In recent years there has been a big rise in the number of people growing food in containers. While it’s hardly a new trend, container growing is a practice that’s gaining in popularity for a number of key reasons. More and more people are choosing to rent rather than buy a property, average land sizes are shrinking, and the population is aging. Growing food in containers is an effective way of reaping a harvest without the need for a traditional vegetable garden or orchard.

Container growing has some clear advantages over gardening at ground level. First and foremost, containers are mobile. When you move, it’s possible to simply put your containers on the back of a truck or trailer, and take them to their new home. Containers require little space. You’d be surprised how much food a container garden can produce from a paved courtyard or a balcony. And for those who find working a garden at ground level difficult, containers can be a god-send, enhancing ability rather than focussing on disability.

But it’s important to realise that container growing isn’t without some pitfalls. Pot plants require more care than those grown in soil. They typically need more water, to the point that if you forget to irrigate on a hot summer’s day, some of your plants are likely to either become badly dehydrated or die. But on the other hand, if poorly drained containers become waterlogged, plants can die from having “wet feet”.

Another easily overlooked issue is that container grown plants can be less nutritious than those grown in well managed soil. As they grow, plants draw nutrients from the soil and transfer them to their leaves, roots, or fruits, which then get passed on to us as we eat them. Healthy soil equals healthy plants, equals healthy food equals healthy people.

By contrast with well managed soil, a premium commercial potting mix is a soil-less medium that’s usually made primarily from composted pine bark and sand, with the possible addition of components such as peat, coco-fibre, slow release fertiliser, wetting agent, and water crystals. Potting mix is usually pasteurised using steam. This kills all the pathogens that might have been in the mix, but also destroys any good bacteria that help plants take up essential nutrients. As a general rule then, you’ll get more nutritional benefit from food grown in soil than food grown in potting mix.

Savvy container growers have cottoned on to this fact and make their own nutrient rich potting mix. Traditional gardeners sometimes use the loam-based John Innes formulas that are still the standard in Britain, and others modify a commercial mix with additions like home made compost and rotted manure. The idea with all of these approaches is that nutrients are made freely available to food producing plants, and subsequently, to people. To keep plants well fed in the longer term, I use organic slow release fertiliser or pelletised chook manure, and for quick growing vegies, nothing beats liquid fertiliser made from fish emulsion or worm juice.

When it comes time to contain your mix, there are dozens of different options. Choose what suits your style and personality, but if in doubt, keep it simple, and classic. There are all kinds of containers in my garden, but I have a preference for half wine barrels and those that are made from traditional unglazed, unsealed terracotta. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to avoid wet feet – many plants are just as likely to die from too much water as they are too little. Always make sure a container has adequate drainage holes in the base, and only use a saucer for those plants that thrive in damp conditions. Pot feet are usually helpful.

Beyond that, you’re limited only by your imagination. Pretty much any vegetable can be be raised in containers, including those that are grown for their roots, and lots of fruiting plants are suitable as well. Go for dwarf trees or those grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, fruiting bushes, canes, and perennials. And of course, remember to include herbs in your container garden. Most do just as well in a pot as they do in the ground and some perform even better.

A lack of space or mobility doesn’t need to be impediments to growing your own food. If all you can manage is a pot of mixed herbs grown on a sunny window sill, that’s absolutely brilliant. Grow those herbs with pride, and cook them with love, and guess what – you’ll join the ranks of gardeners around the world who’ve discovered the incredible joys of growing their own food.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 12th November 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, potted Eureka lemon.

One of the best plant combinations I’ve ever seen was in the garden at Vineyard Cottages in Ballandean. On a central arbour marking the axis of two intersecting paths is a yellow banskia rose, and a purple Chinese wisteria. The two were in flower when I visited a number of years ago, and the image will be forever burnt in my memory. The purple and yellow flowers set against the hazy blue backdrop of Sundown National Park was simply stunning!

Is it any wonder? Everything about the combination is spot on. Yellow and purple complement each other on the colour wheel, which means that in theory, the combination should work nicely. But as any half knowledgeable artist will tell you, mixing colours also has a lot to do with combining the right shades of a certain colour. In the case of banksia rose, the yellow is a soft lemon shade, which means it teams perfectly with the wisteria’s dusky lavender.

But there’s more to a good plant combination than colour alone. The other reason banksia rose and wisteria work so well together is that they both like very similar growing conditions. Because they hail from the botanical hotspot of southern China, which has a climate ranging from alpine to subtropical, the two plants thrive right across the Darling Downs. Cold winters aren’t a problem, nor is drought, heat, or heavy black soil.

The only major difference between the two plants is the way in which they are pruned. Banksia roses are a cinch. Unlike most modern shrub roses that flower on the current season’s growth, banksia roses flower on wood that grew last summer, and the plants only flower once in spring. So if you’re going to prune you should do so just after the plant has finished flowering. This will give the new wood a chance to form before the plant goes dormant in winter. Don’t prune in winter like you would other roses. If you do, you’ll cut off all the flowering wood for the following spring.

Wisterias are a bit harder to prune, but they’re not as difficult as many gardeners imagine. Unlike banksia roses, wisteria flowers on short, finger-like spurs that form along lateral branches growing from the main trunk. With this in mind, wisterias are pruned for two reasons: to keep the plant relatively compact, and to encourage the formation of these flower spurs.

Ideally, wisterias are pruned twice a year. After the plant has finished flowering in spring it will start to send out lots of whippy shoots. In summer, these “side shoots” can be pruned back to about 30cm from where they originate on the lateral branch, leaving about four to six leaves on the shoot. If you want to extend the plant, leave some of these side shoots in place to grow on. Then in late winter, shorten the side shoots you pruned in summer even further. Take them back to about two or three buds. This will encourage the side shoots to become flowering spurs, and all being well, you’ll get to enjoy a magnificent display of flowers in September.

Besides staying on top of summer and winter pruning, the other way you can encourage wisteria to flower is by growing them in quite lean soil. Avoid applying lots of high nitrogen fertiliser. All this will do is tell the plant to send out new growth and you’ll end up with a triffid-like monster that never flowers but does a great job of crushing your back fence with it’s weight. Fertilise your banksia rose after pruning to encourage new flowering wood, by all means. But with your wisteria you should either avoid fertilising altogether, or at most, apply some “flower and fruit” fertiliser that’s low in nitrogen but high in potassium and phosphorous.

Finally, if you’re going to grow a banksia rose/wisteria combination, it pays to give a bit of thought to what you’re going to use to support the plants. Strength is a primary consideration, as a mature wisteria is heavy, and a mature banskia rose only slightly less so. In the garden down at Ballandean the plants were trained on an arbour made from solid hardwood, but they also had a wisteria growing on a solid post-and-rail boundary fence. If you’re handy with a welder, or know someone who is, steel can be a more reliable choice.

Combining plants for best effect is an art form, just like any other. Good combinations are hard to achieve, so if you’re after a showstopper for your garden, take my advice – banksia rose and wisteria are a match made in horticultural heaven.

First puublished in the Toowoomba Chronicle 1st October 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, wisteria and banksia rose, Vineyard Cottages, Ballandean.

Blossom season has arrived on the Downs, and we ought to celebrate. It’s a privilege to inhabit a part of the world that experiences four seasons, and considering our spring is fleetingly intense we should all make an effort to embrace the wonder of the natural cycle.

If we were living in Japan, a nation beset by catastrophes far more monstrous than our January floods, spring blossom would currently be a national obsession, with hanami (flower viewing) parties held in parks and gardens throughout the islands. And rightly so. On the back of a winter that has been colder and drier than average, spring is a welcome gift. It’s a reminder that change, though inevitable, brings opportunities for renewal.

While a range of blossom trees are enjoyed in Japan, the plant at the centre of the hanami festival is Prunus serrulata, the non-fruiting, ornamental cherry known by the Japanese as sakura. The tree is widely grown outside of Japan, and though the species is uncommon on the Downs, it’s many cultivars, including ‘Kanzan’, ‘Shirotae’ and ‘Ukon’ are popular.

I haven’t grown any of these varieties in my garden yet, but I do have a Prunus ‘Okame’, planted (with thanks) by the previous owners and currently blooming in all its spring glory. Being a hybrid between the Formosan cherry (Prunus campanulata) and the Mt Fuji cherry (Prunus incisa), Okame combines the best features of each species. It produces a mass of pink flowers on a fairly upright tree in early spring, much like P. campanulata, while colouring up superbly in autumn like P. incisa. It really is a beautiful, undervalued plant.

But as much as I love our Okame, my enthusiasm for cherries is directed mostly toward the edible cherries, both sweet and sour. Sharing many of the same attributes as the non-fruiting species, fruit bearing cherries are just as ornamental in spring but come with the significant bonus of delicious, home-grown produce. Why Toowoomba Regional Council doesn’t plant edible versions of some plants is beyond me. Imagine being able to wander through a local park, enjoying not just the shade of a cherry tree on a summer’s day, but also being able to harvest some fruit. It would mean that TRC would have to resist spraying the trees with chemicals, lest they poison the public, but that wouldn’t be a bad outcome.

If council was to get adventurous with its public plantings, the cherry I’d recommend above all others is the sour cherry, Prunus cerasus. In Australia sour cherries carry the stigma of being a “cooking” fruit, but in Europe it is by far the most commonly grown cherry tree. The reason it’s so popular overseas is that the tree has considerable advantages over its sweet cousin.

Cold winters are essential for both species, but sour cherries tolerate more summer heat, are genuinely self-fertile, are less attractive to birds, come into bearing earlier, and form a tree half the size of the sweet cherry, which can reach a height of 10 metres. Additionally, the fruit of sour cherries won’t split open during wet weather like some sweet varieties do, and the tree is more resistant to brown rot.

These advantages apply equally to home gardeners. I’ve just planted a Morello sour cherry in my garden and I’m looking forward to using the fruit in the kitchen. Maggie Beer is a big fan of sour cherries, as is UK smallholder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame, who describes jam made from Morello cherries as “superb”.

Last but, certainly not least is everyone’s favourite, the sweet cherry. Christmas lunch in the Russell family wouldn’t be complete if a bowl of sweet cherries wasn’t on the table alongside the bon-bons and baked ham. This summer, I’m hoping to harvest the first fruit from our own trees. To keep them small and net the fruit against birds – the botanical name of sweet cherries is Prunus avium, after all – I’m growing the trees in a restricted bush form, where the vigour of the tree is spread over a large number of small branches.

To date I’ve planted Stella, a self fertile variety from Canada and Naploeon, an old French “white” cherry, but have two more waiting to go in the ground, the NSW bred ‘Ron’s Seedling’, and ‘Early Burlat’, developed in Morocco during the 1930′s. There are many other good varieties beside these four. If you’re keen to give sweet cherries a try be prepared to prune the trees to keep them manageable, consider their pollination requirements, and most importantly, plant in a cold micro-climate. Cherries, both sweet and sour, are fruit for the coolest parts of the Downs. But if you do manage to get cherries thriving, these superb trees will provide generous rewards for many seasons to come.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 27 August 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Okame Cherry.

One of the highlights of late winter in Toowoomba is the deciduous magnolia. I absolutely love the things. Their flower display has an air of exoticism that few trees can match, except perhaps for their cousins, the Bull Bay or evergeen magnolias.

Five years ago, Magnolia grandiflora and its offspring were the must-have plants of the moment. Hot shot designers like Jamie Durie were using them all over the place, and nearly every week, shows like Backyard Blitz used them as a feature tree. More than a few trees were snapped up by a gardening public willing to pay $30 or more for what was essentially a fashion statement in a 140mm pot.

But fashions change. In this new era of austerity, expensive little trees are less likely to loosen the purse strings and the evergreen magnolia has joined lots of other gardenworthy plants in a twilight zone of horticultural obscurity. To be honest, even I’m guilty of overlooking the plant. The main reason it’s even getting a run today is because of a road trip my wife and I made last week.

We took off for a couple of days to deliver fruit trees to a property at Kentucky, a village at the southern end of the New England Tablelands in NSW. Sitting between 900 and 1400 metres above sea level, New England is famous for having one of the coldest climates in Australia. Deciduous trees and conifers dominate the landscape, but while driving through the main street of Uralla I spotted a large evergreen tree out of the corner of my eye. When I slowed down for a look, I was surprised to see that the tree was a mature Magnolia grandiflora.

The discovery shouldn’t have been that much of a shock. The Bull Bay magnolia is actually quite a cold tolerant plant. Native to the southern United States, in the wild it often grows in the company of deciduous trees such as liquidambars, tupelos and oaks. In a garden situation it can be found growing as far north as Chicago and British Columbia. We’re talking about one of the oldest exotic plants in cultivation here – Magnolia grandiflora has been grown successfully in Britain since 1726.

The species can be a large tree to about 20 metres tall. There are some handsome plants scattered around the Toowoomba area, particularly in older parks and gardens. A real beauty can be seen growing just outside the cemetery at Cabarlah, but for the average garden, one of the cultivars is a wiser choice. There are around half a dozen to choose from, and all bear the “grand”, heavily-scented white flowers as the species during late summer and autumn.

The variety that caught designers’ imaginations five years ago is ‘Little Gem’. I’ve got one growing in my garden, and while the plant might eventually reach a height of about five metres, it appears to be in no hurry to get there. The foliage is something else: glossy and dark green on top, brown and felty in texture underneath.

If you’re after a faster grower than Little Gem, ‘St Mary’ is a good choice. It will get to about six metres in height and is a more open plant. And if the brown leaf texture doesn’t appeal there is a new variety on the available called ‘Greenback’. The pick of the lot, however, is an oldie called ‘Exmouth’. This exceptionally stately tree will grow a bit bigger than the previous plants to about 10 metres tall but it has a conical shape and will only get to five metres in diameter.

Exmouth was grown by Sir John Colliton in a Devon village during the early 18th century. You might say that Colliton had an entrepreneurial spirit. He leased his tree out to local nurserymen on a rotational basis, collecting five guineas (about $750 in today’s terms) for each young rooted tree sold. He wasn’t however, very astute. The tree was accidentally cut down in 1794.

Evergreen magnolias do best in a loamy soil, but they’re very tolerant of a broad range of conditions. They handle the black soil of the plains and the red soil of the plateaus equally well. You’ll need to water plants regularly during dry spells to get them established, but after the first year or two no supplemental moisture is necessary. Pests are a non event. I’ve yet to find barely a blemished leaf on my Little Gem.

The famous plant explorer Ernest “Chinese” Wilson called magnolias “aristocrats with ancient lineage”. His description was spot on. Ignore the fact that Magnolias aren’t trendy any more. Classic beauty never goes out of style.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 6th August 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Magnolia ‘Little Gem’, The Laurels, Warwick.

In last week’s Secret Garden I introduced the permaculture concept, and it’s three guiding ethics. In this week’s sequel, I want to talk principles. Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison first outlined a set of design principles in his 1988 epic, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. The book is thick enough to chock a semi-trailer, so broad is its scope, so when permaculture co-founder David Holmgren restated the principles in a more accessible format in 2003, the overhaul was very welcome. Here they are, along with my brief take on each.

Observe and Interact

Take the time to engage with the natural world, and design a garden that is tailor made to a particular site. Alexander Pope put it this way: “consult the genius of the place in all”.

Catch and Store Energy

Harvest resources while they are abundant, and store them for later use when they’re scarce. Rainwater tanks are an excellent example of this principle, as is the traditional practice of preserving the harvest for use during winter.

Obtain a Yield

Holmgren states this as “you can’t work on an empty stomach”. When a starter vegie grower brings in a first harvest, for example, or some income is derived from a project early on, it provides a boost, and the project is likely to go ahead and thrive.

Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback

The three permaculture ethics are an important means of self regulation, but it’s important to learn from your mistakes. Seek constructive criticism, and observe the feedback provided by natural systems. If you plant a cactus in a bog, and it rots, accept the feedback and resolve to plant a moisture lover in its place.

Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

Nature is abundant, with more than enough renewable resources to satisfy our basic needs. Why ordinary citizens continue to prop up fossil-based industries, when the solutions are under our collective nose, is beyond me.

Produce No Waste

Trade your council Green Bin for a compost bin. Minimise your packaging and reuse it where possible. Or as self-sufficiency pioneer John Seymour once said “the dustman should never have to call”.

Design From Patterns to Details

If we apply permaculture principle one, we’ll see that patterns exist in nature, and they can be used successfully in our gardens. Once these “broad brush strokes” have been made, it’s easy to fill in the details.

Integrate Rather Than Segregate

An ideal example of this principle is compost. More than the sum of it’s parts, compost contains various elements – moisture, plant waste, animal manure – which combine together for the common good.

Use Small and Slow Solutions

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. When size and speed become excessive, maintenance becomes difficult and the crash, when it comes, is a lot harder than ought to be. Pay attention to scale.

Use and Value Diversity

The more diverse an ecosystem (or garden), the more unique it is, and the more resilient it becomes to a variety of threats. Rather than putting all your eggs in one basket, diversify. Mix things up.

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Permies argue that where two different elements overlap, there is an intense area of productivity. An often cited example is where forest meets open grassland. Some of our most productive fruiting plants come from margins such as this.

Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Since moving to Hampton in 2006 my family has been quietly designing, and implementing a rough plan as a response to issues such as peak oil and climate change. I refuse to fear change, and instead try to make it work for myself, my family and my community.

There’s a perception in horticultural circles that permaculture is little more than a quirky method of gardening, using novelties such as herb spirals, swales, chook domes, and off the wall things called keyhole beds. However, these are simply techniques that are supposed to fit within a broader philosophical context. Taken as a whole, permaculture is seen by many as the clearest template yet of how we can best design human settlements in partnership with the natural world.

Personally speaking, I’ve been interested in permaculture since I started getting serious about gardening 12 years ago. But for reasons that I’m yet to properly define, something has stopped the concept from jumping up and grabbing me by the throat. Maybe it’s that I’ve seen some weedy, overgrown, and to be frank, ugly permaculture gardens. Maybe it’s simply that I don’t yet understand permaculture well enough to give it a proper go. Then again, maybe, just maybe, permaculture is truly revolutionary, and I’m yet to realise that it offers the best shot at thriving in a swiftly changing world. Time will tell.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 7th May 2011.

The events come thick and fast at this time of the year. Easter, Anzac Day, and Earth Day last weekend, Gardenfest and Autumnfest this weekend (see Garden Cuttings for more info), and the Hampton Food and Arts Festival in a couple of weeks’ time. One event that’s likely to fly under the radar, but deserves more attention is the inaugural National Permaculture Day, tomorrow, May 1.

Despite being described by veteran environmentalist David Suzuki as “the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet”, Permaculture has yet to gain any real traction in our part of the world. As far as I’m aware, there are no local events being held tomorrow, which is a shame, and though there are a handful of dedicated permaculture gardens hidden around the place, none are throwing open their gates to the public. I wonder why this is the case. Is it because of Toowoomba’s conservatism, where anything and anyone bearing a green tinge generally gets treated with suspicion? Or is it simply that permaculture is a difficult concept to understand?

Conservative our area might be, but in my experience the latter reason is true: most local gardeners have heard of permaculture, but few actually understand what the concept is about. Personally, I find permaculture to be brilliantly conceived, even revolutionary, but it is a very difficult concept to penetrate for the average home gardener with no experience in design or ecology. And while I don’t really consider myself a permaculturalist (and certainly don’t qualify as a permaculture designer), I would like to spend this Saturday and next introducing the permaculture concept and outlining ways we might be able to apply it in our gardens.

As with all concepts, it’s worth starting with a definition. The Oxford English Dictionary defines permaculture as “the development or maintenance of an ecosystem intended to be self-sustaining and to satisfy the living requirements of its inhabitants, esp. by the use of renewable resources”. That hardly pins the concept to the mat, so let’s expand a bit with some history.

The term Permaculture” is a portmanteau of permanent culture, and permanent agriculture. The concept originated in the mid 1970′s when a young ecology student, David Holmgren, and his lecturer at the University of Tasmania, Bill Mollison, published an article in Tasmania’s Organic Farmer and Gardener Magazine. This article was soon followed by an interview on ABC radio, and in 1978, Holmgren and Mollison’s seminal book on the concept, Permaculture One: A perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements.

Sadly, the two visionaries have since gone their separate ways. Mollison, who still lives in Tassie, has focussed on education, believing that permaculture could spread exponentially by teaching students, who would in turn teach others, and so on. He taught the first Permaculture Design Course (known as PDC’s by Permies) at Stanley in Tasmania, in 1979, and thousands of PDC’s have been taught around the world in the years since.

David Holmgren took a different approach. With permaculture gaining widespread publicity, he retreated to a smallholding in Victoria to quietly test his ideas. In 2002, he re-emerged with Permaculture – Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability a landmark book that reinterpreted permaculture’s fundamental design principles as a creative adaptation to the decline in non-renewable sources of energy such as oil. I’ll talk more about these principles next week.

Until then, I want to conclude this week’s column by mentioning the three ethics at the core of the Permaculture concept. In Permaculture One, Mollison and Holmgren described these as: Care for the Earth; Care for People; and Fair Share. The first ethic is self explanatory. The second suggests that all people should have access to what they need to live a safe, and healthy life. The third is a principle that most gardening and farming models overlook, and is based on the ethic we’re all taught as kids – only take what you need, and share the rest. Some permies call this, “return of the surplus”.

While some elements of permaculture are ripe for critique, I confess to having a great admiration for any movement that is built upon a set of foundational ethics like those above. What’s more, I believe they are the right ethics to build upon. We’re living in an age when most big, established institutions – business, politics and religion – are being white-anted from within by self interest and a desperation to cling to the status quo. In some cases, ethical foundations rotted away years ago. Permaculture offers a creative response.

Next week – The Principles of Permaculture Design

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 30th April, 2011.

Every garden, whether it’s a tiny inner city courtyard or a sprawling country estate, has an awkward space or two. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Those funny little spots like the service-way between the house and the boundary fence or the corner beside the garden shed. Spaces that easily get put into the too hard basket and as a consequence, let the adjacent spaces down.

My awkward spot is a small strip of patchy lawn in the backyard adjoining the south facing wall of our house. In winter this strip never sees the sun, and becomes mossy and dank. In high summer, it gets about half a day of sun, but still seems to stay damp. Because this awkward strip is part of the kids’ play area, I’m reluctant to lose the lawn, but it’s time to face reality – grass is always going to struggle. It’s time to rip it out, make a new garden bed and plant something more appropriate. The question is what.

At this point, I like to get outside and have a look at the space, visualising how various plants might look. I’ve done this a few times with the space in question but to no avail. Until today. I was out taking some photos of the garden when a single plant really caught my eye. It was an old fashioned Hydrangea macrophylla that was here when we bought the place and to date has never really lived up to its potential. But this year it’s obviously revelling in the wet weather and is covered with huge heads of waxy, sky-blue flowers.

Looking at the hydrangea, the lightbulb went off in my head and it dawned on me that this was the ideal plant for the awkward spot. Hydrangeas will enjoy the shade created by the house, they’ll appreciate the extra moisture retained in the soil, and their informal blowsiness will be a good match for the style of our 1930’s farm cottage.

Hydrangeas are one of those plants that the new generation of gardeners consider “nanna plants”. I think this kind of pigeonholing is a bit unfair. What everyone forgets is that the so called nanna plants were often grown in an age when pesticides either didn’t exist or were hard to come by. As a consequence, most of the plants that would have been grown by your nanna are tried and tested performers. They don’t need constant spraying with chemical pesticides to thrive, and generally need little attention from the garden.

This doesn’t mean that nanna plants are boring. As a case study, consider hydrangeas. In a good season with regular moisture they dress themselves in big, serrated leaves the colour of lime cordial before putting on a show of stunning mop-head flowers from late spring to midsummer. In my acid soil the flowers are blue. In alkaline soil the blooms are pink. Some gardeners prefer one colour over the other so they use various tonics and concoctions to manipulate the pH of their soil. I’d rather work with what I’ve got – blue suits me just fine.

If blue or pink aren’t your cup of tea, you have a couple choices. One is to choose a different species. Hydrangea quercifolia, the oakleaf hydrangea, produces huge white flower panicles and has the bonus of handsome autumn foliage. Another option is to choose one of the newer cultivars. The Mai-Ko series of hydrangeas feature bi-coloured flowers, and though I haven’t tested them personally, the Endless Summer hydrangeas are supposed to flower twice or even three times over summer. If you’re pushed for space, these recent cultivars tend to be more compact than the old mop-heads.

Besides the flowers, the next best thing about hydrangeas is their ease. Nanna wouldn’t have had time to stuff around with high maintenance plant divas, and unless you’re a real enthusiast, neither should you. All hydrangeas want are conditions similar to their natural habitat – dappled shade in summer, a free draining soil with reasonable levels of organic matter, and for best results, consistent moisture during the growing season. Pruning isn’t strictly necessary. You should only bother if the plant is getting too large, and even then, it’s best not to go back too far as flowers are borne on last summer’s wood. Take off up to a third in late autumn, and make your cuts just above a pair of plump buds.

Hydrangeas propagate quite easily from soft tip cuttings in summer, so I’m thinking that instead buying new plants to fill my awkward spot, I’ll start my own. Our old hydrangea is a good doer. It came through the drought with little more than the occasional bucket of water and is now rewarding us generously, so I’ll make some clones of it for posterity sake. Within a few years they should be flowering beautifully, transforming what was once a strip of patchy lawn into a December highlight.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 11th November 2010. Photo by Justin Russell.

The Toowoomba range is host to some fine gardens, but in my view they don’t get much finer than the rangetop paradise in Leslie Street known as Stirling House. Established by John and Jill Stirling in the 1960’s, and now owned by hospitable couple Colin Fitzgerald and Dr Viola Nicholson, the garden comprises two acres of magnificent cool climate trees, hundreds of roses, classic bluestone paths, and lots of lovely woodland perennials.

What Stirling House is most famous for though, is its camellias. There are dozens of beautiful specimens scattered amongst the garden, most in full flower when I visited last weekend and yet all of them outdone by the prized yellow species Camellia nitidissima.

As stunningly beautiful as this camellia was on the day (I’ll write about it in a later article), it was actually outshone for sheer visual splendour by another exotic plant. Like a gifted Academy Award winner being upstaged by a glamorous supporting actress, the star of the show when I visited Stirling House was undoubtedly a Magnolia denudata in full, exquisite bloom.

The Yulan, as Magnolia denudata is commonly known, makes an arresting sight when it produces masses of huge, pure white blooms on bare wood during the second half of winter. It certainly stopped the 18^th century plant explorers dead in their tracks. Imagine the sheer astonishment of a sweaty English botanist, trekking along an ancient pathway in the lower Himalayas, stumbling across a misty valley bleached white with the blooms of thousands of magnolias. The contrast with the less exotic flora back home would have been absolutely stark. It still is, especially when the blooms are admired against the backdrop of a clear winter sky.

Magnolia denudata was named for its region of origin in central China. Here it can still be found growing in moist upland forests amongst camellias and rhododendrons on deep, fertile soil. The genus magnolia was introduced to horticulture by the famous botanist Sir Joseph Banks, who was absolutely delighted to open a consignment from China in 1792 containing the first ever specimen of Magnolia denudata from Dr Alexander Duncan, a surgeon working in Canton.

From this point on, the flames of an international love affair with magnolias were kindled, and it’s fair to say that the passion for these magnificent plants never really went out. In 1820, a retired French army captain by the name Etienne Soulange-Bodin crossed Magnolia denudata with Magnolia liliiflora to produce the hybrid Magnolia x soulangeana. Combining the best qualities of each of its parents, “soulangeana” is now the most widely grown of all the deciduous magnolias, lighting up Toowoomba during August and September with its opulent, pink blushed flowers. It’s a decent plant, but by no means the best magnolia in cultivation.

In addition to the Yulan magnolia described at the outset, there are some other beauties worth seeking out. For small gardens Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’ is the pick. It’s a slow grower that will eventually reach just a few metres tall and produces lovely dark purple flowers on a multi-stemmed shrub. Almost as good is Magnolia stellata, which has white star shaped flowers and rarely exceeds three metres in height.

For larger gardens my picks would be ‘StarWars’ a tall growing variety that continues flowering through summer and autumn, ‘Vulcan’ with it’s striking purple-red flowers, and ‘Elizabeth’, a classy, late flowering yellow cultivar that grows strongly and is capable of reaching six metres or more in height. Use it to accompany your yellow flowered camellia and be the envy of all your gardening friends!

If that’s your ambition, and it’s not actually one that I’d seriously recommend, better get your conditions right. Magnolias are ancient plants dating back to prehistory, but they do have fairly specific requirements to really perform well. Chief amongst these is a mountain soil that’s rich, deep, well drained and slightly acid. A cool climate is preferred, and protection from severe late winter frosts is important to prevent the flower show from ending in tears too early in the piece.

This all sounds quite specific, but thankfully, the perfect conditions for growing brilliant magnolias can be found all along the Great Dividing Range, from the Bunya Mountains in the north to the suitable parts of the Granite Belt to the south. For those out west, magnolias are a trickier proposition. The best advice I can give is to try the evergreen cultivars of Magnolia grandiflora such as ‘Little Gem’, ‘St Mary’s’ and ‘Exmouth’. You shouldn’t feel left out. The evergreens are just as stunning as their deciduous cousins, and more tolerant to boot.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 24th July 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Magnolia denudata, Stirling House, Toowoomba.

Conifer. As one of the very few plants that I have a love/hate relationship with, the very word is full of mixed emotions for me. On the one hand, I find conifers beautifully evocative plants that can conjure up romantic images of Tuscan villas and alpine forests. The reverie lasts until I drive through a 1960’s Toowoomba subdivision and struggle to appreciate an endless parade of front gardens filled with little other than dwarf or clipped conifers. In this situation they look more like a nineteenth century funeral procession – stoic, dour, sombre.

What a shame we got such wonderful plants so badly wrong. Conifers have many overlooked virtues. They are supremely tough plants, thanks largely to their needle like foliage which limits moisture loss and resists drying winds. Many conifers are remarkably free from disease, and are little troubled by insect pests. They are some of the most widely distributed plants on earth, able to survive in all but the harshest climates and found on every continent.

From a garden design point of view, another virtue is their pyramidal or columnar growth patterns. Few plants have such a strikingly defined shape, which means that conifers are the perfect trees for situations requiring bold planting. The Italians got it right. They used fastigiate (upright) cypresses to strongly define entrances, line avenues, frame views and emphasise vertical elements like walls. In Aussie suburbia we’ve done weird things like give tall growing conifers “flat top” haircuts, or tie wires around the tree to constrict the foliage. Surely we’d be much better off working with a plant’s natural inclinations, or planting an alternative.

Though only about 600 species occur in the wild, there are literally hundreds of different conifers to choose from in cultivation. Some make the perfect, low maintenance groundcover, such as shore juniper, Juniperus conferta. Others make an excellent farm windbreak, such as Bhutan cypress, Cupressus torulosa. Other conifers produce edible nuts such as Pinus pinea, and lots make stunning specimen trees, such as the weeping Atlantic cedar, Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula’.

Conifers range from dwarf shrubs less than a metre in height to 100 metre tall giants. Bearing this in mind, it almost goes without saying that wisdom should be exercised when choosing from such a diverse array of plants. My advice is to do some research. Use discretion. Don’t stick a Dawn Redwood in your courtyard, be careful in how you use gold and blue coloured conifers, and above all, try to avoid the “miniature Switzerland look”.

Gardens filled with little other than conifers became wildly popular during the suburban expansion of the 60’s and 70’s, particularly in highland areas like Toowoomba, where the reasoning seemed to be “mountain climate equals mountainesque landscaping”. To some extent this is correct, but Toowoomba is hardly the Swiss Alps. If you’re a collector, you’ll probably want to plant conifers like there’s no tomorrow, but most home gardeners will fare better with a mixed garden containing a range of different plants.

We shouldn’t overlook Australia’s native conifers either. I have a real soft spot for the Araucaria “pines” and their relatives. You only need to take a drive from the Bunya Mountains to Toowoomba via the New England Highway to realise that big, ancient trees like Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya pine), Araucaria cunninghamii (Hoop pine) and Agathis robusta (Kauri pine) thrive in the red soil country along the escarpment.

These stately conifers were once quite a common sight in suburban gardens throughout Toowoomba, but our modern obsession with health and safety has seen lots of domestic trees removed. I grew up with a massive Bunya pine in the backyard, so it always makes me a bit sad to see an arborist dangling from the top of a 20 metre tall specimen wielding a chainsaw. Lest a Bunya nut lands on someone’s head, another big old beauty bites the dust.

Well, stuff health and safety! Council will probably get their knickers in a knot but I say where there’s space, bring back the big native conifers. Not only did they provide welcome shade in a city rapidly looking like a tin roof jungle, but the old Bunyas, hoops and kauris helped define Toowoomba’s treasured Garden City identity. Let’s not forget how unique the Bunya is to our corner of the world. I think it should be celebrated as one of the city’s icons, and I’d love to see it planted appropriately, but happily, by all and sundry.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th July 2010. Photo by Justin Russell, “Blue Fir” Glenrock, Tenterfield.

One of the most frustrating things about being a gardening journalist, is that there is usually no other option but to provide generalised advice to a widely distributed audience. Take my website as an example. In response to an article written last year on rhubarb, there are three pages of comments left by readers from all over the world, often asking questions of a similar nature. “Why won’t my rhubarb go red” is popular. So is “why are the stalks of my rhubarb so skinny?”

Such is the gardening journalist’s lot. I don’t profess to be a font of all horticultural wisdom, but I have gained some hard won experience, and I like to write about what I’ve learned. I genuinely want to helpful. But I ask you this: How on earth is it possible to offer specific advice to gardeners living in locations as far flung as England, America and good ol’ Toowoomba? By necessity, the advice has to be generic.

But here lies the problem. Gardening is never generic. In fact it is the opposite. It’s always local and individual. It is specific, and subject to the influences of climate, weather, latitude, and geography. This means that in gardening terms, experience is mostly about developing an intimate relationship with a single place over a reasonable period of time.

My favourite gardening writer, Monty Don, once described his idea of home as knowing which kitchen drawer he should open to find the string and scissors. In other words, home is about becoming intimately acquainted with a place and its people. The same is absolutely true of gardening.

For me, getting acquainted with my place means a few things. For starters, it means living long enough in one place to sink really deep roots. Then it means observing and recording things like weather and changes to long term climate patterns. It means getting to know the culture and history of my land and the broader landscape it’s part of. And of course, it means getting to know the geology and geography of the land, especially the soil. I suppose you might say that it means being sensitive to a place, responsive.

But there’s more to it than that. Every parcel of land, whether it is 10,000 acres or just 1000 square metres, a national park or town centre, has a particular spirit. I don’t mean some kind of magical power, but rather an atmosphere or mood that’s unique to a particular location.

The Romans called this atmosphere “genius loci”, the spirit of the place. Alexander Pope, the 18^th century poet, wrote “consult the genius of the place in all”, and his advice is still one of the guiding principles for designers of buildings and landscapes. Those who are familiar with Glenn Murcutt’s houses will know that the Pritzker Prize winning architect works according to a philosophy of “touching the earth lightly” and matching the building to the landscape. Prominent English garden designer Dan Pearson is similarly renowned for being able to capture the spirit of a particular place in his designs.

A local garden that epitomises the spirit of a place is Vineyard Cottages on the Granite Belt. Here, the owners have used granite stones for edges, decomposed granite for pathways, and plants that reflect the culture of the area. Apples, grapes and lavenders all serve as reminders of Ballandean’s local farming traditions. Local mushroom compost was used to improve the poor soil in the garden and the owners even went as far as matching the trim colour on the cottages to the hazy blue shade of the distant hills. The effect of such thoughtfulness is that a stroll through the garden leaves no room for error – this is a garden that is a good fit with its locality. The genius of the place is distinctive, and celebrated.

In complete contrast was a Toowoomba estate I drove through the other day to visit friends. Despite having been built over excellent soil and surrounded by tall eucalypts, every second front garden consisted of a lawn, a couple of purple cordylines and perhaps a clump of dietes or a murraya hedge. There was no distinctiveness whatsoever. I could have been driving through any new estate in Australia, such was the denial of place.

Here’s what I’d rather do: rejoice in the things that make my little corner of the world unique. I want to apply my local knowledge to the way I grow commonly available plants, like rhubarb. I know that in my free draining soil, it needs daily watering in summer, and plenty of top dressing with compost each winter. In your garden, it’ll be a different story. Find the genius of your place. Y filltir sgwâr. In Welsh, that means “your square mile”. Celebrate its distinctiveness.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 3rd July 2010. Photo by Justin Russell, Vineyard Cottages, Ballandean.