Australia’s 10,000 registered beekeepers are worried. In the last 20 years hive numbers across the country have halved, and the industry is currently battening the hatches for a perfect storm of multiple pressures on the European honeybee.

Chief among their concerns is the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This occurs when bees simply vanish from their hives leaving the capped brood and queen in abandoned colonies. CCD was first observed in Pennsylvania in 2006, and losses in North America and Europe have averaged about 30 to 40 percent in the years since. It is important to note that no cases of Colony Collapse Disorder have been recorded in Australia.

Does that mean we can rest on our laurels. Definitely not! Beekeepers are worried that a major outbreak of the feral Asian honeybee, which was first detected in Queensland in 2007, will bring into the country the parasite Varroa destructor, a mite that has been implicated in CCD overseas. In the long term, however, both varroa and the Asian honeybee can be controlled. The issue that really petrifies beekeepers is the growing use of insecticides.

Editor of the Australasian Beekeeper Journal, Des Cannon, wrote in a recent editorial that he regards “the use of pesticides in our environment as the single biggest threat to the survival of beekeeping”. Cannon singles out for special attention a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, so called new generation insecticides that have gained widespread usage since they were introduced in the mid 1990′s.

Neonics, as these chemicals are commonly known, include the popular garden insecticides Confidor and Conguard. Both products are systemic. This means that although neonics can be applied in a variety of ways – as a soil drench, a foliar spray, in granular form or as a seed treatment – they work by being absorbed into a plant’s vascular system where they are able to attack the nervous system of any insect that ingests the chemical.

Herein lies the problem with neonics such as imidacloprid and clothianidin: they are extremely toxic to bees. No big deal says Bayer CropSciences, the multinational company that sold more than a billion dollars worth of neonicotinoid products last year. They insist that bees spend little time foraging on infected pollen, that little if any neonic insecticide finds its way into hives, and if it does, the concentration is so low that the effect on hive health is negligible.

These claims are called into question by the findings of a Purdue University study released last week in the peer reviewed journal Plos One. Researchers found damning evidence that bees from hives located near neonic treated cornfields were exposed to insecticide in various ways throughout their foraging period, and were actively foraging on maize pollen.

Most alarmingly though, the research indicated that the neonic clothianidin was present on bees found dead at the entrance to hives as well as in pollen collected by the bees and stored inside the hive. Considering both imidacloprid and clothianidin are almost universally used in Australia as seed treatments for canola (some of which is also genetically modified), corn and other crops, beekeepers have every right to be concerned about the future of their livelihood.

So what can we as gardeners do to support the local honeybee population. Firstly, we ought to abandon formal style gardens for the environmental folly that they are and embrace a more relaxed, cottage style dominated by flowering plants such as daisies (among the best bee attracting plants), clovers, fruit trees, herbs and natives including grevilleas and dwarf eucalypts.

Secondly, and most importantly, gardeners should cease using imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid chemicals. Most pest problems can be solved in the long run by creating a biodiverse garden full of a broad range of plants, along with organic soil building techniques. The latter will help boost the immune response of plants, making them naturally resistant to any minor pest outbreaks that might occur.

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made an interesting comment on an Australian chat show last year. He said that “worms are more important than people, and the reason for that: worms can live on the earth without people, but we can’t live on the earth without worms.” Whether you love or hate what Watson does each summer in the Southern Ocean, his comment is spot on.

We’re not the centre of the universe. We can’t live on the earth without worms any more than we can without honeybees, so the sooner we get over ourselves, and drop the sense of entitlement that has infested all corners of our privileged society, the better.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 28th January 2011. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

Agapanthus. Toowoomba’s aggies have looked better than ever this summer, reminding all and sundry how gardenworthy they actually are. Recently released ‘Queen Mum’ is a beauty.

Black. Apparently, black is the trendy colour for 2012. So if trend-following is your thing, use it judiciously for strong focal points and highlights. Don’t get too sombre though, will you.

Community. All over the world community gardening initiatives are booming, but it’s a trend that’s failed to gain much traction on the Downs – yet. I hope 2012 is the year.

Digging. No dig is all the rage at the moment, but next year gardeners will rediscover the practicality, and sheer joy, of digging. As long as you don’t overdo it, the soil will be fine.

Edibles. Growing, cooking and eating your own food is one of the most deeply satisfying things in you’ll ever do, full stop.

Front Yards. Unlike in America, where planting vegies in front yards can get you arrested, there’s no reason in Australia why you can’t have a food garden in the front yard. Make the most of what is often a wasted space.

Grapes. Yes, they sometimes suffer badly from mildew in our wet summer climate, but they’re such versatile and useful plants that no garden should be without a vine or two.

Humus. Decomposed organic matter nothing less than one of the essential building blocks of our society. We must compost and build soil if said society is going to thrive in the future.

Ignorance. It’s not bliss. All of us, new and experienced gardeners alike, need to keep learning, keep pushing the boundaries, and always keep our minds open to fresh ideas.

June. It might be high summer, but we’re past the longest day and light will gradually decrease until the winter solstice in June. Don’t panic. Embrace the seasons as a wonderful gift.

Kitchen. The garden to kitchen trend is booming, but with climate change, peak oil and financial stress the themes of the decade, it will become a permanent part of our culture.

Lilies. I grew proper Asiatic lilies for the first time this spring. They were breathtaking. Can’t wait for round two in late November 2012.

Miscanthus. Ornamental grasses are among the most under-rated plants in the garden. Among the best are the various Miscanthuses, especially ‘Gracillimus’. A stunning plant.

Nandina. Plants this tough are hard to come by, but what I love the most about nandina is its beauty. The variety Gulf Stream makes a lovely hedge with stunning winter colour.

Originality. One thing I’d love to see in 2012 is a whole bunch of gardeners abandoning the trends and charting a course that is unique to personality and place.

Poultry. Chooks are rapidly becoming an essential part of the backyard again, and thank goodness for that! Why wouldn’t you want a cheap source of fertility and the best eggs ever?

Quiet. Here’s some prime advice for 2012: find time to down tools and simply sit in the garden enjoying some peace and quiet. Use the garden as a place of refuge.

Radical. Its time for gardening to strip off its conservative tweed jacket (as much as I love tweed) and get radical. To me this means bypassing the industrial food system by growing as much of your own as possible.

Sheds. Once they housed toxic chemicals, but these days they’re being reclaimed for better purposes. As more people grow their own, more sheds are being used to store the harvest.

Tools. I was lucky enough to photograph Cloudlake’s collection of garden tools this year. It confirmed to me that old tools are beautiful and so solidly built they’ll last centuries.

Usefulness. Arts and Crafts designer William Morris once said “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”. Same goes for gardens.

Vaccinium. Blueberries (aka Vaccinium corymbosum) do well in the red soil parts of the Downs. They’re highly ornamental, easy to grow and the fruit is a knockout!

Weeds. Plants growing where they aren’t welcome can, literally, be a thorn in the side. Glyphosate offers convenience, but organic options are becoming available. Seek them out.

Xenophobia. As much as I love Australian plants, I see no reason for our gardens to resemble the bush. We’re an eclectic people, and our gardens ought to reflect our cultural diversity.

Youth. Gardening has traditionally been the domain of retirees, but things are changing. More and more young adults are taking up the spade, which is fantastic. To these young gardeners, don’t overlook the wisdom of your elders.

Zingiber. Ginger as an easy plant grow in a subtropical climate, but it’s possible to get an annual crop in cooler areas. Plant a rhizome in rich soil and water regularly. Harvest in early winter.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 31st December 2011.

Don’t forget to visit our new site The Radish, edible gardening from roots to fruits!!

Today, the Saturday of the Carnival of Flowers parade, is the biggest day of the year in Toowoomba and for the first time in a decade the Garden City is truly living up to its name. Thank goodness for summer rain. There was always going to be long term benefits from last January’s floods, and its fair to say they’ve arrived. The annual flowers appear to be brighter than ever and the new foliage on deciduous trees is the most exciting shade of lime green I’ve ever seen. Such a magnificent display is largely due to good soil moisture, flowing creeks and rivers, and full dams.

This year I’m hoping to get out to lots of local gardens to take it all in. I’d encourage you to do the same. So many people put in such a huge amount of work to get Toowoomba ready for Carnival that it would be a shame to see their efforts go to waste. Have a picnic in one of the city’s parks. Tour some of the prizewinning gardens. Have a wander through some of the outstanding exhibition gardens, open for charity. A spring like this doesn’t come around often so my advice is to breathe it all in and give thanks for nature’s beauty and abundance.

Then, once the parade floats are back in storage and the annuals are starting to fade in the summer heat, I’d urge you to do something else – take some time to reflect on what you’d like Toowoomba to be in the future. I know it’s an odd suggestion, especially on a day when we’re supposed to be celebrating everything great about Toowoomba, but the way I see it, the city is at a crossroads.

Toowoomba can go in one of two directions in the current decade: it can become the support centre for a vast extractive industry based around the mining of coal, and coal seam gas; or it can become the sustainable food and farming capital of Australia. Don’t fall for the hype that we can have a kind of hybrid future where mining and agriculture can coexist. They can’t. It’s one or the other, and the citizens of the Toowoomba region and our elected leaders have to make a choice.

The former option, Toowoomba as a mining support centre, is short-sighted in the extreme. It is short-sighted for the reason that we forget the simple scientific fact that every child gets taught in primary school – some resources are not renewable. In other words, mines have a lifespan. They are productive for two or three decades until the minerals therein are exhausted, and extraction becomes non-viable. There’s absolutely no doubt that during the lifespan of a mining project jobs and wealth will be created (as long as China keeps buying our resources), but the question we ought to be asking is what happens in 30 years when the gas rigs have rolled out of town and the open cut mines are being “rehabilitated”.

Toowoomba might be close to some non-renewable energy reserves, but let’s not forget that the city also sits smack bang in the middle of some of the richest farmland in Australia. To the east is the Lockyer Valley with it’s famous black soil. To the west, the fertile alluvial plains adjoining the Condamine River and its tributaries. To the north, productive red soil range lands prized for market gardens, dairying and livestock. And to the south, the Granite Belt, internationally renowned for its orchards and vineyards. If we look after our farmland it has the potential to feed and clothe a growing population for many decades to come.

For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to throw in my lot with a future based around sustainable farming and food so here’s what I’d love to see happen within the decade: greater support for the development of farmers markets and other innovative means of getting locally produced food to local communities; the creation of more food producing community gardens in Toowoomba and the larger towns; a kitchen garden in every school across the Toowoomba region; schemes to help enthusiastic young farmers get access to land; and most basic of all, rock solid protection of our best quality farmland from all forms of mining.

So what will we choose – Toowoomba the Mining City, or Toowoomba the Garden City? One promises to create rivers of gold for a short period of time but will come with long term by-products like pollution, degradation of farmland, and in the case of coal seam gas, mountains of salt spewed up in the drilling process. Toowoomba the Garden City might not create rivers of gold, but if managed well, it can sustain us well into the future. I’ve made my choice, and it’s to get back to the garden. What about you?

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 17th September 2011.

When Kylie and I were newly married and had moved into our first house, we were given a tiny little hand-me-down black and white TV. Being a long-time footy fan, I’d attempt to watch games in black and white, and Ill tell you, it was a seriously frustrating experience. It was almost impossible sometimes to distinguish between the opposing teams.

A year or so later we inherited another TV, still a tiny little box but this time, a whiz bang colour version. You can guess what happened. The change from watching the footy in black and white to watching it in vibrant colour was absolutely mind blowing.

This is how I like to think about spring – it’s as if nature is suddenly playing out in full colour, rather than black and white. Life appears to be bursting forth all over the place, and there’s an obvious sense of urgency in the air. The garden looks fresh, but I know that some plants are using up all their stored energy reserves and will soon be hungry. One of the major spring tasks for the gardener, therefore, is to provide nourishment. But there’s a catch: nourishment means a lot more in garden terms than simply throwing around a packet of urea or super-phosphate in the hope that it will “green things up”.

The true way to a healthy, well nourished garden is by continually building healthy, biologically active soil. Bottom line. Healthy soil is a diverse ecosystem full of decomposed rock minerals, decayed organic matter, micro-organisms, and beneficial fungi, and will therefore support plants that naturally resist pests and disease. By contrast, gardens that are over fed with artificial fertilisers look lush, but they’re actually bloated and sappy, fed on what is the equivalent of junk food.

I use no artificial fertilisers in my garden at all. Nothing is applied to the soil or a pot that is based on synthetic chemicals, which means no orange slow release pellets, no ammonia or urea, no super-phosphate and no soluble “liquid” fertilisers. None. These fertilisers damage, rather than enhance, soil life, so the only fertilisers I use are those made from natural products such as manure, blood and bone, worm poo, fish emulsion and rock minerals. This is not a boast, just a simple statement of my principles, and actions.

One of the reasons I abhor the use of chemical fertilisers is because in my view, they are weapons of violence and war. If you think this sounds far fetched, consider the history of chemical fertiliser use. It all began in the peace-time years immediately following World War Two. Munitions factories that had been making bombs from ammonium nitrate were re-purposed to produce cheap, nitrogen-rich agricultural fertilisers. More recently, ammonium nitrate fertiliser was used to make bombs used in July’s Mumbai bombings and confessed Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik even went as far as to purchase a farm so that he could access chemical fertilisers to make bombs.

This isn’t to say that chemical fertilisers can’t be used for peaceful purposes. Of course they can. There is also no doubt that the use of chemical fertilisers have greatly increased crop yields, and as a consequence fed billions of people. But so have natural fertilisers, and they can be used with few of the risks associated with synthetic chemicals.

One of the major issues arising from over reliance on artificial fertilisers is a serious deterioration in soil quality. Chemicals can provide specific plant nutrients, but they contribute nothing to the biological activity of soil and excessive use can lead to ground that is effectively dead – nothing more than a medium to keep plants from falling over. An obvious consequence of poor soil quality is even greater dependence on artificial fertiliser for a farm or garden to remain productive.

The washup is that I’m not what you’d call a gung-ho plant feeder. I never throw fertiliser around willy nilly, even if it’s a natural product, and I only fertilise in a limited range of scenarios: to give young seedlings raised in pots a healthy start; to provide nutrients to container plants grown in potting mix; to replace nutrients leached on very free draining soil; to ensure healthy growth of particularly hungry plants such as citrus trees and vegies; and to give a quick boost to heavily pruned plants such as roses.

I basically ignore all the gardening experts telling me to fertilise like there’s no tomorrow. Instead, my real concern is with the soil. I’ll use fertiliser when and if it’s required, but my overwhelming concern is with the health of my soil. Nourish it, and not only will my plants be well-fed, but I will be too.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th September 2011. Photo by Justin Russell, unfertilised cottage garden in spring.

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’.

Suddenly, after reading about them in an apple growing book of all places, I’ve developed an interest in mushrooms. Or more specifically, fungi. Mushrooms are nothing more than the fruiting bodies of a fungal organism running through some kind of substratum such as wood, or more commonly, soil. The organism itself takes the form of microscopic fibres called hyphae, which in turn form an underground, cotton wool like mass called a mycelium. You may have come across the white fibres of a mycelium while digging in the garden.

I don’t like to overstate things, but in the case of mycelium, mind blowingly awesome is the term that springs to mind. Mycelium can form underground networks many thousands of kilometres long, and is thought by scientists to be the largest organism in the world. A single fungus in Oregon, for example, has been found to cover an area equivalent to 1665 football fields and is estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.

Mycelium sequesters carbon dioxide. It plays a vital role in decomposing plant matter, and generally has a beneficial relationship with plants, aiding in water absorption, distributing nutrients, and conferring resistance to soil borne pathogens. There is evidence that fungi can “bio-remediate” polluted land, protect houses from termites, and at least one mushroom expert, mycologist Paul Stamets, has argued that the solution for the nuclear contamination around Fukushima, is mycelium. You can encourage the growth of mycelium in your garden by ceasing the use of toxic fungicides.

No less remarkable is the use of fungi as food. If I’m ever forced to choose a final meal, a contender would have to be fried mushrooms, seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme and a splash of Tabasco sauce, served on home baked sourdough toast. Or plain old mushies on toast. It’s a dish fit for a king in my opinion, and the Holy Grail for me is to cook it up with mushrooms that I’ve grown myself, or better still, foraged from the wild.

Every autumn, a couple of different fungi appear beneath a stand of Monterey Pines along our front boundary, and another type always pop up in large clumps in various parts of the lawn. With the hope of scoring a free breakfast or two, I bought myself a mushroom book, and have managed to identify at least one species – the small fungi growing in the lawn are magic mushrooms. For some this discovery would be like stumbling across a gold nugget, but the hardest drugs I consume are caffeine and alcohol. Mind altering hallucinogens aren’t my thing, as besides, it’s illegal to consume magic mushrooms in Australia. Including those growing in your back lawn.

The other two species growing under the pine trees I’ve yet to positively identify. At this point I need to provide a serious caveat to anyone considering foraging for wild mushrooms – take care! Some fungi are poisonous, and can cause effects ranging from mild diarrhoea to death. If you consume a Fool’s Funnel, for instance, you’ll probably break out a major sweat, but mistake a Death Cap for a field mushroom, and it’ll be a case of lights out.

The golden rule of mushroom foraging is simple: “If in doubt, go without”. This implies that before any fungus is consumed, it must be positively identified. Mushroom books contain a step-by-step identification key, and the author of mine, John Wright of River Cottage fame, suggests that: (i) you should never eat a fungus if you don’t know its name; (ii) you should only eat a fungus if it agrees with the book’s key, and the description, and the photograph; and (iii) only a small amount should be consumed when trying a species for the first time. Got it?

If this foraging business all sounds like too much hassle, it’s entirely feasible to grow your own mushrooms at home. Kits are available in nurseries from about April to October, and they represent pretty good value for money. I manage to get up to four kilograms of mushies from a kit costing around $25, so it’s cheaper than buying mushrooms from the shop and as with most produce, home grown mushrooms are also far superior. The rubbery excuses for fungus they sell in the supermarket taste like pencil erasers compared to home grown mushrooms.

I hope you’ll share my new found appreciation for mushrooms. Two hundred years ago, no-one would ever have believed that fungi could be so interesting, let alone realise that the vast web of mycelium beneath our feet may hold the solution to some of the world’s big problems.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 14th May 2011. Image by Joel Hagerman via flickr.com.

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.