In The Beginning, Kale, Striped Marsh Frogs and Moorish Gardens

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition.
Wildlife in Focus:Striped Marsh Frog- Like most birds, frogs are a gardeners friend because the eat many of the problem garden pests like caterpillars and mosquito larvae. Frogs often forage around the decaying leaves of some plants looking for insect pests as well. Hear ecologist Sue Stevens talk about this frog.

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If you go to http://frogs.org.au you can a listing of all frog groups in Australia. This site also gives information on frog pond building and how to make a frog friendly garden.

Vegetable Heroes:Brassica Family and ancestor to many vegetables like Broccoli and Cabbage, Kale is good to eat too.
Kale can be planted in Arid areas from March until July, in temperate and sub-tropical climates from March until June, and unless you have a greenhouse or grow them in pots or a half wine barrel, Kale is grown from August until April in cool mountain districts , but apparently is winter hardy and it’s flavour is improved by frost.
How does that work? Well a frost or even several frosts, will help break down starches into sugars making the Kale a whole lot sweeter.
Kale is easy to grow and a fast grower as well taking only 7-9 weeks from seed sowing until harvesting.
Kale likes soil temperatures of between 8°C and 30°C., full sun and a pH of between 6.0 and 7.0
Slugs and snails for some reason don't like Kale, but your chooks will.
Sow Kale seeds direct into the garden or they don’t mind being transplanted so you can start them off in punnets if you like.
Sow the seeds about 1cm deep and 30cm or a ruler’s length apart. Three or four seeds can be planted together and thinned out at the two leaf stage.
Look after young plants by watering during dry patches and keep weed free. Firm the soil around the base of the stem every so often to prevent the larger varieties swaying in the breeze or you could stake them too.
During the winter months, apply liquid fertiliser from your worm farm or you can buy fish emulsion which is great too!
Remove yellowing leaves, "earth up" the stems and stake tall varieties if exposed (kale can handle exposed, slightly shady plots).
Try these sites for Kale seeds- -       www.greenharvest.com.au  or www.diggerseeds.com.au  and -   www.thelostseed.com.au

Santa Isabel Real Palace Garden, Seville Spain

Design Elements: We can have Federation, Bush garden or Cottage garden styles, but we’ve learnt that you can have different themes within these styles. This year, Garden Designer Lesley Simpson and I have trekked to Spain to see the world famous Moorish Alhambra in Granada and Santa Isabel de le Real Palace gardens in Seville. Let’s find out more.

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Santa Isabel Real Palace Garden, Seville Spain

Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain

Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain

Plant of the week: New Salvias for Australia.

Two new Salvias from PGA . 70CM X 1 M Spread.

Heatwave Glow is pale apricot coloured flowers tinged with salmon pink. And Heatwave Glare is pure white.
 If you’ve got a big empty spot in your garden that you want to fill quickly with plenty of colour, don’t go past Salvias. They also help attract nectar feeding birds into your garden.
  Salvias prefer to be in the ground except for the new varieties that have been bred a lot smaller. They’ll do well in a reasonable size pot. 
Larger Salvias can't be kept growing them in a small pot as they like a root run. "Any dry tolerant varieties need a root run, which is how they become drought tolerant," 
Salvias generally require a reasonable amount of sun the majority would want 2/3rds of the day in sun but there are some that take more shade. Whatever your climate, there’s a Salvia for you.
For supplies of the Salvia Heatwave series see:-Plant Growers Australia is a wholesale nursery that supplies plants to many retail nurseries in NSW, ACT, VIC, SA  mainly.Go to our web site www.pga.com.au  and click the where to buy tab this will so you your closest stockist. 

If you’re after a wide range of Salvias, Sue Templeton is a grower that stocks al manner of Salvias from the rare to the unusual.

For a description on a wide range of salvias go to www.salvias.org.au

That will take you to the Salvia study group of Victoria.

White faced Heron and Rosemary Goes Coastal

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition.
Wildlife in Focus:White faced Heron.This bird was once known as the White-fronted Heron, and incorrectly as the Grey Heron, or Blue Crane, is a common bird throughout most of Australia. Hear new co-presenter ecologist, Sue Stevens talk about this bird.

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Vegetable Heroes: BOTANICAL NAME: Armoracia rusticana syn. A. lapathifolia.
 Horseradish is a member of the mustard or Brassicaceae family. 
The bite and aroma of horseradish root is totally missing until it’s grated or ground. That’s because as soon as the root cells are crushed, volatile oils known as isothiocyanate are released.
 Horseradish is a perennial to 1.5m high on a tapering, fleshy taproot to 60cm long and 5 cm thick, it has large basal leaves, 30-100 cm long, so that’s about 1-3 ruler lengths.
. It should be planted in a permanent position -   Vinegar stops this reaction and stabilizes the flavour.    Horseradish has white flowers in the middle of summer to mid-autumn. 
It tolerates damp soils and grows vigorously.
  TIP” This deep rooted plant can be used in orchards to open up compacted soils and return nutrients to the surface of the soil.
Now’s the time to get a piece from a friend or your friendly garden club members because Horseradish is propagated by root division in spring or autumn  for harvest the following year.
Grows in any soil and takes full sun or part-shade.
 Next year by mid autumn if you were lucky enough to have planted it last year either in autumn OR spring, the roots should be ready to harvest.  Dig up all the plants. 
 Use the larger roots to make horseradish sauce and store the smaller ones in sand for replanting next year. 
  You could plant some of the smaller shoots in pots – either give them away or sell them once they start into growth..
Design Elements:Garden problems solved-This month, Design Elements is starting a new about solving design problems in the garden. Today the problems are “How do I make my small garden seem bigger, and my garden is a very long and thin rectangle, what should I do?

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Plant of the Week: Westringia fruticosa orCoastal Rosemary is not edible, it’s native and it’s flowers are attractive to native bees, but what else is it.It is an easily grown shrub of simple and neat appearance which grows wild near the coast of New South Wales. Stretches of it are seen hugging the cliffs and down to beach level, either prostrate or several feet high depending on situation.
  lt is useful as a large type of ground-cover plant. Sometimes it throws out one or two main branches to develop an irregular habit, but generally the plant is shapely. After reaching a mature size it does not deteriorate quickly with age as some species do, but maintains a good condition for years. During the coldest weather it keeps a fresh appearance and is also drought hardy, though adequate water should be given to avoid tendency to yellowing leaves and bare wood.

Artistic Garden from the Ground Up and Ethereal Pandoreas

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm, 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/2RRR
Design Elements: Art in the garden series is to inspire you to add finishing touches or maybe change your view of the garden. You may not have considered the ground as a canvass for art in the garden before, Listen to Lesley Simpson garden designer here.

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Vegetable Hoeroes:Onions.  Or Allium cepa from the Alliaceae family that contain Garlic, Leeks Shallots and Chives. You won’t cry with these onions because today I’m going to focus on the “odourless” Onions that will grow in all parts of Australia. I should specify that these seeds are of the  brown mid-season Odourless Onion readily available from garden centres from one of two major seed suppliers.,. There is a Red Odourless globe onion that is a long day variety, only suitable for cooler districts.
 In temperate and arid climates you can sow the seeds of Odourless Onions from mid-Autumn to early Winter. The same goes for sub-tropical areas.
In cool temperate zones, sow the seeds late Autumn to winter.They love sunny well drained beds, especially when the bulbs mature in summer.
 If you’re observing crop rotation, and you were growing tomatoes in that bed, always lime your soil  a week or two before planting onions.
 Avoid applying manures and blood and bone to the beds in which you're about to grow your onions because they prefer alkaline soil. You can use spent mushroom compost instead of cow manure.      Onion seeds can be sown into seed raising mix into punnets. Or if you want to sow them directly into the garden, make it easy for yourself, mix the seed with some river sand-say one packet of seed to one cup of sand and sow it that way. Bit like sowing carrots!
 They can be transplanted to garden beds when the seedlings are around 8 cms tall.     
TIP:When planting out onion seedlings, instead of planting them sticking straight up, lay them down in a trench and move the soil back over their roots. In about 10 days they're standing up and growing along strongly.
In about 6 months the onions should be ready-tops will start to yellow and go dry. Pull them up whole-leaves and all, and then leave in a dry place for 3 weeks to cure. Should last a year if stored in a cool and dry place. After that they'll porbably start sprouting.

Plant of the Week: Pandorea Jasminoides "Lady Di", or White Bower of Beauty has white trumpet flowers with a yellow throat, are a striking feature of this hardy climbing native plant. It’s perfect for training along pergolas and around archways and has shiny dark green attractive leaves. This is a hardy plant in most areas and soils, accepting of mild frosts, so that’s down to -3⁰C,  through to tropical zones.

Evergreen in frost-free areas; perennial if roots are protected during heavy freezes, when it will die back to the ground. 
The Bower of beauty is a vigorous climber that likes part shade but accepts full sun as well. This popular and well known variety is native to NSW and Queensland but is often seen growing all over Australia. It can be easily trained over fences and trellises forming a dense screen.
  Why grow one at all? Bird attracting- Suitable for hedge- - Fast growing
So attractive, I had a birds nest in it for the last two years.
Flowers mainly in Spring and Summer, then you get the long seed pods filled with winged seeds that germinate easily given the right conditions.

I’ve given away quite a few plants that have been grown from seed.

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Magpie Larks and Bed Bugs

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition.
Wildlife in Focus:This bird has a bit of an identity crisis? It’s neither a magpie nor a lark, so what is it? Find out in by listening to Kurtis Lindsay talk about the Magpie Lark, Pee-Wee, Mud Lark or Murray Magpie!

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Vegetable Heroes:Coriander flowers belong in the Umbelliferae family. The name coriander is derived from the Greek word koris, meaning bedbug, since the unripe seeds and leaves when crushed supposedly have a smell suggestive of a crushed bedbug.
Always grow coriander from seed, sown in the exact spot you want it to grow as it absolutely HATES being transplanted.
Transplanting coriander stresses it so that it goes straight to seed and then it dies. And you never get any leaves at all!
Coriander gets a has a big taproot as it grows so growing it in a pot won’t work either, it’ll go straight to seed as well.
In Temperate and cool temperate climates, in sub-tropical districts, you got until May, and in arid zones, you’ll probably best to wait until August to sow Coriander.
Sow about 1 cm deep, cover the seeds and keep them moist.
Sow it in rows, scatter it amongst your other veggies, you can use it as a shade plant for your lettuce. It’s a good idea to leave in a few plants that have gone to flower because the Coriander flowers are an important food source for beneficial insects, especially little parasitic wasps and predatory flies.
To attract many beneficial insects you want lots and lots of coriander flowers why not sprinkle some coriander and parsley seeds through your other vegetables under your fruit trees and in any other place you can fit them.
Design Elements:I have a friend who is renovating her house and her garden. We stood in her ruined front yard and when I suggested that she put a focal point in front of the lounge room, say a standard maple so that she would have a nice plant to look at, out of the ornate Federation windows. She was rather nonplussed. It had never occurred to her, yet to plants-people, gardeners, plant addicts, call us what you will, this is essential to the soul . Listen here to Lesley Simpson garden designer set you on the right path in fixing  a garden in ruin.

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Plant of the Week:    Fraxinus excelsior 'Aurea'
Yes it’s deciduous, and grafted too. The understock is Fraxinus oxycarpa or Desert Ash-hardy and reliable.
Great autumn colour and distinctive yellow bark on young branches provides year round interest.
The Golden Ash is an old favourite, suitable as a shade or specimen tree., it grows 7 x 7 metres so would suit most gardens around Australia.
The shape of the tree is broadly conical to rounded. Eventually develops into a medium sized, spreading, multi-branched tree.
The leaves are pinnate-think of Grevillea leaves like Grevillea Robyn Gordon.
Leaf colour is a pale lemon  in spring, becoming very pale green in summer, turning to brilliant gold in autumn.
You don’t plant this tree for the tiny and insignificant greenish-yellow flowers in spring. Totally hidden by the leaves.
Bark:Young branches yellow with distinctive black winter buds. Becoming yellow-grey with age.
Tolerances:Best in moist, deep soil in cooler areas but tolerates both wet and relatively dry conditions. Performs well on alkaline soils. Reasonable tolerance to heat and low levels of dought.

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