Yams are warm climate, winter herbaceous, perennial vines. The swollen, starch-rich tuber is their food store, and this is what most people grow them for – they use them as a potato alternative, baked, boiled, mashed or as chips.
Tag: Brisbane
‘Bellis’ – A Model 21st Century Garden
‘Bellis’, Brisbane’s award winning sustainable house and garden, is now seven years old. Last October this place won a national Save Water! Award in the Built Environment category. Since its inception, this 810 square metre property has collected over 7 megalitres of rainwater and recycled over 3 megalitres of sewage water. In the ornamental subtropical…
How Can I Avoid Buying Plastic Bagged Potting Mixes?
Question Hi Jerry, I don’t know if you remember me…I’ve seen you at lots of Save the Mary things and on Gardening Australia, which I love! I have a vege and herb garden in pots and need to find a soil solution. Presently I buy bags of potting mix at Bunnings, choosing one that’s free…
Queensland’s Flying Foxes Are Starving – Again
Pictured: driven by famine, a black flying fox drinks nectar from my banana flowers before sunset Bat Conservation & Rescue Qld President, Louise Saunders, is alarmed by the large number of reports about hungry flying-foxes staying by food trees through the day and not returning to their camps. “This is of huge concern as bats…
Grow Local: The 21st Century Food Garden
We’ve had a wonderful autumn here in Brisbane. Warm, sunny, moist and unusually calm weather has given me excellent growing conditions. For the first autumn since moving to Queensland in 2003, this gardener has hardly had to worry about watering: the Chinese celery is particularly fine, and my Greater Celandine is flourishing in conditions equivalent…
Symbionts In The Shrubbery
Whilst scrabbling around on my knees this morning, mulching the front garden with chopped sugarcane, I noticed the biggest and best display of coralloid roots is currently bursting through the surface of the leafy soil.
Catalyst – Informing Growers And Conservationists About Climate Change
Gardeners, farmers, conservationists and planners should watch this recent segment produced by ABC’s ‘Catalyst’ show on how climate change is affecting the health of our harvests. Rising CO2 levels will mean:
First Flowering: Pandanus cookii
This summer my fifteen year old specimen of Pandanus cookii flowered. It was collected from Cape York by Yuruga Nursery in the Atherton Tableland, where I bought it. Like all Pandanus, they are intolerant of frost and grow best in sub-coastal gardens in full sunshine in an open position with excellent drainage. I watered my…
Pretty Edible
I had a vacant vegetable bed last summer and decided to plant it with decorative edible plants just to show how good food can also be decorative. On the blue bamboo frame I sowed luffa, beside the frame I planted golden sweetpotato ‘Marguerite’. The central plantings consisted of Amaranthus tricolor ‘Joseph’s Coat’, and near the…
Seeking Sansevierias
Having to give away my collection of croton cultivars during Brisbane’s ongoing drought made sense at the time. But I do enjoy collecting plants, so I’ve decided to collect drought-resistant Sansevieria instead. Pictured is Sansevieria suffruticosa subsp. longituba from Kenya, which grows 15 – 20cm high. This plant produces flowers on spikes up to 30cm…
First Flowering: Freycinetia scandens
Freycinetia scandens is an evergreen scrambling vine which I’ve seen growing in coastal rainforest from far northern Queensland south to Fraser Island. They need a damp, sheltered, semi-shaded position. My plant, grown from a cutting, is now six years old. It first flowered in March and would probably have flowered before now, had I not tip…
Save The Mary!
THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY FLOATILLA Today we drove to Traveston Crossing to take part in the dryer parts of the third anniversary floatilla. Nicholas de Boos, a photographer friend from Sydney, came along too. Here are some impressions of the day.
Jerry Coleby-Williams 