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…
Category: Sustainability
Miscast Mistletoe: Environmental Health Indicators Hiding In Full View
“Parasites aren’t all bad, and mistletoes deserve a rethink. If you study them, you’ll discover that they’re fascinating Australian plants making a valuable contribution to the environment.”
Footpath Gardens That Brighten Brisbane: Contribute To The People’s Gallery
This is a call on gardeners to send me a photograph showing how you have put the nature back into your nature strip. A short sentence explaining what footpath gardening means to you would add value. Please email your images to: bellis_brisbane@me.com
Cheers, Jerry Coleby-Williams
Footpath Gardening: To Boldly Garden Where No One Has Gardened Before…
Nature strip gardening can beautify streets capes, improving the retail sale prices of real estate. Reseach has proven nature strips provide valuable social and environmental services.
Public safety is vital. Plants in nature strips should not be spiny, caustic, toxic or allowed to overgrow, or cause trip hazards, impede wheelchairs, or block lines of sight. The effect should not be overgrown, full of litter or claustrophobic, it should be park-like.
Spring Follows Winter. But Can You Set Your Calendar By That?
“This gardener wonders if the Carnival of Flowers date will alter in order to keep up with changing climate?
Remembering Turfculture At The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Vale, John Morgan of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney: greenkeeper, gardener, ranger, friend since 1992. I’m reminiscing about the Turfculture team, a vital service, where John Morgan began his career in my department. Together, from 1992 to 2003, our team transitioned the lawns from conventional horticultural management to almost organic standards. When I moved to Brisbane,…
Meet Brigalow, a national Treasure.
Meet Brigalow, a National Treasure.
Queensland Cucumber Mosaic Virus Alert
Cucumber mosaic virus is a threat to food security. Last year this highly destructive disease was identified on a farm near Bundaberg, and now it has been found on a Charters Towers watermelon farm. As a student at Kew Gardens, this was a case study, and we were drilled about implementing ‘on site’ quarantine procedures to…
In Production Today, April 2015
Here’s my subtropical food garden’s current autumn menu. Plants marked with an asterisk are volunteers, that is they are self-sown. Currently I have 38 different volunteer crops.
Living With Mosquitoes In The Subtropics
Question: “Hey Jerry, we’ve found mosquitoes to be a real problem for us on the northside this year. An electronic device has been recommended, do you have any views on it?” Barnaby via Facebook Reply: Hi Barnaby, I had to adapt to living with mosquitoes when I moved to the subtropics from warm temperate Sydney in 2003. I’ve…
Bunya: Prehistoric Plant, Ancient Australian Food Tradition
“Young Australians need to be educated about what a Bunya tree looks like, what the sound of snapping cones and breaking branches sound like, and to avoid lingering underneath them in high summer. When I was at primary school, we had a Bunya in the schoolyard. We knew what to do, how to harvest them, and no one was ever hurt.”
In Production Today, January 2015
Here’s my subtropical food garden’s current summer menu of 107 different kinds of root, shoot, leaf, petal, seed and fruit.
Jerry Coleby-Williams 