A taste of summer from Bellis, a sustainable house and garden in drought-affected subtropical Brisbane: 108 edibles available for my kitchen.
Category: Drought
Use Grey Water For Gardening? Then Use Green Cleaners For Cleaning.
If you’re watering plants with grey water, the type of detergent you use really makes a difference to both their health and the health of the soil.
Mealybug: Kill! Kill! But How?
Question: “Hi Jerry, This year I have had the worst infestation of mealybug ever. My garden has never had them in the past, but this year everything including established Gordonia’s five metres high are white with them. I have lost quite a few hibiscus to them. Is this a bad year? Do you have one of your…
Why Do Fresh Woodchip And Potting Mix Turn Mouldy And Repel Water?
Question: “Dear Jerry, In the last year, I have had a soil problem that looks normal on the surface, but when you dig into the mulch, it is grey and looks like a fungus has taken over. The soil smells mouldy, (maybe anaerobic?) and when I water, the water just runs off, not in. This problem…
Extreme Fire Weather Warnings…And Gardening
The Bureau of Meteorology has just issued a Fire Weather Warning for southern Queensland, and the ABC’s Weather Reporter, Jenny Woodward, advises people to drink plenty of water. What can a gardener do?
In Production Today: November 2014
I am so glad I decided to use the heat, winds and drought of Brisbane’s spring and sprummer to my advantage: it’s ideal for producing a seed crop! As my Queen of the Night buds, 2014 is firming up to be the world’s hottest ever year on record. Brisbane’s fifth season, ‘sprummer’, has intensified into…
Want A Rainforest Garden? Then Plant Dry, Not Wet…
Once established, dry rainforest species survive longer, hotter, drier spells and erratic rainfall better than wet rainforest.
Succulents: Chlorophyll With Character
My first flower memory is of a cactus. I was about three years old and peering up into a huge, red Epiphyllum flower. It sprouted from an old, much-loved plant belonging to my Grandmother. My sister still grows a cutting from the plant Nan acquired during the Great Depression (around 1929). It’s been in my…
Open Day At Bellis, August 2014
FULL DETAILS SEE: http://www.opengarden.org.au Leave Brisbane’s suburbs behind as you visit 813 square metres of rural Wynnum. Check out my award-winning, thrifty sustainable garden: blue bananas, stingless bees, home grown bath sponges, and turf mostly mowed by guinea pigs. See how a decade of organic gardening has converted uncompromising acid sulphate soil into a wonderful,…
In Production Today: June 2014
Today a cool change has arrived, a reminder that June weather is supposed to be about winter, not the continuation of autumn as it has been. Will there be another winter?
Right Plant, Right Place: Wynnum Branch of Queensland Transport
I love seeing well grown plants used to maximum effect. Outside the Wynnum office of the Queensland Transport grows Callistemon ‘Little John’, a native bottlebrush. It’s growing as a boundary hedge, and it’s the only living feature on the property.
In Production Today, May 2014
May 2014 was the 351st consecutive month of above average global temperatures. Or put another way, any gardener under 30 years old will never have experienced normal growing conditions. This month’s weather has been surprisingly sunny, dry and so warm my ‘Java Blue’ and ‘Pisang Ceylan’ bananas and Sugar palm – tropical plants – are…
Jerry Coleby-Williams 