THE REMEMBRANCE FIELD

Most visitors to my garden understand the significance of the red Flanders poppies growing in the Remembrance Field and the edging hedge of the herb rosemary. Rosemary is the token worn on ANZAC Day and the red poppy is worn on 11th November the date the Armistice Treaty was signed at Versailles to end World War One.

“But, what is the significance of the blue cornflowers?” they ask.

Cornflowers and poppies

My answer is of particular interest to the residents of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, because the planting of blue cornflowers represents our remembrance of the crew, doctors and nurses of the Centaur an Australian Hospital ship sunk off our coast by a Japanese submarine. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, blue cornflower, Centaur, Das Helwig Haus B&B, Glen Aplin, Japanese, Queensland, red flanders poppy, remembrance field, stanthorpe, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, World War One

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 »

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, book, compost, Das Helwig Haus B&B, eucalyptus, Flanders fields, Glen Aplin, poppies, red flanders poppy, salinity, salt, severn river, the granite belt, vegetable, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, book, Christmas, Das Helwig Haus B&B, red flanders poppy, remembrance field of flanders poppies, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

FIRST SPRING FLOWERS

When I established the garden surrounding our home Das Helwig Haus B&B it was to ensure that there was something of interest in the garden at all times of the year for our visiting guests. My secondary desire was to be able to walk out into the garden at all seasons with a basket and secateurs to enable me to bring cut flowers into the house. My third goal was achieved thanks to the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt which enabled me to grow northern Hemisphere flowers, seldom seen in Queensland gardens. It was only in later years that we began opening our garden in November, as we will do again this year for the Australian Open Garden Scheme on 7/8th November, and growing a Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies to bloom for 11th November. This morning I was able to go into my garden and gather the red foliage of an early flowering ornamental plum tree, the yellow flowers of forsythia and sprigs of of pussy willow. I displayed these on the unlit combustion wood stove in our dining room.

Early spring foliage

This has been an unusually warm spring and I no longer need to heat the house. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: cool mountain climate, Das Helwig Haus B&B, garden, Queensland, red flanders poppy, the granite belt, vegetable, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

THE RED STEER

Late yesterday afternoon the red steer was released into our dry grass land. The red steer is an Australian colloquial expression for fire. Just as cattle could slowly eat out grass land, a fire will clear the land quickly. Fire, used wisely, an excellent tool. The Aboriginal people of Australia didn’t have matches to start a fire, but they possessed the skill of rubbing two sticks rapidly together until the wood heated and began to smoke. Then a little dry grass was added  to smolder and burst into flame. The original inhabitants of Australia were nomadic people who never established permanent homes or cultivated the land. Instead they hunted for food. The men would regularly burn small areas of grass land when it was dry enough to burn. The heat would draw up moisture from the soil and green grass shoots would sprout. Meanwhile the women would follow after the men to find any scorched lizards or other small animals they could use for food. After a week or so when the country had greened the men would return to hunt and spear wallabies or kangaroos grazing on the fresh green grass. The eucalyptus trees evolved the ability to adapt to fire and will quickly recover from any burning of bark or leaves. Other Australian plant species need smoke to cause them to open their seed pods, enabling the seed to drop into the rich ash a day later. Fire is a natural part of the Australian ecology.

A cold fire

The definition of a cold fire is one that crawls along the ground. A hot fire races up the bark of a tree and sometimes ignites the eucalyptus leaves and then roars through the tree tops. Such wild bush fires are now common in Australia. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Australian, boulders, bush fires, Das Helwig Haus B&B, eucalyptus, Glen Aplin, red flanders poppy, remembrance field, Rural Fire Brigade, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, WWOOF

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 »

Technorati Tags: Australian, australian wildflowers, book, Das Helwig Haus B&B, eucalyptus, Glen Aplin, granite belt, red flanders poppy, remembrance field, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, WWOOF

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 »

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, book, Bungawarra Wines, burke's backyard, cool mountain climate, Das Helwig Haus B&B, fay helwig, Glen Aplin, granite belt, Harrington Glen Wines, Queensland, red flanders poppy, stanthorpe, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

DAS HELWIG HAUS B&B

It was in November of 1992 that we purchased these 32 acres at 113 Mt. Stirling Road, Glen Aplin on the Granite Belt - the cool mountain district of southern Queensland. Our aim was to establish a Bed and Breakfast business to provide us with a ‘way of life’ during our older years. Happily, we were successful. On the 3rd July this week my husband, Eberhard, reached 83 years of age. I am now in my 70th year. We have reached the reluctant decision that it is time to sell our business and retire. It is unlikely that I will ever truly retire, as once I no longer have the physical work associated with this business, I’ll be able to give more time to writing and sharing with my readers the knowledge I have gained. Nonetheless as Eberhard is 14 years older than me I am expecting that he will need more full time care in the years ahead.

Eberhard

The photo above of Eberhard was taken last December when his heart failed. He was airlifted to a Brisbane hospital by helicopter where a cardiologist inserted a pacemaker to keep his heart beating. He made an excellent recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Australia, Brisbane, Christmas in July, cool mountain district, Das Helwig Haus B&B, Korean, Queensland, red flanders poppy, remembrance field, Sale, sell, Wildflowers wilderness and wine, WWOOF

HONG KONG 4

It seems that I have struck a chord on Facebook with my tales of a week spent in Hong Kong. Although many of you have signed up to be able to leave comments on this site, other people are reading it when I share each posting on Facebook, and leaving their comments on that page.

Instead of using public transport – subway, bus and ferry to reach our destinations, my son Paul who is resident in Hong Kong, arranged to hire a car and for the next two days of the weekend became our chauffeur.

Paul drove us to Aberdeen to take us to lunch on the largest floating restaurant in the world.

The Aberdeen marina.

I took this photo of the marina from the high rise parking facility of the Aberdeen Yacht Club. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: apples, Australia, book, Christmas in July, Das Helwig Haus B&B, Glen Aplin, Hong Kong, Queensland, red flanders poppy, remembrance field, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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 »

Technorati Tags: das helwig haus, Europe, fig trees, Glen Aplin, granite belt, jam, lemon verbena, organic garden, red flanders poppy, remembrance field of flanders poppies