Gardening

1. The world is happier with trees: Seriously, areas with trees have a lower crime rate and illness rates. This isn’t just because wealthy areas have brighter gardens and street trees: when trees and greenery are planted in disaffected areas the graffiti and other more serious crimes decrease as the trees grow bigger. It seems […]

Pineapple’s background: Prickly on the outside but sweet and juicy on the inside, the pineapple is a member of the Bromeliaceae family and is known as the “king of fruit” — no doubt a name inspired by the pineapple’s crown shaped top. The pineapple is native to South America but most of the pineapple we […]

One of the worst benevolences ever perpetrated on a generation of children was free milk at school — especially in Queensland where I grew up. Every child had to drink their small bottle of milk every morning. All morning we looked out of our classroom and watched the milk getting hotter and hotter under what […]

It’s berry time — time to eat mulberries or strawberries or loganberries or blueberries on sponge cakes for a Christmas treat. A strawberry-rich sponge cake is much lighter than a hunk of Christmas cake (though a rich fruitcake can’t be beaten in winter). Soon it will be planting time — and now is the best […]

“Grow herbs,” said the girl at the nursery helpfully to the customer standing next to me. “Herbs don’t need watering. They just look after themselves.” Like heck, they do! Okay, most of the herbs we use in cooking survive nicely on Mediterranean hillsides with no water other than what falls from the sky. But they […]

**”Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half-crazy, all for the love of you” — ‘Daisy Bell’ by Harry Dacre.** If I were to choose one bush that would give flowers for most of the year, or even all year round in frost-free climates, tolerate drought and grow from a cutting stuck into the […]

For many years, the first thing I did when I came home was eat a passionfruit. When I was small, a passionfruit vine grew over our outdoor toilet, in the days before the last of the Brisbane suburbs were connected to the sewerage system. By the time I was in high school, our passionfruit vine […]

By the time your children reach Year 12, they will have spent nearly 14,500 hours at school (12 years of 40 weeks a year, five days a week, six hours a day), so it’s best to make sure their schoolyard is a stimulating environment, with flowers, grass, leaves and trees. Not only is gardening fun […]

Once upon a time gardeners believed that flowers and herbs had more power if gathered by moonlight – especially if you planted them for spells and potions. Maybe this was because some plants are more fragrant at night, as they try to attract night flying moths and other insects. Cool moist air also seems to […]

Sometimes you come across a plant that you’ve ignored for years, and realise it’s so absolutely perfect that you don’t know why you haven’t planted hundreds of them years ago. I had one of those moments two years ago, when I looked at a friend’s nerines. I’d never even thought of growing any before – […]