GOOD TREES – BAD TREES? 2

Weeping Willow - Stanthorpe

It is winter now on the Granite Belt and most of the Weeping Willows have dropped their leaves.

This is a tree much favoured around the world for its lush green foliage. It is frequently planted in parks. But, in Australia it is  classified in some areas as a noxious weed.  Read what I have say about these trees and please add your comments.

The Willow tree originated in China and spread via the Silk Road to Egypt and through Europe to reach England.

The Weeping Willow is a beautiful tree to use for large yards and has a number of interesting aspects. You might be surprised to learn it is a medicinal tree as well.

The Weeping Willow tree is a member of a family of trees and scrubs that contains over three hundred and fifty different varieties. The varieties of willows have many widely different characteristics, but they are all remarkably alike in many ways. Most of them occur in moist soil in cooler climates and mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. Willows are remarkably fertile trees and easily cross fertilize between species. These occur naturally or as the result of deliberate cultivation. Read the rest of this entry »

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SPRING FLOWERING SHRUBS

When I began the establishment the garden surrounding our home Das Helwig Haus B&B it was made up almost entirely of annuals for the first few years. Annuals are spectacularly colourful, but create an immense amount of work. Ground must be prepared, seedlings grown or purchased and then planted out. In the following months they require nurturing before finally they repay you with a riot of colour and perfume. Although considerably more expensive to establish, trees and shrubs are only planted once and as they grow add structure to gardens. I chose to plant a number of trees and shrubs – some for their foliage and others to give flowers. Underneath the trees or around the shrubs I planted an understory of bulbs or ground covers, only leaving a few areas, like borders for the annual positioning of seedlings.

Spanish bluebells under the Pussy Willow tree.

The Spanish bluebells are the last of my winter into spring flowering bulbs. Read the rest of this entry »

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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 »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF FIGS

Two years ago when Barbara Buchannan offered to become my companion for five months and assist me like a member of the WWOOF organization, it was her tales of sun-ripened figs that made her European friends envious. She told them of her pleasure in standing under the tree shown below, choosing sun warmed fruit that almost melted in her mouth.

Sun ripened figs

When I established our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B I planted four fig trees of different varieties. Ian Robertson, CEO of the Australian Open Garden Scheme, congratulated me in 1997 for choosing to use a fig tree as a specimen tree to add texture and color within our floral garden. During our cold winter months on the Granite Belt the bare branches give a surrealistic view on a foggy morning and emphasis the Japanese influence in the design of this portion of my garden.

Fig tree amongst flowers

Every year this particular tree yields buckets of small, dark skinned, red fleshed, sweet figs. Every year we eat fresh figs, I make fig jam, I dry figs and I preserve figs in syrup as a dessert. This small fig variety is not readily available from plant nurseries. I was given a sucker to grow by one of the Italian born farmers on the Granite Belt. The sucker flourished and grew into a decorative and productive tree. Read the rest of this entry »

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AN ABUNDANCE OF CHERRIES

For me, cherries have always been associated with Christmas mornings. As a child I left a pillowslip at the end of my bed on Christmas Eve as I recited, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Waking in excitement at the first light of dawn I would peer into the depths of the pillowslip to find the small brown paper packet containing apricots, plums and cherries. Stone fruit were scarce and expensive, but always a Christmas treat.

I knew nothing of Morello cherries, the sour kirsche of Europe, until I married Eberhard. Almost thirty years ago he established one of the first coffee shop restaurants in Toowoomba, which became rightly famous due to his skill as a baker of Continental cakes. In those days it was nothing for him to bake and assemble two large Black Forest Torte every day. In those days he was able to buy 5kg tins of sour kirsche imported from Yugoslavia.

When we moved to the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt in 1992 and established Das Helwig Haus B&B, one of the first trees I planted was a Morello Cherry tree to enable us to harvest and preserve our own cherries. Like many other Australian fruit eating birds, the Eastern Rosella parrots have flourished since fruit orchards were established on the Granite Belt and now every year farmers set up scare guns to startle the parrots away from their orchards and vineyards, or they shoot hundreds. These birds are not an endangered species and the alternative is costly – to net the crops.

Grape vines covered in bird netting

I did not want my cat,  Patches, hunting the parrots and bringing them to me like trophies. Read the rest of this entry »

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IMPRESSIONIST VIEWS

Sue Webber was the first journalist who, when writing about my garden in 1996 for the Australian Country Style magazine, said that it was like a living Monet painting with the pastel blue and mauve dotted by splashes of crimson from the poppies. At no time is the similarity to impressionist painting truer than on a misty morning. In the view below you see the winding brick path leading to the front door of Das Helwig Haus B&B. Perfume from the white star jasmine sprawling over an old stump pervades the damp air. Dark blue cornflowers mingle with lighter blue ‘Love in the Mist’ and pink snapdragons demand to be noticed, while further away red poppies dot the greenery and spears from red hot pokers thrust upward against the rounded foliage of shrubs.

Star jasmine beside brick path.

During this season of the year I sometimes wake to find my view enclosed by a misty ground fog. It is magical to wander in my garden at that time, because I can imagine myself anywhere in the northern Hemisphere or New Zealand due to the plants that I have established here at Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt. Over the years so many of my guests have told me, “This garden  reminds me of my mother’s garden in England or New Zealand or Holland.” What they are saying, it that particular plants growing together give them this feeling of nostalgia. It is the plants like foxgloves and forget-me-nots that they don’t see in most Queensland gardens. Read the rest of this entry »

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FUN OVER FIFTIES

On Sunday 2 November it was my pleasure to escort through my garden the first of three tours this season brought to me by Toni Brennan of Fun Over Fifties Tours. Toni has been bringing tour groups to my garden and to enjoy all the other attractions of Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt in November, for several years.

http://www.funoverfifty.com.au

As with every tour group I positioned these thirty visitors on the veranda of the apartments at Das Helwig Haus B&B where they could overlook the garden while I answered their questions.

Veranda of Das Helwig Haus apartments.

Toni’s tours are punctual and never hurried which means the visitors are happily laughing and have the time to question me in detail as we proceed down through the vegetable and herb gardens. Read the rest of this entry »

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DRAMATIC SEASONAL CHANGE

One of the joys of living at Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt is that due to the cool mountain climate this district experiences the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn. Much of Queensland only knows the hot, humid wet season of summer and the warm dry season of winter.

In 1990 when I visited Europe in the early spring as the snow was melting I witnessed the dramatic change as tulips and pansies flowered in April just as the fruiting cherry and apple trees burst into blossom. in May they were followed by the lilac, phingst rosen and climbing red roses.

When we moved to live here at Glen Aplin in 1992 I realised I could grow these same flowers. I was agreeably surprised at how rapidly, just like I had seen in Europe, spring arrived and dramatically changed the appearance of my garden.

These photos taken in August, when the decision was made to remove large eucalyptus trees, and photos taken of the same scenes now reveal the changes.

Last month of winter at Das Helwig Haus B&B 2008

The Remembrance Field had been cultivated at the end of June. The Flanders poppies had germinated but were merely a green tinge across the soil due to the dry and frosty conditions throughout July and August.

We had made the decision to bring in heavy equipment – a large excavator on tracks, with a bucket in which a man could be raised to tie chains to the branches of these eucalyptus trees. With a chainsaw the branches and tree trunks were cut to then be swung out and dropped onto the field.

The excavator claws then gripped these heavy lengths of timber and the machine clanked away to drop them in heaps off the field, where once more a chain saw could be used to cut wood into rounds, later to be split for firewood.

Now for the “WOW” factor. Read the rest of this entry »

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FIVE POPPIES

There are several different varieties of poppies from the Northern Hemisphere growing in our garden at Das Helwig Haus B&. This morning after a shower of rain last night I found I had five varieties in bloom. I have photographed all five types of poppies for inclusion in this post today.

I’ll begin with the Flanders Poppy, commonly called the Field Poppy in Europe until it became associated with the battles in Flanders during World War One.

Flander Poppy

Flanders Poppy and honey bee.

Often there is considerable difference between individual Flanders poppies – Papaver rhoeas in both flower and leaf structure. The Reverend Shirley, an English cleric, noticed several different colours amongst a clump of wild poppies in his garden and with selective breeding produced the Shirley poppy which now bears his name. These poppies have the texture of crepe paper ranging through colours from rose pink to mauve and purple. In our Remembrance Field at Glen Aplin I often notice poppies with unusual colouring. Sometimes I will receive an telephone call from a excited gardener who obtained seed from me the previous year to say his seed has produced a new colour.

Papaver rhoeas with white centre and petal edging

First Oriental poppy of 2008

The poppies bred from the Papaver rhoeas stock have similar leaves and will last no more than one day as a cut flower. They are annuals and must be planted from seed each year. The Oriental poppies I grow are Papaver atlanticum, a hairy perennial with orange flowers. The first flowers appear deep within the foliage but later blooms may grow as tall as 60cm. As they are perennials they will carry over from one year to another.

Oriental poppies in 2007

Iceland poppies

One of the most beautiful poppies is the Papaver nudicaule commonly known as the Iceland Poppy. It is actually a perennial grown as a winter/spring flowering annual. This is an excellent cut flower, requiring no water if the stems are firstly seared with heat. I use a candle flame to scorch the stems.

Honey bees love these poppies

Like the Flanders poppies the Californian poppies – Eschscholsia Californica seed prolifically and have become one of the weeds of my garden. I have one garden bed where I allow them to grow each year as a ground cover under shrubs, but I have to thin them severely. I have also found that seed spread from my rubbish heaps to surrounding grassy areas where these colourful flowers have created perennial clumps. They don’t transplant easily as they have a single tap root, so should be sown from seed. However it is that strong tap root that allows them to survive as a perennial. They grow wild across the hills of southern California.

When bought in a seed packet there are a variety of colours including shades of cream, lemon, yellow, orange, red and mauve.

After a few years of self-seeding most of my poppies are the traditional yellow colour associated with the wild poppies of California.

Californian Poppy

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ENTER THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

Once we cross the covered walkway that links our guest apartments to the northern wing of Das Helwig Haus B&B we enter the vegetable garden. On our right the rhubarb and acanthus grow gigantic leaves and the kiwi fruit vines entirely cover the lattice along the apartment veranda. This is the south western part of our garden and as such is exposed to the worst of our winter winds. All the permanently planted trees and shrubs in this region are deciduous and in the winter months the area becomes rather desolate.

Rhubarb

Winter is our busy season with guests who come to the Granite Belt to taste the wines, follow the food trail and cuddle up before a fire at night. Thus it suits me that the garden is dormant. I try to have the grape vines, quince, persimmon, cherry, mulberry, apricot and nectarine trees pruned by the end of August.

There are some years when spring is slow arriving on the Granite Belt with frosts continuing on into October. In fact, frosts have been recorded in every month of the year. Because of the cold winters the garden does not yield much produce in spring until the soil warms.

While we were holidaying in Germany during the spring of 1990 my sister-in-law, Minna Helwig, told me that we would be having a barbe kue on Samstag and I had thought she was telling me that she planned a barbecue on Saturday. Imagine my surprise therefore when she picked the first red stalks of rhubarb from her garden, discarded the poisonous leaves, and gave me the stems to wash and slice. Meanwhile Minna used fresh yeast to make the sweet bread base of a Kuchen. The rhubarb was spread across the base, sprinkled liberally with sugar, and after the dough had risen to double the original height, placed in the oven to bake. Served with generous amounts of pouring cream, this is the traditional way the first rhubarb of the season is presented to families in the village of Wolferborn and throughout other regions of Hesse.

Rhubarb clump

We continued our around the world trip to visit Margaret, a friend who lives near New Liskeard in northern Ontario, Canada. I was amazed by the size of her rhubarb clump. Obviously established years previously it seemed to require no special attention, would die back into the earth under a heavy cover of snow each year, but then burst forth in the spring to create a remarkably thick cluster of plants. I was to see many more such clumps on other farms in northern Ontario and the attitude seemed to be that rhubarb was little better than a weed. There weren’t enough ways to utilise all that rhubarb and it was frequently ignored.

My tour groups are equally astounded by the size of my rhubarb clump.

“What do you do with it all,” I’m asked.

“Each weekend I’ll ask our guests if they would like to take a bunch home with them, but very seldom will they take me up on my offer. They would rather buy my Rhubarb Relish, which is especially tasty on cold roast lamb.” During the next fifteen minutes as we wend our way through my productive back yard I’ll be advertising our jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles, which they’ll have the opportunity to buy before they board the bus. “The rhubarb must be picked until April.”

Fay's jams and jellies

Because our rhubarb is well watered and shaded from the afternoon sun by the structure of the self-contained apartments it doesn’t suffer any stress and tends to remain green in colour, not the ruby red I would prefer. As a result, if cooked alone, it is rather an unattractive khaki green colour. When I stew my rhubarb I add either strawberries or raspberries. These share their colour and flavour, thus creating a tasty and attractive compote.

“And this fern – what is it?”

“That’s the asparagus. If you look near the base,” I scoop away some soil with my bare hand, “You can see fresh spears. We only pick the stronger shoots during the first couple of months. Then we let it make fern. This is important as the fern allows the roots to receive nutrients during the summer months. Then when the winter frosts come, it dies down and we clear away dead foliage. It is an ongoing cycle. If properly looked after an asparagus bed will last a lifetime.”

“And what are these bushes?” My attention is drawn to bushy clumps on the left side of the path.”

“Red and white currants. We use them to make jellies.”

Harvesting white currants

During 1995 I planted the upper terrace at the rear of Das Helwig Haus with red and white currants. These now bear a prolific crop each spring and must be hand stripped from the bushes and converted to currant jelly. Little did I think when I began planting this huge garden to offset our home, what a rod I was creating for my own back? No matter how busy I am with other matters, by the end of October Eberhard will be drawing my attention to the asparagus needing to be picked, the rhubarb running to flower, the strawberries attracting birds and the currants hanging ripe and ready for plucking.

Fruiting strawberry plants edge the paths and draw gasps of awe from the visitors. Don Burke, of the Burkes Backyard TV program, was amazed at the healthy growth of our strawberry plants when he visited the garden in 1997. I explained to Don that each year I covered them in hay during August then set fire to the hay, allowing the fire to also burn away all the leaves of the strawberry plants. This destroyed the leaves and any disease. The ash added nutrient and the perennial plants were triggered to all shoot new leaves together, flower together and fruit together.

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