Our lilac is flowering! This is cause for celebration in any spring, but it’s extra special this year because the plant was given to us by a friend over at Ravensbourne (thanks Kym). Her garden is warmer than ours, so the lilacs she had planted never bloomed very well. Rather than coddle them along she dug the mature shrubs out of the ground and gave them away. I love this aspect of gardening culture – the swapping of plants and hard won wisdom, so I was really keen to see the plant thrive.

For a year it piddled along and did next to nothing other than blow over in a storm. I re-staked it, mulched, gave it plenty of seaweed extract and a dressing of wood ash in the hope that it would get a liking for our conditions and send out lots of beautiful new roots. For months during summer and autumn our lilac looked horrible. It was alive, but had failed to leaf out and was a bunch of bare sticks in an otherwise lush garden. Now, after a cold winter, the lilac looks beautiful. It’s covered with big panicles of grape coloured flowers and the fragrance…wow. What a knockout.

I should have had more faith that the plant would do well. For those who aren’t aware, the lilac genus, Syringa, is most closely related to privet and that’s a plant in more than enough abundance around our parts. We have a large windbreak of the non-weedy small leaved variety on the western side of our house. It was planted thirty years ago by the property’s original owners and went absolutely ballistic during last summer’s big wet. Down at the creek, the large leafed privet is a serious weed. What’s more, lilacs are generally grafted onto a privet rootstock. Should I be surprised that our plant is thriving? Probably not.

When push comes to shove, lilacs are a tough and adaptable plant. Their ideal conditions are a slightly alkaline, relatively impoverished soil, plenty of sun in summer, and a cold winter to produce the best flower displays. I’m not sure if they’re growing lilacs down at Stanthorpe, but their conditions should be ideal. In the blacksoil parts of the Downs, it would pay to improve drainage with some gypsum and compost, while on the red soil plateaus an annual dressing of lime (or wood ash) each autumn.

Lilacs are best purchased bare-rooted in winter and for best results, a special technique should be used when planting. You see, lilacs are difficult plants to strike from cuttings. But they are easy to graft, so propagators put the named lilac variety onto either a seedling lilac or a privet rootstock. However, privet grafts usually fail in five to ten years and lilac seedlings tend to have inferior flowers. Both these problems can be overcome by planting your lilac extra deep, making sure the graft union is buried about 20cm below soil level. In time the named lilac will grow its own roots above the graft, and any suckers coming from below ground can simply be cut out. Note that this is the opposite of what you should do for most grafted trees, which need to be planted with the graft union above soil level.

As for pruning lilacs, there’s two golden rules: first, avoid pruning if you don’t need to; and second, if you must prune, do it just after the plant his finished flowering. Lilacs flower on wood formed the previous summer and autumn, so if you prune in April or July, you’ll be cutting off all the flower buds. Who wants a lilac that never flowers? Not me. Flowers are the lilac’s raison d’etre.

There are more than 2,000 named lilac cultivars, but the most commonly available in Australia are either hybrids or cultivated forms of Syringa vulgaris, the common lilac native to the Balkan Peninsula. The vulgaris types tend to have more fragrant flowers, so I’d be inclined to keep an eye out for ‘Belle de Nancy’ (compact, mauve flowers), ‘Congo’ (dark purple flowers), ‘Madame Lemoine’ (pure white, double flowers) and ‘Sensation’ (purple flowers with a white border). Specialist growers are also likely to have a range of species available, including Syringa afghanica, which has pastel blue flowers and lacy foliage.

I have absolutely no idea what variety the lilac in my garden is. And you know what? I don’t really care. I’m just happy that the plant survived the wettest summer in 40 years, and that it’s flowering. You’ll excuse me then, if I finish up for another week and race outside to take a whiff of that heady fragrance.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 15th October 2011. Photo by Justin Russell

Don’t forget to check out our new site, The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits.

If you’ve been reading Secret Garden for a couple of years you’d be aware that I’ve got a thing for apples. For those who are new to the column (welcome, by the way!), let it be heard that apples are my favourite plant. By a country mile. You know those desert island lists that sometimes make the round in gardening magazines? Well, if I had to list my top four desert island plants, they would be dessert apples, followed by cooking apples, then cider apples, and finally, crab apples. Of course I probably couldn’t grow any of them on a desert island, but that’s beside the point.

If you’re a long time reader, you’ll also know that I have absolutely no idea why I love apple trees so much. It goes without saying that apples are also my favourite fruit, but that’s not enough to inspire a grand passion, is it? The only other reason I can come up with to support my apple enthusiasm is that my ancestors came from Herefordshire in England. To this day, when China is easily the biggest apple producer in the world, Herefordshire remains a major growing region. But a century ago apple trees were legion in the English west country and my Russell ancestors were right in the thick of it. So my theory is that some kind of genetic memory has been passed down, and the result is a longing to grow apples. Sounds bonkers, but it’s all I can put my finger on.

It’s hardly a surprise then, that I’d love to see more gardeners growing the fruit in their backyard. I get asked all the time whether apples will even grow in Toowoomba and on the Downs. The answer is a resounding yes. In my own experience, the 30 odd varieties growing here in my Hampton garden are doing very well, but the broader answer to the question is that there is an apple for almost every climate.

Apples originate not in the Middle East as popular myth might suggest, but in central Asia. There are still wild forests in Kazakhstan containing 20 metre tall, 300-year-old apple trees with the girth of oaks and fruit in a huge diversity of colours, shapes and sizes. This latter point is the key thing to learn about apples. They are one of the most genetically diverse plants on earth, which means the odds are very strong that you’ll find an apple well suited to your garden.

The big garden centres will dish out the standard advice that for Queensland climates, you must plant low chill cultivars such as ‘Anna’ and ‘Dorsett Golden’. What they don’t usually tell you is that the first comes from Israel and the second from the Bahamas. They’ll also neglect to tell you that Dorsett Golden was bred from Golden Delicious, a staple variety in cold climate orchards across the world. So my advice is simple: be careful who you listen to, and don’t get too hung up on matching apple varieties and climate. There are 500 plus cultivars in Australia – plenty will do well in your garden.

One thing you will need to get hung up on is the apple’s rather specific reproductive habits. The flowers are pollinated by bees and there are very few self-pollinating apples, so the general rule is that for a tree to bear fruit, it will need another apple planted in the vicinity that flowers around the same time. If you’ve already planted an apple tree and it isn’t producing fruit, chances are you need a second variety for pollination. For a select group of large fruiting apples called triploids, a third variety will be required. A good apple nursery will give you the skinny on the best combinations.

As for apple growing culture, the trees are generally easy to grow, but in some climates they can be prone to a range of problems. The big three are fruit fly, codling moth, and the fungal disease apple scab. The first two can be controlled with a combination of good hygiene, exclusion bags or nets, and organic baits. Scab is worse on some varieties than others, can be prevented to some extent by facilitating good airflow through the trees, and can be controlled quite successfully with an overwintering spray of lime sulphur. Soil isn’t a major concern, though being a forest dweller, the trees will thrive in rich soil full of organic matter. Apply compost regularly and keep the trees mulched.

If I sound overly enthusiastic, please refer to paragraph two. I make no apologies for being an apple freak. The apple is a wonderful garden plant just waiting to be rediscovered by discerning gardeners. Please, I implore you all to give them a try. I doubt you’ll regret it.

What a run of magnificent winter weather we’ve just experienced. Frosty dawns and sunny afternoons are tonic for the soul as far as I’m concerned, and it seems the various fruit trees in my garden appreciate the weather just as much as I do. There are signs that my fruit trees are waking from their winter rest. Most notable are the buds. On some trees they are small and slender. On others, the pears and apples in particular, the buds grow fatter and more expectant by the day.

But hard won experience has taught me not to get fooled. It is, after all, barely the start of August. Officially, winter still has a month to run, and in some parts of the Downs, including my little cold pocket on the western fall of the Great Dividing Range, frost can settle on the ground well into October. My enthusiasm for the garden is swelling just as quickly as the buds on my trees, but I’m not quite ready to throw open the windows and embrace the wonders of spring.

Besides, there’s still a mountain of jobs to do in anticipation for the season to come. August is probably the busiest time of the year for food-centric gardeners like me, for the simple reason that if the preparation work isn’t done in earnest now, there will be slim pickings in the vegie garden until the summer crops get started in November. And if I can help it, I prefer to grow my own, rather than depend on the seasonless conveniences offered by the supermarkets.

Traditionally, the period from late winter to early summer was the leanest time of the year in cold climate gardens. People called it the “hungry gap”. It was a time when the stored surplus of autumn began to dwindle but the weather hadn’t thawed sufficiently for fresh produce to be ready to eat. Hunger, even starvation, was a very real possibility. This is why lent is celebrated during the northern hemisphere spring – the religious symbolism of fasting and suffering coincides with the reality of rarely filled bellies.

Thankfully, the situation isn’t quite as dire as it once was. Yes, I loathe the supermarkets, that much is obvious. And I’m very dubious about the perceived security of the modern food system. But compared to the average medieval peasant, or the modern day Somalian for that matter, we’ve got it very easy. The grocery shops offer a safety net that would be inconceivable to many, and our climate is, for the time being at least, conducive to growing a broad range of nutritious vegetables every month of the year.

So for me, it’s head down bum up for the next month, not so much in an effort to avoid the hungry gap, but to build a level of security and sheer deliciousness into my family life that no supermarket can ever begin to match. My Woolies…my big toe! I’ll tell you where my real loyalties lie, and that’s with my garden.

Top of my notepad titled “Jobs for August” is spuds. Some people ask me why I bother growing something so cheap and readily available in the shops. My answer, beside what I just wrote above, is that you must never have tasted a freshly dug spud. Tender, new potatoes bandicooted from the soil before the main crop is ready, are exceptionally flavoursome. I’ll always find some room for them in the garden. At the moment though, my seed potatoes are sitting on the kitchen bench waiting patiently for me to get them into the ground. They’ll go into well drained soil into which I’ve incorporated some compost and a generous scattering of pelletised poultry fertiliser.

Besides potatoes, my next priority is roots. Especially carrots. They are a nightly staple in our household, and the last of our autumn sowing was pulled from the ground this week. This time around I’m trying out an heirloom variety called ‘Danvers’ as well as my old favourite ‘Purple Dragon’, and unlike spuds, both will be sown into well dug soil that has no added compost or fertiliser. Carrots and parsnips prefer lean ground.

Finally, I’m going to sow a “catch crop” of leafy greens. Because greens are so fast growing they can be planted to catch the small window of opportunity that exists between late winter and the first plantings of summer ripening tomatoes, corn and beans in September and October. Rocket, mizuna, kale, Asian cabbage, and lettuce are all easy to start from either seed or seedlings and give quick results when speed is warranted.

There’s plenty to be done. And to be honest, after writing this week’s column I’m almost so keen to get into my vegie patch I could burst quicker than a plum blossom in September. It’s an exciting time of the year.

First published in The Toowoomba Chronicle 30th July 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, unfurling buds on an ornamental peach.

In July, it can be tempting to believe that the garden has become a cold, drab, lifeless wasteland dominated by bare branches and frost-bleached grass. I’ve fallen for the myth lots of times, but in reality, it’s simply not true. When I actually slow down and really pay attention, I see a garden bursting with energy and colour. In this week’s Secret Garden I want to give a snapshot of what’s happening in my garden during July, with the hope that you’ll be inspired to see your own winter garden in a new light.

We’ll start in my favourite part of the garden – the vegie patch. Come winter, spring, summer or autumn, the patch is the beating heart of Thistlebrook. This is true in a physical sense, because the patch is located roughly in the centre of the most productive part of the property (right next door to the chooks and espalier orchard). But more importantly, the vegie patch brings to life our ideas of what good gardening, and good living, is all about.

The vegie patch feeds my family all year round. Winter moves at a slower pace than spring and summer, of course, but there’s still something to harvest every day. The two carrot varieties I sowed back in early autumn, Lubyana and St Valery, have been feeding us for months and there are still enough roots in the ground for a few weeks yet. The bed of leafy greens I sowed with my daughter in March is still providing fresh leaves of rocket, bok choy, mizuna, lettuce, spinach, and lots of beautiful Tuscan, and Red Russian kale. I’m growing the latter for the first time and it’s a winner – tender and delicious and quietly beautiful in the garden.

The brassicas are coming along well. A row of broccoli is sprouting dozens of side shoots, extending the harvest, and an adjacent row of purple cauliflower is big and tall and starting to form a startling violet coloured head. Next to the cauliflower is some young purple sprouting broccoli, a row of cabbage and finally, a row of wombok, now ready to be picked. All of the plants are thriving in soil that previously grew potatoes, and was enriched with lots of home made compost, some lime, and a decent scattering of pelletised chook manure.

My garlic is powering along. In addition to bulbs I saved from last spring, I’m experimenting with some heirloom varieties this year and so far, the results are good. The bulbs were tiny when they arrived in the post, and I was worried they wouldn’t grow. But garlic is tougher than people give it credit for and every clove bar one sprouted. I can’t wait for harvest in November. Nearby, in a permanent bed, is my prized rhubarb. The variety I grow is called Highfields Ever Red, and true to it’s name, produces glowing scarlet stems almost all year round before dying back to the crown in mid-winter. This year it’s still going strong.

The potted Eureka lemon tree, which has struggled along for a few years in the face of drought, frost, flood and the beautiful, but very hungry, orchard swallowtail butterfly caterpillars, is finally bearing fruit. Not a lot, and quite under-size compared to my neighbours’ lemons. But all fruit, whether abundant or scarce, is welcome in this household and I’m looking forward to this tree’s first harvest. A better performer is the blood orange. It’s going gangbusters for a young tree, and is covered with half ripe oranges that I’m hoping will survive July’s hard frosts.

There’s much more to this garden than just edible plants, and though flowers are scarce in July, observant visitors still manage to spot the odd beauty. Forget-me-nots planted beneath and old flowering peach are still producing their electric blue flowers, a red grevillea and a neighbouring teucrium are making a brilliant combination and out the back, along the rear boundary fence, a Mutabilis rose hedge continues to be a show stopper. This variety needs space, but it ranks as one of the most garden-worthy plants I’ve ever grown.

Now if that all sounds a bit too idyllic, take heart. Thistlebrook is hardly the perfect garden that some people imagine it to be. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Perfect gardens are an illusion, often created by a hyper-dedicated property owner or a small army of gardeners working day in and day out to create something that for most of us, is out of reach. Give me a garden that’s rough around the edges, but productive and beautiful, over a micro-managed show piece any day of the week. Let’s aim to keep it real.

First puublished in the Toowoomba Chronicle 2nd July 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, forget-me-not flowers.

At this time of the year, when the lawn’s stopped growing (finally!) and the mornings are white with frost, I feel like going into a state of semi-dormancy as well. In some ways I envy gardeners in the northern hemisphere whose backyards are blanketed in snow for most of winter leaving little option but to take the entire season off. Here, of course, it’s not quite as drastic. We can brave the cold, and in reality, there is still a long list of jobs that could be done.

My advice is to put the list in the top drawer, and look at it only occasionally. You might like to get stuck into a few warming tasks, like hard landscaping and digging compost into your vegie patch ahead of spring, but there’s an opportunity over the next month or two to spend some time in quiet reflection and in my view, it’s too good to miss.

Few of us spend enough time reflecting. For the perpetually busy, reflection is a complete no-go zone, but even for those of us who’ve sought to carve out time for such pursuits, reflection can be difficult to accommodate. In my experience though, it’s a priceless discipline. Each winter, whenever the opportunity arises, I’ll make time to either sit and do nothing but think, or more likely, evaluate the seasons just passed in my garden and make plans for the warmer months (and sometimes years) ahead.

Often a book or two gets pulled off my shelf. I’m one of these silly people who always has a pile of half read books on the go, so I prefer to get stuck into them, but it’s amazing how often I return to my old favourites. They’ve become a bit like trusted companions, full of hard won wisdom and sound advice, and when I need it, an inspirational passage or two to get my gardening juices flowing again.

Monty Don’s The Organic Gardener (sold in the UK and US as The Complete Gardener, a better title in my opinion) is probably the most referred-to book in my library. Don is a long-time gardening columnist and the much loved host of the BBC’s Gardeners’ World program, the equivalent of our Gardening Australia. He writes beautifully, but is, first and foremost, a compulsive domestic gardener.

In 1991 Monty and wife Sarah retreated to a tumble down Tudor house set amid a two acre field in Herefordshire. The couple’s jewellery business, which once boasted Princess Diana among a stellar client list, had gone spectacularly bust, and Don was severely depressed. Gardening became a kind of redemption. In two decades, with countless hours of sweat and labour, the couple transformed a derelict, flood prone field into one of Britain’s most recognisable gardens.

In The Organic Gardener, Don offers a comprehensive overview of his gardening philosophies, and outlines the various techniques he uses for growing a wide array of edible and ornamental plants. The book makes a compelling case for organic growing. Yet Don’s techniques are solidly traditional. In the book you’ll learn how to tie-in raspberry canes, and make your own seed raising mix. You’ll find advice on planting hedges, and rotation plans for the vegie patch. Don covers a heap of ground in The Organic Gardener, and the words are beautifully illustrated by superb photography. It’s a brilliant book.

The second most cherished book in my collection is Dr Louis Glowinski’s The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia. Dr Glowinski is a Melbourne GP, who doubles as a passionate edible gardener and is a member of the International Rare Fruit Council. As such, his book is soundly based on a combination of personal experience, scientific enquiry, and a healthy dose of historical fact.

Unlike Monty Don’s book, illustrations are scant in The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia, but the text is wonderfully composed, offering comprehensive advice on all aspects of fruit growing culture, and for a very wide range of temperate and subtropical varieties. Dr Glowinski covers everything from A to Z, apples to Zizyphus (jujubes). And he’s never short of a joke. After all, he says, “growing fruit is a pleasure, not a duty”.

So the next time someone criticises you for sitting next to the heater, when there’s work to be done outside, my advice is to do this: Tell them that Justin, the bloke who writes about gardening for The Chronicle and (hopefully!) knows what he’s talking about, is probably doing the same thing at this very minute. Make the most of winter, and its opportunities for reflection.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 25th June 2011.

Being a Dad is one of the great joys of my life. Child raising isn’t without its challenges, of course, but neither is it without some happy by-products. As a parent, I’ve had the pleasure of reading lots of kid’s books and watching the occasional kid’s movie. The best of these are brilliant works of art, and while I’ve got a soft spot for oldies like Mary Poppins (love the chimney sweep scene) my favourite so far is the 2006 film version of EB White’s classic fable, Charlotte’s Web.

One of the major themes of the movie, or at least the theme that gets telegraphed most insistently, is the idea of finding the miraculous in the commonplace. The closing song leaves little doubt about the “ordinary miracle” concept, and while the same theme is present in the book, EB White takes a less sentimental approach.

The novel’s title character, a spider named Charlotte, befriends a runt pig and saves him from the axe by writing a series of well chosen adjectives in her web above the pig’s pen. Charlotte describes Wilbur the runt as “some pig”, “terrific”, and “radiant”, and by the time the word “humble” appears in the spider’s web one morning toward the end of the book, crowds are flocking to witness the miracle first hand. As a consequence, her friend’s bacon is spared from the smoke house, and Wilbur lives to see winter.

What fascinates me about EB White’s story is the suggestion that people are drawn to the extraordinary sight of words written in spider silk, yet they overlook the real miracle – the web itself. There’s nothing grand about the sight of a dew laden web, catching sunlight on an autumn morning, but the incredible strength of the threads and the precision of the structure makes a spider’s web one of nature’s truest marvels. Every time we walk past such wonders without a second thought, we do ourselves a disservice.

Gardeners claim to love the natural world, but we’re as guilty of overlooking ordinary, everyday miracles as much as anyone. The problem stems from what amounts to a perpetual quest for the newest, the brightest, and the boldest. It’s exacerbated by some of the big garden centres and the broader horticulture industry, both of which are obsessed with the development of new plants with showier flowers that become further and further removed from their wild ancestors. We miss far more than spider webs.

I think there’s plenty we can learn from children. A child development expert could explain why, but I’ve noticed that kids are innately aware of, and get incredible joy from, the small details in their surroundings. When my kids pick a flower for their mum, they usually choose something insignificant, and unspectacular. When they appreciate autumn colour, it’s through a single leaf, not an entire tree. When they pick a piece of fruit from the garden they rarely salivate over the largest specimen. In a child’s world, little things are extraordinary.

One of the plants my kids enjoy the most is the common sweet violet, Viola odorata. We’re growing it as a groundcover on either side of semi-shaded path leading to our back door, where it also adjoins the kid’s sandpit. When the plant is in bloom from early winter to spring, the flowers get picked constantly for everything from making perfume to decorating volcanoes to sprinkling over miniature ponds. There are hundreds of other flowers to choose from in the garden. But it’s a purple wonder the size of a thumbnail that my children gravitate to.

I share the kid’s enthusiasm for violas. My favourite cool season flower is the humble Johnny Jump Up, Viola tricolour, a plant that earned its common name because of a tendency to self seed and pop up spontaneously in the garden. Its other common name is heartsease. This refers to the plant’s historical use as a medicinal herb, but I think it perfectly suits Viola tricolour’s ability to inspire cheer on the bleakest days of mid-winter. I also grow the larger flowered pansies (which are viola hybrids), but for me, a clump of happy looking Johnny Jump Ups is pure gold.

The 19th century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “the invariable mark of wisdom is the ability to see the miraculous in the common”. I’ll leave it for others to judge whether I’m wise or not, but as a gardener, and a dad, I think it’s vital that I learn to see with eyes attuned to nature’s common glories. If I can pass such wisdom onto my kids, and they pass it on to their own children, I’ll die a very contented man.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 4th June 2011. Photo by Justin Russell – common violet, Viola odorata.

All gardeners, at some point or another, are affected by what I like to call irresistible plant urge syndrome. The symptoms go a bit like this. You stop by your local nursery with no particular intent other than to have a browse. Out of the corner of your eye you spot a plant that’s been on your wish list for years, but have never been able to find a place in the garden for. You purchase the said plant and take it home, only to find that there’s a good reason it was stuck on your wish list – you don’t have a place for it. Undeterred, you convince yourself that you’ll make a spot available in the not too distant future, and will leave the new plant in its pot with a number of other plants also waiting to be planted into the garden.

The poor old plant sits there in horticultural purgatory for the next year, where it gradually deteriorates, becoming pot bound and turning yellow. One hot summer day you forget to water the plant and it dies. You throw the contents of the pot onto the compost, and resolve not to buy the same plant until you have a position in the garden ready to go. One spring day a few months hence, you stop by your local nursery and…all serious gardeners know how the story ends. Irresistible plant urge syndrome. I’ve had it, and still get the occasional relapse.

I’m doing my best, though, to resist the urge to buy plants on impulse. Instead, I’ve resolved to work with the plants I’ve already got in the garden, taking cuttings from favourites, dividing others, and where necessary, digging some up and moving them to a more favourable position. I find plant relocation particularly satisfying work for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’m making the most of what I’ve got, fine tuning rather than longing for more, and at least part of the pleasure is that the work is done mostly in autumn.

The weather for the last three days has been absolutely superb in my garden. We’ve woken to frosty mornings followed by perfectly clear, still days, with enough warmth left in the sun to wear a short sleeved shirt. There’s also plenty of warmth left in the soil. This warmth is a legacy of summer, and it will gradually decrease over the coming months until the soil reaches its lowest temperature in early spring.

The benefit of transplanting in autumn is two fold: first, the warm soil means quick recovery of damaged roots. Secondly, the cooler air temperatures mean that the plant loses less moisture through it’s foliage. Put simply, a plant moved in autumn is under less stress.

Even so, there are a few rules to follow to give a relocated plant the best chance of success. Start by identifying which plants move well, and which don’t. Those with a deep and woody root system, such as many natives, tend to be much more difficult to move than plants such as camellias or citrus, which have a fairly shallow, fibrous root system. Clumping perennials such as agapanthus, bearded iris, cannas, sedums, kniphofia and catmint, for example, are perfect candidates for division and relocation.

For plants that are small enough to be dug and moved by hand, you should begin by cutting the foliage back by at least half it’s overall size. This reduces moisture loss. Then drive a sharp spade around the rootball of the plant and dig it up. Aim to strike a balance between retaining as many roots as possible, and allowing easy relocation of the plant to its new position.

Once the plant has been lifted, a race is on. Roots exposed to the air will begin drying out and left for too long, the plant might fail to recover. Ideally, you should get the plant into its new position as soon as possible, which means having the site prepared ahead of time, otherwise “heel” it into a temporary position, or put the plant in a plastic bag with the roots contained in moist sawdust or newspaper. Plant out at the next opportunity.

Just prior to replanting, soak the roots for half an hour in a bucket containing a weak seaweed solution. The seaweed will help the plant overcome transplant shock, then plant out carefully into well prepared soil. Water the plant in well, even if the soil’s moist. Keep the water up for the first few months at least, and fingers crossed, your relocated plant will grow away strongly in spring. Then you, the gardener, will feel the warm glow of having made the most of what was already in the garden, rather than succumbing to irresistible plant urges.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 21st May, 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’.

It’s been more than 150 years since Easter Monday last coincided with Anzac Day, a date well before the landing at Gallipoli and one that won’t be repeated until 2095. For the keenest of the keen, such a rare event equates to five days in a row of gardening bliss. I’m pretty keen myself. I plan to do a bit of work outside, but I’ll also be making time to relax, and reflect on what the weekend might mean beyond chocolate bunnies and slouch hats.

Easter and Anzac Day share a common message as far as I’m concerned. It’s a message not of war and glory, but one of sacrifice and ultimately, enduring peace. The Old Testament prophet Micah foresaw this peace in pointedly non-violent, agrarian terms:

“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.”

These words ring true for a fruit grower (and peace-lover) like me. I’m a bit taken by the idea of sitting under my abundant fig tree and pruning it with a tool furnished from a defunct weapon of war. It’s certainly not the reality at the moment. I’ve got one old, poorly positioned fig in the garden, and the world’s most cursed marsupial – the possum – usually beats me to the fruit. I’m planting more figs this winter, and hope for a day when I can eat from a number of trees and live not just in peace with my fellow human beings, but the local wildlife as well.

The common fig, Ficus carica, is probably the oldest of all the domesticated fruit trees. It is one of a number of contenders for the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and was first described in stone tablets by the Egyptians more than 2700 years ago, when it was revered as the Tree of Life. The tree and it’s fruit are afforded frequent mentions in the Bible, but the most famous is, of course, Adam and Eve’s use of the leaves as “modesty patches” to hide their nakedness.

The fact that the leaves were able to hide the dangly bits of the first man should give some indication of their ornamental value. The leaves are big and handsome. The tree itself can look scrappy, but a well pruned example can make for a very attractive specimen that meets my ideal characteristics for a plant – beautiful and productive.

The fruit is even more luscious than the foliage. If you’ve never eaten a fat, fleshy fig straight off the tree then I don’t reckon you’ve quite lived. Don’t even give the occasional supermarket fruit a second glance. Figs have such a short shelf life that they demand to be eaten fresh, cooked or dried. Freshly picked figs, halved and baked with honey, then served with a dollop of double cream is nothing short of a taste of heaven.

Figs will grow in any climate the Downs has to offer, from warm to cool temperate, to subtropical, and while the tree prefers reasonably rich ground to sand, isn’t overly fussy. The real key to getting bumper crops is to grow figs “leaner” than you would most other fruiting trees. A well-nourished fig tree will get fat and lazy, developing an extensive root system and putting lots of energy into a lush canopy. It will do this at the expense of fruit, so in fertile soil, feeding is only necessary to get the tree established. As Louis Glowinski says in his excellent The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia, “neglect seems to be a good policy as far as fertiliser in concerned.”

The other trick people employed to stimulate fruiting, was to constrict the tree’s root ball. Old timers would plant a fig in a 44-gallon drum to keep the roots compact. Others advocate pruning the roots periodically with a sharp spade. A simpler option is to either plant your tree against a sunny wall and espalier it, or grow a fig tree in a large pot. Half wine barrels are perfect, both practically and aesthetically, but don’t forget to drill drainage holes in the bottom, and for longevity, treat with a wood preservative. As for varieties my picks for the Downs are ‘Brown Turkey’, ‘Black Genoa’ for colder areas and ‘White Adriatic’ where its warmer.

My hope is that you’ll take some time this weekend to reflect on the common message of both Easter, and Anzac Day. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to plant a fig tree. In years to come, maybe you too will be found sitting beneath your tree, eating its fruit, looking forward to the day when war is over and peace reins upon the earth.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 23rd April, 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Ripening Figs, “Summerfield”, Cabarlah.

Driving through Crows Nest this morning I spotted what were, for me at least, the first of the season’s autumn leaves. Rosier than a dairy maiden’s cheeks, they were on a box elder maple, Acer negundo ‘Sensation’, and herald the start of what I consider to be the best few months of the year.

If you haven’t yet realised, I’m a goner for autumn. Love it. Passionately. Part of the attraction is the sense that the heady days of summer are on the wane, and a change is under way. For me, autumn is a time to harvest apples and organise the firewood stack. It’s a time to harvest the last vegies of summer, and pull the heavy doona out of storage. And being more of an introvert than extrovert, autumn is a time to down tools, at least to some extent, and catch up on a few good books. I’m guessing that you have your own rituals at this time of the year too.

But let’s not forget foliage. American philosopher Henry David Thoreau described October in New England as “the month of painted leaves”, and I have to admit to imagining myself, for a very fleeting moment or two, doing a Thoreau by building my own cabin among a forest of oaks and sugar maples. That’s when I’m not daydreaming about a cottage in the middle of an old apple orchard somewhere in the Russell’s historic stomping ground of Herefordshire, England (apples and painted leaves!). Then I snap back to reality. Truth is, I’m more than happy with my lot here on the Downs.

Unlike most of Queensland, we at least get to experience proper seasonal change. Already at Thistlebrook we’ve had a few nights under 10 degrees, and it’s cool enough some mornings to walk gingerly across the bathroom tiles. If the weather remains true to form, we’ll wake to our first frost somewhere around Anzac Day or the first week of May. By that stage, the colours in the garden will really be glowing.

Autumn leaves are testament to the principle that nothing in nature is wasted. I recall the environmentalist David Suzuki saying that his household of four adults has managed to get its waste down to one small rubbish bin per week. To me that kind of effort is pretty impressive, but it’s still not a shade on nature, where everything is recycled. In fact the very notion of waste is nonsensical from a natural perspective because everything living will, upon death, decompose to become food or habitat for something else.

If you need evidence of nature’s recycling prowess, I reckon you’d do well to spend a year living with, and observing, a big old deciduous tree. In summer the leaves will be full of chlorophyll, carbohydrates and minerals. But as nights cool during autumn, the tree will prepare for winter by drawing all these valuable nutrients back into buds and bark, where they’ll be stored until the weather warms again in spring. The leaves, now depleted of green pigments, will reveal underlying hues of red and yellow, and within weeks, an “abscission” will occur in the cells joining leaf and branch. Leaves then fall to ground.

But the autumn story doesn’t end there. All those fallen leaves, which were solar energy collectors in the summer, assume new importance as they get eaten by worms and woodlice, or decompose through a natural composting process. The net result of all this decomposition is that the soil under a deciduous tree gets richer and richer. Within decades it will be magic. The single best bit of ground I’ve ever seen was up on the Toowoomba range, in a garden bed beneath an ancient liquidambar. That soil was so chocolatey soft that I could have happily lay down and gone to sleep.

To make the most of autumn foliage in your garden, it pays to choose trees wisely. Most deciduous plants colour up as the weather cools, but some produce a much more spectacular show than others, so in no particular order, here are my ten recommend trees, shrubs and fruiting plants for autumn on the Downs: Nyssa slyvatica, Tupelo; Pyrus calleryana ‘Redspire’, Ornamental Pear; Pistacia chinensis, Chinese Pistacio; Sapium sebiferum, Chinese Tallow; Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’, Maple; Ginkgo biloba; Diospyros kaki, Persimmon; Mespilus germanica, Medlar; Cotinus coggygria ‘Grace’, Smokebush; Berberis thunbergii, Barberry.

There are very few Americanisms that I like, but the word “fall” is one of them. To me it’s a beautifully poetic way to describe autumn in a temperate climate, and my hope is that you’ll make time to simply stand back and watch the season unfold. Let things go a bit more than normal, and enjoy the wind down.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 9th April 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, Chinese Pistacio, Davidson Arboretum, Highfields.

My neighbours must think I’m a right royal bludger sometimes. To the untrained eye, it looks like I’m spending lots of time in my garden at the moment just standing around, leaning against posts, daydreaming. Dedicated gardeners will know what’s actually going on. I’m prepared to admit to a healthy amount of daydreaming, but it’s certainly not daydreaming in vain. It’s based on careful observation over a long period of time, and is all about making a plan for the future that is more suited to where Kylie and I want to go as a family.

We purchased our property in April 2006. For the first couple of years after moving we didn’t do much to the garden other than plant new trees, make garden beds and start developing a rough layout for the design. We took note of the weather, learned where the frost bites hardest and the where winds are strongest. We experimented with various plants.  Some couldn’t cope with our cold winters and were replaced. Others were well chosen and have thrived.

We moved just as the drought was really starting to suck the land dry, and spent countless hours lugging watering cans around trying to keep newly established plants alive. Fast forward to 2011 and the cycle has come full circle – we’ve just witnessed the largest dump of rain in to fall on this property in 40 years. Plants that scoffed at the drought are dead or dying from too much wet. But my re-evaluation has more to it than the weather.  Our priorities have changed.

When Kylie and I moved to Hampton our dream was use our bit of land to develop a well designed, well maintained garden full of rare and interesting plants, a lot like many of the open gardens we’d been to. A vegie patch was high on the wish list, as were a few chooks and a couple of fruit trees, but we certainly didn’t plan for food growing to be the main event. It was only ever meant to be the supporting act to a beautiful ornamental garden. Food growing is now a serious passion.

So I’m seeing the floods as an opportunity for change. I’ve started conducting what you might call a “horticultural triage”, a process that identifies plants that are dead and need to be removed, those that might survive and could be re-established, and others that are simply the wrong plant in the wrong place and could either be moved during winter or given away.

To reflect our new priorities I want to make more room for edible plants. This means completely redesigning some garden beds, and will involve some fencing and hard landscaping. I’m keen to lose some lawn. Regular rainfall and warm weather equals rapidly growing kikuyu, and too much time is being spent taming it with the ride-on mower. So some grass either needs to be replaced, or handed over to some geese or sheep.

Drainage became an issue for me this summer, as it probably did for you. Until now my focus has been on retaining water on the property during the drought – now I need to find ways to get it off those parts of the garden that I now realise can be inundated. I’m attempting to do three things: divert and direct the flow of surface runoff with basic earth mounds and barriers; intercept surface water and drain it away from buildings and other sensitive areas using simple land drains; and re-contour some areas of the garden to work more with the natural slope of the land. There are hollows that need to be filled, and new hollows that need to be created.

The main thrust of my redesign, however, involves the plants I want to grow in my garden. Unlike five years ago, I’m now more interested in growing edible plants in ornamental ways than I am in growing ornamentals for the sake of ornamentation. So, I plan to make lots of direct swaps – a fruiting hedge in place of an ornamental hedge for example – and I’m determined to assemble a “future proof” plant palette. The flood has taught me that drought tolerance often doesn’t equate to wet tolerance, and I’m looking for plants that will cope with the intensifying booms and busts of our climate.

If you haven’t already tried this kind of analysis at your place, I’d say give it a try. There’s no point in resting on your laurels, unless of course, the laurel is big and strong enough to support the weight of a reflective gardener in search of solutions. For it’s only by self-reflection and honest appraisal that we can become better equipped to make the most of the little plots of land we call gardens.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 19th February 2011. Photo by Justin Russell – Ripening McIntosh apples.