawthorn

I have two forms of this shrub in my garden. The other one has small white flowers. In common both plants are without thorns and have dark purple berries which are eaten throughout winter by the Satin Bower Birds who deposit their droppings throughout my garden. Lots of the plainer white flowering Hawthorn appear as seedlings and are easily transplanted, but it appears that the Apple Blossom Hawthorn doesn’t grow readily from seed.

White Hawthorn & Snowball bush

Between the white flowering, compact growing Hawthorn bush and the winter deciduous Snowball bush viburnum opulus which will reach its peak with huge white flowers by the third week of October, is one of the five Camellia Japonica trees I planted along the front of our house to provide evergreen winter foliage. When we bought this property there was one small green conifer, an extremely hardy specimen which self-seeds. Although I’ve never identified this particular conifer I took the opportunity to transplant several seedlings to other places with my garden. Not only do they provide evergreen colour throughout the year, the seed cones are much sought after by Australian parrots. As I was photographing my garden this morning a Red Wing parrot alighted beside me on one of these conifers.

Red Wing Parrot

Foliage for contrast

Close to the northern eastern corner of our house I’ve established low growing conifers behind which you can see the glossy green leaves of a Holly bush one of about 400 varieties of Ilex. Although this bush does set berries I’m never able to bring them indoors for Christmas decorations. In the December they are still green and by the time they redden up prior to winter the Satin Bower Birds arrive and enjoy a feast.

Contrasting foliage

This rocky portion of our garden beside the northern veranda was unsuitable for anything other than ivy type ground covers and shrubs which could get their roots down amongst the rocks. As the double glass doors of our lounge room and dining room look out onto this area, I terraced it so that the ground and veranda are at the same level. It has the effect of bringing the garden into the house. It is my favourite place to relax in an easy chair.

Northern veranda

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

Book Cover

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

EUCALYPTUS TREES 2

I have the ability to recognize and name the origin of many of the mature trees that I see in my travels. This talent became obvious when undertaking a day tour with Eberhard through Los Angeles in 1990. Streets were frequently planted with just one species like Camphor Laurels or Liquidambars. In the garden of a house, formerly owned by Jane Mansefield, I spotted a beautiful specimen of the Bunya Pine Araucaria bidwillii. The tour guide must have overheard my quiet comments to Eberhard, because as the bus was driving down a boulevard, he asked me the name of the trees lining the road. I instantly responded, much to his surprise, “Canary Island Palms.” It didn’t surprise me that I could name the trees as the climate of Los Angeles and southern Queensland are similar and I was familiar with all the trees I saw that day.

I tell my friends that I retreat to my garden to recharge my batteries. In the same way I like to travel once a year overseas to allow my mind to relax from the pressures of life. My brain can then absorb and evaluate what I am seeing.

I particularly like to observe trees and their relationship with the environment around them. It was only when I began to travel overseas that I realized how silent were the forests of China, north America and Europe. Not only Australian forests, but the whole of Australia, including our cities are filled with the calls of a vast number of different bird species. We don’t just have the sparrows and pigeons of the northern hemisphere in our cities and towns – many Australian birds have adapted to city life, partly because  Australian trees and shrubs have been planted in suburban gardens.

Hong Kong eucalyptus

When I saw this eucalyptus tree in the  Kowloon Walled City Park - once a lawless, Hong Kong high-rise slum which was transformed into an award winning park in 1995, I recognized it as a relatively young specimen of a tree that I know by its local name as a Chinchilla White Gum. Carol, my eldest daughter, who accompanied me on this trip to Hong Kong lives in the town of Chinchilla, Queensland. This tree, like most Australian eucalyptus, has the ability to drop off lower limbs each year and concentrate its growth ever higher. Read the rest of this entry »

EUCALYPTUS TREES.

With this post I’m going to share an extract from my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. The wilderness regions of the Granite Belt are comprised of large rock outcrops and an abundance of eucalyptus forest, but it was not always like this.

Granite rocks

When the explorers rode their horses through this country they had to avoid the rocks, but they did not encounter the dense eucalyptus forests that now cover the hills. One of my Grandfathers, Hugh Mulcahy, was born in Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt in 1876 and he was able to tell his children of remembering this country as open forest. What did he mean by open forest? Forest in which the trees grew sufficiently far apart to allow riders to pass between them, where grass grew and cattle grazed.

Aged eucalyptus trees

These two aged trees on our farm at the rear of Das Helwig Haus B&B show the spacing of open forest country.  But look, they are surrounded by sapling eucalyptus trees. What changed the country? Read the rest of this entry »

THE DARLING DOWNS

When I was a child I was taught that the Darling Downs possessed one of the best areas of agricultural soil of the world – the black color indicating the wealth of humus. But what is the Darling Downs? It is a region of country west of the Great Dividing Range of eastern Australia in south-eastern Queensland. Toowoomba, at the crest of the Great Dividing Range, is the city gateway to the west. This city has become notable not only for it annual floral ‘Carnival of Flowers’, but as a city of boarding schools plus a University to serve students from the south western portion of the State.  It is also a haven where the elderly retire because of large hospitals, other medical facilities and a cool mountain climate. Warwick is a smaller city at the southern end of the Darling Downs. Dalby is at the northern extremity and by the time you have reached Roma in the west you have left the Darling Downs and entered the grazing country of the Maranoa.

In my youth I lived north of  Dalby near the Bunya Mountains and attended boarding school in Warwick - another city of private schools which provide high school education for children from more isolated regions. When I married Stewart McIver I lived on farms at Bell prior to moving into Dalby. When that marriage ended I moved to Toowoomba where I met and married Eberhard Helwig and we later moved to Stanthorpe in the border highlands south of Warwick.

Map of the Darling Downs

Last weekend we left home on the Friday morning and drove via Warwick and Toowoomba to reach Dalby 3 hours later where I spent the afternoon signing books at the Dalby BOOK CITY store. The next day we caught up with family and friends at Bell where my 94 year old father was the guest of honour at a Campdraft. Sunday we spent another 3 hours driving home on the western route through Millmerran to Inglewood before turning east to our home just south of Stanthorpe. I sketched this map so you could follow our travels. Read the rest of this entry »

BOOK SIGNING

As a published author I must now undertake book signings at the shops stocking Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. As many of you know I had a life prior to moving to the Granite Belt with Eberhard almost seventeen years ago and the opportunity presented for me to visit the districts of Dalby and Bell again this past weekend.

BOOK CITY Dalby

I was amazed when a man I had known 50 years ago at a time that we were both members of a Rural Youth organization approached me, with an expression of delight, to renew the acquaintance. We chatted about old times for an hour or so before he bought the book.

An important reason why I had chosen to appear at BOOK CITY on Friday was that I wished to attend the Bell camp draft where my 94 year old father, John Mulcahy, was to be honoured. Read the rest of this entry »

BOOK LAUNCH

My book, Wildflowers, wilderness and wine has been selling Internationally since February. Now the first consignment of printed books is ready for an Australian book launch.  Wildflowers, wilderness and wine will be presented by our local member of State Parliament, Lawrence Springborg, at the Stanthorpe Art Gallery on Tuesday night 28th July. Eberhard and I are putting on a typical Granite Belt party. We have hired the art gallery as our venue, arranged for the serving of wines from Harrington Glen Wines and for Claudia from Thunderbolt Farm to provide her quality hor d’eouvres.

Front cover

What are my hopes, what are my dreams, what will this book do for my community? Read the rest of this entry »

HONG KONG 5

One of the interesting things about Hong Kong are the green hills, especially in the region known as the New Territories where Paul took us on a sightseeing drive on the Sunday of our holiday. It seemed that many other residents of Kowloon also relax in this region at the weekend. There are lots of sheltered coves for fishing boats or pleasure craft, golf courses and swimming beaches. And always, there are numerous vendors of food catering for the holiday and shopping atmosphere.

Dried seafood market

All along this waterfront front and jetty small open boats carried an assortment of dried foods on display. One person under the umbrella handled the sales, while another in the boat made up the packages.

Dried seafoods

There were a number of seafood restaurants at this cove spilling out under canvas awnings from the main building, so after a wander around we decided to have an early lunch as we wanted to take tea at The Peninsula Hotel later in the afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »