Real World Gardener-Horticulture, Gardening, Learning to Grow

Festive Drinks with Pineapple Sage in the Kitchen Garden

 KITCHEN GARDEN

Festive Drinks with Pineapple Sage

I talk with Corinne Mossati about this wonderful culinary sage that is so useful in festive drinks.

You may be growing some lovely salvias in your garden but not realise that one of them in particular, can make a luscious and revitalising drink, just right for the festive season. 

Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) is in the Lamiaceae or mint family.

Found growing naturally in forests quite high up but does well along the east coast of Australia.

A fast growing small shrub to 1.5m, that suits most regions of Australia with large leaves that are, distinctly veined and a bright lime-green in colour.

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Salvia elegans-pineapple sage

Grow it in reasonably rich soil that has a good water holding capacity to keep it moving along during the warmest months of the year. Best in full sun.

Tip prune whenever you pass to keep your pineapple sage more compact and lush.

Flowers occur mainly in winter but will spot flower most of the year.

Let’s find out.

PLAY: Festive drinks with pineapple sage_8th December 202

That was Corinne Mossati founder and editor of the gourmantic garden and cocktails and bars websites.

Not only the leaves, but the flowers can be used to make drinks or flavour honey.

For a small 200ml jar, fill it up with pineapple sage flowers and then pour in the honey. Leave it to steep for one month and give it a give it a little stir every so often.

You can also use the flowers as garnish in salad, and because they have a pineapple flavour, they’ll make a fantastic addition to fruit salads, and sorbets.

Corinne's Tip:When you are working with aromatic plants, place the leaf on your palm, give it a little slap to release the volatile oils, before you garnish your cocktail, then inhale the aroma as you sip your drink.

Corinne's Pineapple Sage Cocktail

Here are the links to the recipes Corinne mentions in the podcast:

 The Sage Cuban: Pineapple Sage Cocktail: http://www.cocktailsandbars.com/the-sage-cuban-pineapple-sage-cocktail/

Pineapple Sage Flower Honey: http://www.thegourmanticgarden.com/pineapple-sage-flower-honey/

Simple Syrup: http://www.cocktailsandbars.com/how-to-make-simple-syrup/

If you have any feedback why not write in or email www.realworldgardener.com

Old Man Saltbush in Plant of the Week

PLANT OF THE WEEK Number 2

Scientific Name: Atriplex nummularia

Common Name:Old Man Saltbush

Family: Chenopodiaceae

Native Habitat: found in semi-arid and arid areas of Australia.

Description:-grey-green leaves on a somewhat woody shrub. Dioecious-separate male and female plants.

Height-Width: 3 x 2-5 m

Flowering: small white flowers occur throughout most of the year.

Fruiting:rounded fruits.

Position: Full sun and tolerant of some shade. 

Attributes: Dry tolerant once established due to the extensive deep root system that extends to 5m deep and 10m across.

• The leaves impart a salty flavour if your dry and crumble them and sprinkle on food.

Possibly, listeners would be familiar with the term ‘old man saltbush’ or even have seen this plant growing somewhere.

But I daresay, you would not have heards that parts of this plant are considered bush tucker.
There are many bush tucker plants that are not that well known and this is another one of them.

• The Department of Primary Industries NSW recommends the following for farmland. 

"Shrubs are grown in hedgerows as block or alley plantings across the farm to provide high-protein green feed during periods of feed shortage."

Old Man Saltbush: Photo courtesy DPI NSW

"Shrubs are grown in hedgerows as block or alley plantings across the farm to provide high-protein green feed during periods of feed shortage.Not recommended for areas with less than 300 mm average annual rainfall, or more than 600 mm average annual rainfall." 

In the home garden, if you’re first planting out old man saltbush, don’t expect it to survive without any water at the start. After the first warm season, then it’s good to go on just what falls out of the sky in rainfall.

Let’s find out more by listening to the podcast with Adrian O' Malley horticulturist and native plant expert. 

Australian Native Raspberry in Plant of the Week

 PLANT OF THE WEEK

Scientific Name: Rubus parvifolia

Common Name:Native raspberry

Native Habitat: found mainly along the east coast in rainforest or coast heath communities.

Description:A scrambling vine or shrub the shoots from underground rhizomes with hooked thorns to help it climb. 

Height-Width: 2 x 2 m

Flowering: December to April

Fruiting:Juicy fruit produced in clusters.

Position: Full sun or part shade.

Attributes: Dry tolerant once established.

 

Rubus parvifolia

Not all fruiting vines or canes come from the northern hemisphere, Australia has quite a lot of its own.
These plants have similar fruits and are easier to grow than there northern counterparts so why are we growing them more? 

My experience is observing one such plant in Sydney Botanic gardens, scrambling on a stream bank near the Palm House. This plant is part of the native garden along with banksias, grass trees, lomandras, carpobrotus and many others, including a peppermint gum.

The habit of rubus species is to keep suckering and spreading, much like the non-native blackberry bushes, so take care where exactly you plant it in your garden.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

I'm talking with horticulturist and native plant afficionado, Adrian O’Malley 

PLAY : Rubus parvifolius_25th August 2021

Tackling a tough garden bed part 1 in Design Elements

 DESIGN ELEMENTS

When the going gets tough

Many gardeners have a section of their garden that might often see plant failures year after year.
They’ve tried all sorts of plants that claim to be tough as old boots, but still they fail.

Glenice Buck has dealt with one such problem garden bed where she lives and this week starts a series of 3, on how she went about solving the problem.

 

Glenice explains that the bed is on a slope (see photo below) so the water would just hit the soil and run down the hill.

This garden bed also gets all day sun on heavy clay soil.

Access to water is limited to hand watering. Not ideal considering the busy schedule that Glenice's parents have.

On top of the lack of shade and being baked by hot afternoon summer sun, the soil had been previously used as bit of a driveway and had been compacted by heavy machinery when the house was being build.

Glenice said in her post that 

 

"This section of garden bed in the rear garden at #thegardenattheberkshires has been the toughest bed I have ever dealt with. Five years on with a lot of work and improvements it is finally starting to fill in and look good. It has been hard to get anything to grow in this area. The reasons for it being a difficult spot to deal with is
 

Tough garden bed at the Berkshires photo Glenice Buck

Have a listen to the podcast
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.

Woolly Tea Tree in Plant of the Week

Scientific name: Leptospermum lanigerum

Common Name: Woolly tea tree

Family: Myrtaceae

Etymology: leptos, meaning slender, and sperma, meaning seed.

lanigerum, is named using the Latin word for wool-bearing, describing the silky hairy leaves and hairy buds, shoots and young capsules.

Height: 3m by 3m wide

 

Location: any soil in sun and will tolerate heavy shade. Frost hardy to -7C

 Description: Dense shrub to small erect tree with persistent fibrous bark on larger stems, smaller stems shedding in stringy strips.

• Not all tea trees have green leaves, and this one has pewter grey or silver tiny leaves with typical 5 petalled tea tree flowers.
• May be limbed into a small tree. Light summer water though very drought adapted. Excellent background shrub or screen or large informal hedge. 

Takes well to pruning as the leaves are tiny and the more you prune the bush will become more dense. 

 

Listen to the podcast to find out more

I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado

Aussie Coastal Rosemary is Plant of the Week

pt3 

Scientific Name: Westringia fruiticosa

Common Name: Coastal Rosemary

Family: Lamiaceae (mint family)

Leaves: green, with a covering of short hairs giving the plant a silvery tint . Leaves are up to 2 centimetres long, narrow and pointed and set closely in whorls around the stem.

Westringia 'Grey Box'

Flowers: Appear in my garden from September onwards with November seeing a main flush. Typical of flowers in the mint family either in white or pale mauve with a couple of reddish spots near the throat of the flowers. This is a bee guide for Aussie native bees.

 

Looks like rosemary but it isn't and Adrian regards it as the 'murraya' of the Aussie native plant world.

Tough as 'old boots' seen hugging the cliffs and down to beach level, either prostrate or several feet high depending on situation.

A useful garden plant that has been hybrised extensively.

Westringia "Aussie Box' and 'Grey Box' is a great alternative to box hedging.

 

TIP:Adrian recommends use mechanical shears instead of electric or battery operated shears for better results when pruning

 

Listen to the podcast to find out more

I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado

 

Aussie Salt Bush is Plant of the Week

pt 2 Silver leafed plants

Scientific name:Rhagodia spinescens

Common Name: Aussie flat bush; spiny saltbush

Family: Chenopodiaceae

Height: 0.5-1.5m  tall by 1.5-4metres wide.

Flowers:January -April, tiny cream panicles, fairly insignificant.

 

Conditions: frost and mildly drought tolerant, best suited for temperate and semi-arid regions.

Location: tolerant of soil types and will grow in full sun or dry shade.

Uses: prune to shape as a hedge or leave to make a groundcover. 

 

Quite a vigorous grower and hugs the ground so makes great habitat for native reptiles and small birds.

 

Ozbreed has a compact form makes a great ground cover and performs better if it is pruned annually or more often if a manicured look is desired.  30-50cm x 1m wide

Listen to the podcast to find out more

I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado

 

Edna Walling's Garden Design and Bickleigh Vale part 2

Edna Walling and Bickleigh Vale part 2

Last week, I introduced you to Edna Walling was one of Australia’s most influential garden designers of the 20th century.

The people that live in the village of about 20 homes, are all in love with Edna's design principles.

In spring, the gardens are like fairlyland, with flowering wisterias, crabapples, flowering cherries, birches, hornbeams. hawthorns, plums, apricots, oaks and elms . 

"Edna Walling had a free and easy attitude to garden maintenance and she believed that every window of a house should have a view of the garden, to create the effect of bringing the garden into the house."

Edna Walling came to appreciate Australian flora more and more and started to incorporate many native species in her designs even early on.
I talk again with Trisha Dixon, garden author and photographer.

Let’s find out more

Edna Walling, Garden Designer and Bickleigh Vale Village part 1

 EDNA WALLING & BICKLEIGH VALE

Part 1 

Edna Walling was one of Australia’s most influential garden designers of the 20th century but I daresay, not too many people have heard of her.

Edna was Walling was born in 1896, in Yorkshire and grew up in the village of Bickleigh  Devon, England but came to Australia at 17 years of age.

 

Edna was influenced by her father and studied landscape design at Burnley Horticultural College in Melbourne. 

Walling was awarded her government certificate in horticulture in December 1917, and after some years jobbing as a gardener she commenced her own landscape design practice in the 1920s.

Her plans from the 1920s and 1930s show a strong architectural framework with 'low stone walls, wide pergolas and paths – always softened with a mantle of greenery'.

 

While doing some garden research I happened on one of her most famous creations called Bickleigh Vale in the Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark in the foothills of the Dandenongs.

• She just happened on some land while out bushwalking and convinced a bank manager to lend her money to buy the land and build her first house 'Sonning.'

Who better to talk about them is someone who has researched Edna Walling for the last 40 years.

I'll be talking with Trisha Dixon, garden author and photographer and sometime tour leader of gardens.

 

Trisha mentions that she found that actual village that this was modelled on, the real 'Bickleigh Vale ; in Devon, in England.

Listen to parts 1 & 2 of the podcast below. 

 

A quote from https://www.bickleighvalevillage.com.au/properties.html

 is this quote

 In the early 1920s Edna Walling acquired land at Mooroolbark where she built a house for herself - 'Sonning'. Here she lived and worked, establishing her nursery and gathering around her a group of like-minded people for whom she designed picturesque 'English' cottages and gardens. She named the area Bickleigh Vale village.
The houses and outbuildings that were designed or approved by Edna Walling in what she termed 'the English style' include her own home 'Sonning' which was rebuilt in 1936 following the destruction of 'Sonning I' in a fire,

Bickleigh Vale Village

 

Have a listen to part 1, a bit of Edna’s history and a bit about Bickley Vale.
We’ll continue next with more about the actual village and also more about Edna’s vision in creating beautiful gardens.
If you have any feedback email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675

Real World Gardener Two Best Banksias are Plant of the Week

PLANT OF THE WEEK

Banksia ericifolia and Banksia spinulosa: what's the difference?

Scientific Name: Banksia spinulosa

Common Name: Hairpin Banksia

Family: Proteaceae

Plant height: Mostly a multi-stemmed lignotuberous shrub. Varies greatly in height 1 -3 m 

Position: Full sun, frost hardy including Canberra winter frosts.

Leaves:long and narrow, 3-8 cm long by 2-7 mm wide, and variably toothed. Leaf margins often recurved which is an adaptation to dry environments.

Flowering:The flower spikes range from 10-20 cm in length. A spike may contain hundreds or thousands of individual flowers, each of which consists of a tubular perianth made up of four united tepals, and one long wiry style.

Position: Prefers to grow in the open where it makes a nice rounded shrubs.

Shade makes it spindly.

Banksias are an import source of nectar during autumn and winter when flowers are scarce.

Scientific Name: Banksia ericifolia

Common Name: Heath Banksia

Family: Proteaceae

Plant height: Mostly a multi-stemmed shrub. Varies greatly in height 3-6 m

Position: Full sun, frost hardy including Canberra winter frosts.

Leaves: The linear dark green leaves are small and narrow, 9–20 mm long and up to 1 mm wide, generally with two small teeth at the tips. 

The leaves are crowded and alternately arranged on the branches..

Flowers: cylindrical flower spikes are quite large at 4-6 cm wide and up to 30 cm long

Differences: Banksia ericifolia has much narrower leaves and is fire-sensitive in that it does not have a lignotuber for vegetative regeneration after bushfires. The species relies on seed for regeneration - seeds are retained in the cones for many years and are released by the heat of a fire.

Pruning:

People are afraid to prune Banksias because they think of them as being a bit tricky.
If you’re not sure what type of Banksia you have, then only light pruning.
If you know your Banksia has a woody rootstock (lignotuber) then it can be heavily pruned.

•  Only low phosphorus fertilisers should be used if at all. I’d recommend Blood n Bone.

Here's an interesting tidbit: Historically B. ericifolia is supposed to be the first specimen collected by Sir Joseph Banks at Botany Bay in 1770. 

For some reason, Banks did not describe this new discovery however and it was left to Carl Linnaeus who later named the genus Banksia in honour of Banks in 1782.

Have a listen to the podcast.

I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, qualified horticulturist and avid native plant expert.