From Paris Gardens to Sydney Rock Orchids

PLANT DOCTOR

ladybird in search of aphid pests. photo M Cannon

Problem Solving That Pest Invasion.
Spring has well and truly sprung but what else is booming in your garden?
 Just when you’re not really looking to closely, some of the pest bugs are multiplying on a grand scale and before you know it, you’re fabulous garden has become a supermarket for mini-intruders who aim to make a meal of your flowers and leaves.
Let’s find out how to stem this invasion in the garden.
I'm talking with Steve Falcioni, General Manager of www.ecoorganicgarden.com.au
PLAY: Spring Pest Watch_28th September 2016

White wax scale on citrus.

Everything from aphids, whitefly, scale, to fruit fly and caterpillars, are having a banquet at your expense until the good bugs can build up sufficient numbers to deal w
ith them.
Scale are pretty much invisible because they're very tiny and because they have legs at this stage of their lifecycle, they're called crawlers.


Fruit fly

You'll only realise you have scale when you see the next life cycle when they have created that waxy outer shell which is impervious to sprays.
So if you have had scale in the past on the plant year after year, then be pro-active and spray with botanical Eco Oil from eco organic garden's range.
It just goes to show that you can’t be complacent when it comes to gardening especially at the start of the warmer months.


You might think the cold weather knocked of most of your pests, but insects are resilient and they make up 60% of the world’s living things.
Did you know that there’s at least 6 million different species of insects in the world today and Australia has 220 thousand different species?
They are an amazingly diverse group of animals that have conquered almost every environment on earth and some of them benefit out gardens whilst others seem to enjoy them to our detriment.
If you have any questions about pests in your garden or have some information to share, drop us a line to realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Cucumbers or Cucumis sativus..
Cucumbers just love the hot weather, so they’ll germinate and grow quickly at this time of the year.
Cucumbers are a member of the gourd or cucurbita family and have been grown for 4000 years!
Did you know that Cucumbers were widely eaten throughout Asia and Europe by the 6th and 7th centuries A.D?
Did cucumber start off in India?
No-one’s really sure although some sources point to somewhere in the lower Himalayas where the ancestor of the cucumber was probably a plant with 7 pairs of chromosomes and small, very bitter fruit.
Some pretty famous people have been known to be fans of cucumbers, even cucumber pickles.
Apart from just eating cucumbers they were also widely used as a source of several medicinal remedies .
They treated everything from bad eyesight, scared mice, and cured scorpion bites

Cucumbers photo M Cannon

According to legend, in Ancient Rome during the short reign of Emperor Tiberius (14 – 16 AD) he demanded to eat cucumber on every day of the year.
During summer special gardens were tended just for his vegetables, and in winter cucumber was grown on moveable bed frames that were moved to be exposed to the sun, or illuminated with the mirror-stones.
Cucumbers are the fastest and easiest of vegetables to grow so say some gardeners.
I would’ve thought radish, but maybe they’re a close second.
When is the best time to grow some cucumbers?
Cucumber plants do best in all types of temperate and tropical areas and generally need temperatures between 15⁰-33°C.
Cucumbers are happiest when the average temperatures are around 21⁰C
Sow the seeds of Cucumber in late Spring, say October and early Summer for cool temperate districts,
Spring and Summer for arid and temperate zones district

s, from August until March in sub-tropical areas.
Only the cooler months for tropical areas-so April until August unless you’re inland.
And where can you grow these delicious cucumbers?
You need to pick a sunny, well-drained spot, because Cucumbers are a subtropical plant, that needs full sun.
Cucumbers also want a decent amount of growing space in your garden.
If you’re short on space, try growing them up vertically on a trellis or even on some netting, perhaps a tomato trellis?

Greenhouse cucumbers photo M Cannon

In fact, growing up a trellis would be a great way to avoid all the mildews and moulds that cucumbers are prone to in still humid weather.
So Which Cucumber Should You Grow?
The list is pretty long but you have to decide between regular and burpless varieties to begin with.
Then do you want slicing, or pickling cucumbers?
After that, heirloom or greenhouse varieties.
The burpless varieties don’t need peeling which is an added bonus and would be the way to go if cucumbers repeat on you.
Pickling Cucumbers are shorter, stouter, and have a rougher outer skin, as well as drier flesh that allows them to soak up more of the brine they’re pickled in.
Obviously cucumbers for slicing need to be straight.
The ones you see in the supermarket are regular English cucumbers, usually long thin with a dark green skin.
Great for slicing, and not suitable for pickling.
Let’s start with cucumber “Sweet and Striped” that can grow to a metre long but it will curl.
Japanese Climbing, is flavoursome and the fruits are good for eating fresh or pickling. This one’s burpless.

Armenian cucumber

Ever heard of Armenian cucumber?
This cucumber is a pale almost limey green, it’s burpless with drier flesh so it can be stored up to one month.
Great for slicing or pickling.


Lemon Cucumber

My favourite is Cucumber 'Lemon'
'Lemon' is an apple type, heirloom variety, introduced in 1894.
The fruits are round, sweet and crisp with a thin yellow skin and white flesh.
It can be eaten like an apple and is easy to digest.
This cucumber is a good all-rounder because I can be used for salads, pickling and slicing.
For regular eating there’s Lebanese Cucumber 'Beit Alpha'
A Lebanese style of cucumber is thin-skinned, dark green, tender, and burpless.
This one can grow cucumber, up to 30 cm long.
If you pick it when it’s smaller, it has the best flavour whether pickled or fresh and is never bitter.
Lebanese cucumber vines bear early, are disease resistant and very productive
There’s also a number of dwarf varieties if you’d like to grow your cucumbers in pots.
Try Mini White- one of the most popular.
The 10cm long fruit and is best picked when young.
This one gives you lots of fruit per plant and it’s burpless  
Or you could try Cucumber Little Potato which as the colour or a potato or Kiwi fruit, with a zesty lemon burpless inner flesh.
Then there’s Cucumber 'Spacemaster'
'Spacemaster' is a bush variety, 90 cm across; suitable for growing in containers. Fruit is slender, dark green, 17 - 22 cm long with a crisp, sweet flavour.
It’s supposed to be disease resistant.
Good for salads or pickles, if picked young.
You’ll need to go to a seed mail order place for some of those, or if you’re in Adelaide or Melbourne, go to the shop in the Botanic Gardens.
The best thing is that Cucumbers aren’t picky about soils.
Parthenocarpic Cucumbers What?
Did you know that you can grow a seedless variety that doesn’t need pollination?
In fact, pollination creates an inferior fruit so these are best grown in a closed environment such as a greenhouse.
This type of plant is called parthenocarpic which is just the name of a plant that can produce fruit without pollination.
So what’s a cucumber plant that needs pollination called?
Gynoecious.
Gynoecious varieties have mostly or only female flowers ― the flowers that produce fruit ― and typically are earlier and have higher yields.
And do you get this information from seed packets?
No because most of the seeds you can buy are monoecious cucumbers which as male and female flowers.

Cucumber flowers photo M Cannon

In a monoecious cucumber ( nongynoecious cucumber) plant, the first 10–20 flowers are male and for every female flower 10–20 male flowers are produced.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen that information on the back of a cucumber seed packet?
However, do you find your Cucumber seeds sometimes don’t germinate?
They’re big seeds but if you’re raising them in punnets and the seed raising mix dries out, then the seed most like has dried up as well;
And if you keep it too wet, then the seed rots.
If this keeps happening, try using another type of seed raising mix, or even some good quality potting mix and try again.
What cucumbers like is soil that’s well-draining and has a pH of around 6.5.
Add in plenty of organic compost and fertilisers like chook poo or cow manure.
I’ve seen an idea where you make mini mounds, wet the soil first and then drop in 4 -5 seeds into the top of each mound.
Mulch the mounds so they don’t dry out but not too much or you’ll be wondering why nothing is germinating, that’s because the seed has rotted away.
When your seeds have germinated, pick out the strongest couple and throw away the others so you don’t get overcrowding.
When your cucumber has gotten going, water it regularly at the base of the plant, that way the leaves stay dry and you lessen the chances of the leaves getting the white powdery stuff growing on them, powdery mildew disease.
Cucumbers should be ready at about 50-60 days and picking fruit often stimulates more to start growing. Some of you probably have realised that if you pick your cucumbers when they’re quite small, this is when they’re at their sweetest.
Twist the cucumbers off the plant or cut the stalk just above the cucumber tip.
They keep for 7-10 days in the fridge then the start to look like something that came from outer space…green and slimy
Why are they good for you?
Cucumbers have lots of Vitamins C but why you should eat them is because the silica in cucumber is an essential component of healthy connective tissue, you know, like muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bone.
Cucumbers have some dietary fibre and Cucumber juice is often recommended as a source of silica to improve the complexion and health of the skin, plus cucumber's high water content makes it naturally hydrating—a must for glowing skin.
So eat them quick in sandwiches, salads or juice them for healthy glowing skin!

THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY

DESIGN ELEMENTS

This series is about garden styles which RWG has visited over the years with different designers.
Have you ever wondered what makes up a formal garden style?

Palace of Versaille Garden photo M Cannon

Perhaps you like neat lines and clipped edges without too much fuss and frippery?
Can you have a formal style in your garden and how hard is it to maintain?
All these questions are answered and more so let’s not wait any longer.
I'm talking with Landscape Designer and consulting arborist Glenice Buck 
PLAY: Garden Styles_Formal garden_28th September 2016
A traditional formal garden is the most structured and rigid in their style. 

The designs are usually symmetrical in their layout and the number of species used is minimal.  The gardens tend to run in straight lines and form grid like patterns. 

The main axis’s of the gardens are formed by pathways (in grass or stone) that will stretch out across the site and where they intersect, a focal point such as a statue, a water feature or a urn will be placed.   I



Roden Garden Paris, photo M Cannon

 

t is usually the scale of these focal points which give the gardens a feeling of grandeur. 

The plantings in these balanced gardens are stylised into the orderly shapes of hedges in varying heights, avenues of trees and topiarised plants in all shapes and sizes. 

There you go, it seems that the formal style of garden isn’t that hard to maintain or establish.
 Choose a plant for those hedges that suits your area then make borders with it.
Inside the borders grow anything from roses to peonies and voila’  instant formal style .

PLANT OF THE WEEK

Sydney Rock Orchid; Dendrobium speciosum
There’s  many a garden that gets sucked into the vortex of admiration of orchid flowers.


Sydney Rock Orchid photo M Cannon

Orchid flowers are just so spectacular to look at but don’t they need a shade-house or green-house at least?
Not for this one and it’s one that you probably should have in your garden.
I'm talking with the plant panel: Karen Smith, editor of Hort Journal www.hortjournal.com.au  and Jeremy Critchley, The Green Gallery wholesale nursery owner. www.thegreengallery.com.au
PLAY: Dendrobium_28th September_2016

The Sydney Rock Orchid or Dendrobium speciosum   is one of the worlds’ most underrated and exciting of orchids.
This rock orchid has the largest display and most spectacular shows of mass blooming of any known orchid.


Dendrobium speciosum photo M Cannon

The showy flowers grow in long racemes on straight or slowly arching, long, starchy stems with over 100 small sweetly fragrant flowers per stem from August to October.
Attach it to trees with some wire or twine and the root system will eventually attach itself, although this takes up to two years.
Extraordinarily tough, hardy and drought tolerant it should be one of the best cultivated plants ever!
Avoid frosts, unaccustomed hot sun, too much shade (make sure you can see a shadow when placing hand above foliage) and temperatures above 36⁰ C if possible. .
Give D. speciosum needs plenty of food in the form of fertiliser.
Not just a spray with something once or twice a year, but a continuous regime of well balanced fertilising

Archangels on the Rooftop Gardening

 REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney, streaming live at www.2rrr.org.au and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
REALWORLD GARDENER NOW ON FACEBOOK
Real World Gardener is funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF).
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition. The new theme is sung by Harry Hughes from his album Songs of the Garden. You can hear samples of the album from the website
www.songsofthegarden.com

PLANT DOCTOR

with Steve Falcioni, GM of www.ecoorganicgarden.com.au
Probably one of the first pests that you’ll learn to identify is aphids.


aphids come in yellow, green, black and brown

Just by looking at how many there are, you’ll be left in no doubt that aphids are pests and not beneficial or good bugs.

In the warmer months they seem to get around in their hundreds and at this time of year, the good bugs will need a helping hand.

But not with something that will harm them.
Let’s find out how to control these pests.


Surprisingly, aphids can travel in on the wind.

Just in case you weren’t sure what an aphid looks like, Aphids are small, soft-bodied insects with long slender mouthparts that they use to pierce stems, leaves, and other softer plant parts to suck out fluids.


They have soft pear-shaped bodies with long legs and antennae and may be green, yellow, brown, red, or black depending on the species and the plants they feed on.

A few types of aphids have a waxy or woolly appearance because of a waxy white or grey secretion over their body surface.Did you know that almost every plant has one or more types of aphid that occasionally feed on it?


lacewing larvae

ladybird larvae


Spend a bit of time getting to know the good bugs in your garden. Turn over leaves to check for ladybird and lacewing larvae.
Seems like Neem oil and botanical oils are the safest bet to use in your garden because it does the least harm to beneficial insects.
If you have any questions about aphids or a photo of a sick plant that you want diagnosed, send it in to realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea, Botrytis group)
 Cauliflower is native to the Mediterranean and Middle East region, but did you know that it’s been grown as a crop from at least 600 BC?
 Cauliflower is related to broccoli, cabbage, kale, turnips, rutabagas, and
Brussels sprouts.
You might’ve heard cauliflower being called a cruciferous vegetable.
Why is Cauliflower called a cruciferous vegetable?
Because the flowers have four petals and look like a Greek cross.
Did you know that Cauliflower leaves are edible, but have a stronger taste than the florets?
Some of the first crop plantings in Australia way back in 1788 were cauliflowers on Norfolk Island.
How we know this is because a letter exists from Governor Arthur Phillip the (first governor appointed by the British,) to Sir Joseph Banks, telling him that ‘colly flowers’ had been growing at Sydney Cove for weeks.
They were also recorded as growing in a garden at The Rocks, Sydney, in 1803 with some being as large as 4.5 - 5.5kg.
They obviously liked their cauliflower in the early life of the colony.

Flower or Vegetable?

An interesting fact about Cauliflower is that it’s actually a flower that hasn’t fully developed yet.
Yes that’s right -  Cauliflower, is actually a flower growing from a plant.
In its early stages, it looks a bit like broccoli, its closest relative.
The difference is that broccoli opens outward to sprout bunches of green florets, but cauliflower forms a compact head of undeveloped white flower buds.
The cauliflower head itself is a sterile flowering structure whose buds are kept white by green leaves that cover the head, protecting the flower buds from the sunlight.
Because the leaves are covering the floral head and so keeping the sun out, the cauli stays white because the green or chlorophyll in the plant, doesn’t get a chance to develop.

When to Sow.
In Arid zones, plant direct into the garden from April until June, in cool temperate and temperate zones, February was the recommended time to sow seeds but you can sow seedlings until the end of May.

Cauliflower seedlings

If your district is sub-tropical, you might be able to squeeze in seed sowing if you do it straight after the show, otherwise, transplant seedlings until the end of June also.
There is one exception, a variety called Caulifower All Year Round-Hybrid.
This robust variety is available from your local nursery and is ready for harvest very early at 15 weeks.
It grows quite big with a tight curd, and tastes great.

Soil and Site for Cauliflower
All cauliflowers need a neutral or slightly alkaline soil to do well.
If the soil is too acidic, the plants won’t be able to access the trace elements they need, and may develop whiptail.
 On the other hand, soils which are too limey or chalky can lead to stunted and discoloured cauliflower.
If you’re at all unsure, whip out that pH test kit and give it a workout.
If you need to add lime to the soil because it’s too acidic, leave at least four weeks between liming and manuring. 
As with all brassicas, avoid using a plot on which a brassica crop was grown within the past two years. 
Cauliflowers will definitely suffer if they are grown on the same plot for two or more years in a row. 
Winter cauliflowers are much more tolerant of soil conditions, and will grow on most types of soil, as long as there is no water-logging. 
Because they grow slowly over a longer period of time, and have to face winter conditions, the one thing you want to avoid is fast growth.  
Go easy on the liquid food otherwise no heads will form.

If plenty of organic fertilisers have already been dug in, there is no need for additional fertilizers, before planting out winter cauliflowers.

Tips for Growing
Some tips are (i)they need a sheltered site, with some protection from winds. 
(ii)They do better in sun rather than in the shade.

So when do you pick your cauliflower?
A cauliflower is ready for cutting when the upper surface of the curd is fully exposed and the inner leaves no longer cover it. 
As usual in your veggie garden, cauliflowers are ready at the same time. 

Tie the leaves to prevent the cauliflower from yellowing.

If the weather is warm and you leave the cauliflowers in the ground once they have matured, the heads expand and start to yellow looking not that great.
Here’s a tip to not have to eat cauliflower everyday for a month, gather up the leaves and tie them together over the curd so that they cover it, using garden twine, an elastic band or raffia. 
It will also protect the winter ones from the frost.

Why is it good for you?
Cauliflower contains a high amount of vitamin C, and complex carbohydrates.
They’re a great source of dietary fibre and  a good provider of folate (one of the B vitamins)
Like cabbages cauliflowers contain substances called indoles which are responsible for the sulphur smell that can be released if they’re overcooked.
 
Today, thick cauliflower soups are popular in France and Eastern Europe. Sardinian cooks combine garlic, olive oil and capers with it to make zesty salads and hot dishes. In India, it's cooked with potato and onion to make a rich vegetable curry. Go on , plant some cauliflowers topday.
AND THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO SEGMENT FOR TODAY!

DESIGN ELEMENTS

with Chris Owen, Landscape Designer.
Rooftop Gardens part1.

Modern building disguised at Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain. photo M Cannon

You might find this hard to believe but in ancient Mesopotamia (4th millennium BC–600 BC) the citizens had plantings of trees and shrubs on aboveground terraces.
Also during Roman times - the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, had an elevated terrace where plants were grown.
What’s more, a roof garden has also been discovered around an audience hall in Roman-Byzantine Caesarea.
So, for something completely different I’m starting a series on rooftop gardens
Let’s find out about them



Rooftop gardens_Alhambra Palace, Granada photo M Cannon

A roof garden is a garden on the roof of a building.
Besides the decorative benefit, roof plantings can give you food, temperature control, look great, provide habitats or corridors for wildlife, and in large scale it may even have ecological benefits.
Did you know that the practice of cultivating food on the rooftop of buildings is sometimes referred to as rooftop farming? Rooftop farming is usually done using green roof, hydroponics, aeroponics or air-dynaponics systems or container gardens.

PLANT OF THE WEEK

with Jeremy Critchley from www.thegreengallery.com.au and Karen Smith, editor of Hort Journal magazine. www.hortjournal.com.au
 
Ever heard of summer snapdragons?
If you haven’t you’ll be surprised to know that there is such a plant that has flowers that look like small snapdragons. Not only that, they appear on a small bushy plant all summer long and into autumn, plus they’re scented.
Let’s find out about this plant.
PLAY: PLAY:Angelonia_11th March_2015
Did you know that Angelonias weren’t well known in the gardening scene until the late 1990s?
Luckily, breeders and plant development companies saw that they had great potential and started producing Angelonias that were shorter and heavy-flowering.
Angelonias are easy to grow and can stand hot days and humidity which normal snapdragons can’t.
Flowering: Summer, Late Summer.  

The biggest flowers for big visual impact, even from a distance!

Angelonia Archangel has the most generous blooms, vibrant colors, glossy dark green foliage with a robust, well-branched habit, delivering big Summer impact.

 Angelonia Archangel is not your average Angelonia, it has flowers that are three times larger than other varieties and thrives in extreme heat, humidity and drought.

An excellent container or bedding plant and creates a striking display for landscapes.

Worth a try.

 

Sap Suckers and Succulents in the Garden

REAL WORLD GARDENER Wed. 5pm 2RRR 88.5fm Sydney, streaming live at www.2rrr.org.au and Across Australia on the Community Radio Network. www.realworldgardener.com
REALWORLD GARDENER NOW ON FACEBOOK
The complete CRN edition of RWG is available on http://www.cpod.org.au/ , just click on 2RRR to find this week’s edition. The new theme is sung by Harry Hughes from his album Songs of the Garden. You can hear samples of the album from the website www.songsofthegarden.com
Real World Gardener is funded by the Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF)

PLANT DOCTOR

with Steve Falcioni, general manager www.ecoorganicgarden.com.au
One of the most easily recognised pests in the garden and one of the most prolific, especially when the really warm weather hits and that's aphids.

Aphids also one of the pests that most likely has the most amount of chemicals you can buy to kill it.

Did you know though, it’s one of the pests that also has the most amount of beneficial insects that attack it?

There’s at least four so before you go out into the garden armed with garden gloves and sprayers, you need to know what you’re really squashing or squirting, because it may just be one of the good guys.

Let’s find out in part 1 what these good guys look like.


Learning to recognise the difference between pests and good bugs might sound a bit challenging, but there are books on predatory bugs that you can either buy or borrow from your library.
You can also research them on the internet.

We mentioned, lacewings, hoverflies, ladybirds, and parasitic wasps,-in particular their larval stage which does the eating of the pests in your garden.
These four would be a good start to get to know.
Not only will you be saving your good or predatory bugs but you’ll be saving money from not having to buy so many insect sprays.

Mummified aphids

If you have any questions about your good bugs or aphids or a photo, send it in to realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR P.O. Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675.

VEGETABLE HEROES

Today’s vegetable hero is Moringa oleifera known as the drumstick tree, tree of life or even horseradish tree.

Moringa oleifera is believed to be native to sub-Himalayan tracts of northern India but is now found worldwide in the tropics and sub-tropics.

Just a note for Queensland listeners, according to DAFF (Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.) website, this species is regarded as potentially invasive or moderately invasive in tropical regions of the world.
It's escaped from gardens in northern Australia, and is currently naturalised in north Queensland and northern Western Australia.
Moringa is currently considered a minor weed in northern Australia.

So what is a horse radish tree exactly?

Not having grown the tree myself I researched some great information that might get you interested in getting a tree for yourself.

Moringa leaves

Moringa oleifera tree is an extremely fast growing deciduous tree with corky bark that can get to 10 metres.

The leaves look ferny and rounded, and the flowers are a pale yellow and fragrant. The green seed pods are hard and can be as long as 30cm and are called drumsticks in some countries.
Each  pod can contain up to 10 dark brown seeds that are large and circular-shaped.
The leaves, flowers seedpods and roots are all edible.

Did you know there’s websites in Australia that are dedicated to this tree?
Not only do they sell the seeds of Moringa, but they also supply Moringa oil, Moringa powders, Moringa multi-vitamin capsules, Moringa tea and Moringa soap.

Moringa seed pods

Any leaves that you’re not going to eat  make a fantastic fertiliser not just for your Moringa tree but for other plants as well.

Horse-radish tree has a deep tap root that not only searches out nutrients but makes it resistant to drought.  
Moringa oleifera trees grow well in warm to hot climates, because they’re a tropical to sub-tropical plant.
Planted in these zones Moringa will produce leaf or pods year round.
Moringa doesn’t like to grow much in cold climates and goes dormant below 18 ⁰ C .
In temperate zones it’s completely deciduous.
Having said that, people tell me that Moringa can handle a light frost when the branches have hardened and become woody.
It grows best between temperatures of between 25 to 35⁰C however, in semi-arid areas, you can grow Moringa or horse-radish tree because once it’s established, it can handle temperatures up to 48⁰ C as long as it gets watered every few days.
If the leaves look a little dehydrated and dry, it's time for some water.

When is the best time to grow Moringa?

Spring, Summer and Autumn are the best times to plant our your Horse radish tree.

I know some gardeners use horse radish for various health benefits, and if you live in a cold climate, you may just well try to grow it in a deep  pot on your verandah. Or just try and grow it in a sheltered spot in your garden.

They can be grown inside for a short period of time to shelter them from cold weather.
You can buy Moringa as a seedling or as seeds in Australia.
www.daleys.com.au

Moringa seeds

These seeds only stay viable for about a year, after that germination rate is hit and miss.

The seeds come in seed pods, crack the shells before planting and soak the seeds in water overnight.
Plant your seeds about 1 cm deep.

What do Moringa plants love?

Moringa likes a well-drained soil but can cope with temporary inundation.
Moringa can also grow in just about any soil-dry, sandy or poor soils are no problem.
Moringa can grow without fertiliser, but regular feeding with a good organic fertiliser will make the tree power grow strongly and produce lots of nutrient rich leaves.
During the first year, your Moringa tree can get to as much as 5 metres.
Don’t worry, if you don’t want a tall tree, pruning to keep it as a shrub is no problem.
When your seedling gets to about 60cm tall, start pinching out the top grow by about 10 cm.
Do this about four times in the first couple of months.
In fact, in countries where they harvest the trees for leaves and seed pods, they cut their Moringa trees down to 1 metre from the ground each year.
But for all you hard pruners, you can cut it to the ground-called coppicing.
That way you can get a shrub instead of a tree.

IMPORTANT TIP: The timber is soft so in the early stages this tree will need support as it will bend over in windy conditions.

What do you do with Moringa plant?
You’re now probably wondering what parts of the plant you can eat?
You can steam and eat the leaves like you would spinach.

Moringa flowers

When your tree’s about two years old, you’ll start seeing flowers and pods.. If you pick off the pods when they are young, tender, and green, you can eat them as green beans.
Older pods apparently get fibrous and develop a tough shell, but their pulp and immature seeds remain edible for a while before they start to ripen.
You can use the immature seeds like you would green peas.
As for the flowers, use them fresh or dried flowers to make teas.
You can also eat the fresh flowers-said to taste like mushrooms.
Why not try sautéed flowers with onions and a pinch of tumeric, or added to your omelette.
The peeled roots have been used as a substitute for horseradish.
Why are they good for you?
The benefits of Moringa read like it’s a super food.
Moringa has 90 nutrients , 46 antioxidants and much more.
Moringa has 17 times more calcium than milk, 15 times more potassium than bananas and 4 times more vitamin A than a carrot and 25 times more iron than Spinach.

DESIGN ELEMENTS

Create a Succulent Garden

photo M Cannon

Do hot dry summers leave you despairing with all or parts of your garden?
Maybe it’s time to choose some plants that can withstand dry hot weather a bit better.
Succulents can provide a point of interest all year because of the different shapes, colours and textures of their leaves and their colourful flowers.
In the garden, they can be used for contrast, repetition, and texture.
Let’s find out about how create one of these gardens.
PLAY:Create a succulent garden _14th January 2015
Instead of just planting them straight into the ground there are other ways to incorporate succulents into the landscape to provide year round interest.
Some wonderful effects can be achieved by planting succulents in pots, troughs or other objects and placed in strategic places around the garden.

PLANT OF THE WEEK

It’s time to get Frangipani fever again. If you can't get enough of Frangipani flowers, and need to learn how to propagate more.
 I've got just the right information for you

Frangipani rubra photo M Cannon

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Join me and Anthony Grassi from the Frangipani Society of Australia for an in depth look at ways to propagate the Frangi successfully. www.frangipanisociety.com.au
Let's find out some great information about Frangipani propagation.

photo M Cannon