Homes

In summer, red-hot pokers are, well, just too red, and sometimes yellow too — great lumbering things with blooms often more than a metre high, that look gaudy in all the summer glare. Yes, they’re hardy — so indestructible they really need a semi-trailer to back over them to daunt them. But despite their magnificence, […]

Autumn’s leaves have fallen, the garden is looking bare, and those pots of bright blooms in the supermarket look terribly tempting. Should you … or shouldn’t you? The case for buying potted bloomers Potted flowers will usually stay bright and blooming for longer than a bunch of flowers. With luck your potted bloomers will give […]

For years I thought poppies were one of the glories of spring and summer — stunning sprawls of California poppies in vivid orange, yellows, reds and even cream and white, flagrantly elegant oriental poppies. They’re the sort of flower you stop and stare at because you can’t believe that one thin-stemmed bloom could look quite […]

March is the perfect time to get trim and terrific – not you (though gardening is a great tummy trimmer and stress buster), but your trees and shrubs.

Most vegetables come from a family where they share similar characteristics. One family you may not have heard of before is the lily family, which includes onions, garlic, leeks, turnips — and asparagus. Like the other members of its family, asparagus is grown mostly below the ground. You are probably familiar with the green variety […]

This is the season for jam makers. Even better, it’s the season when gardeners with laden trees give baskets full of fruit to jam enthusiasts — and the jam makers say “thank you” by giving the gardeners a jar or two of their best conserves. Homemade jam is rich in fruit and fragrant because it’s […]

Kale chips anyone? What veggies to eat boiled, raw or roasted.

Flowers are not an ingredient we typically include in our cooking, but many herbs and plants produce blossoms that are edible and make a stylish and delicious addition to common recipes. Flowers you can use Arugula or rocket is commonly used in salads but the plant also produces small pale lavender or white flowers, which […]

Pears are possibly the easiest fruit tree to grow (although, arguably, plums could compete for that spot!). It’s hard to kill a pear tree. As long as your climate gets some frosts each winter — in other words, as far north as Brisbane — you can grow a pear tree. In subtropics and tropics, though, […]

If chillies weren’t so delicious (in small amounts, unless you love dragon’s breath) we’d grow them for their beauty. A chilli bush in full fruit is a stunning plant: bright green leaves and even brighter red fruit that hangs there for months. As I write this I’m looking out at our beds of perennial chillies […]