Flamingo Flowers, Finches and Formal Leeks

Gorgeous small birds that for once are easy to identify in the Wildlife in Focus segment with Dr holly Parsons, growing leeks in vegetable heroes, a new series on garden styles in Design Elements and today is what makes a formal style and what is Anthuriums in the Talking Flower segment.

WILDLIFE IN FOCUS

Double Barred Finch

Small birds are notoriously hard to identify because (a) they’re small, (b) they’re incredibly fast and shy and lastly, they’re usually just a variation on brown.
Not so this next bird which has easily distinguished facial markings and is Perhaps you can spot one after listening to this. Described as having an owlish face, although in miniature, and with beautifully spotted wings.

I'm talking with Dr Holly Parsons from www.birdsinbackyards.net
Let’s find out

Incredibly gorgeous little bird with a striking white face.

Like a miniature barn owl because of the markings. 

For once, not just a little brown bird that's hard to identify; this one has distinctive features which apart from the white face, the barring on the feathers stands out also.

Prefer drier regions.

Hanging around in flocks you’re bound not to mistake them for something else because they would make a spectacular sight.
If you have any questions either for me or for Holly, drop us a line to realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675

VEGETABLE HEROES

Leeks

Leeks, known scientifically as Allium ampeloprasum var. Porrum, are related to garlic, onions, shallots, and scallions.
There’s nothing like a good long history that some vegetables seem to have and the Leek is no exception.

Leeks are supposed to be native to Central Asia, and have been cultivated there and in Europe for thousands of years.

Did you know that Leeks were prized by the ancient Greeks and Romans because of their supposed beneficial effect upon the throat.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that the clear voice of the partridge was due to a diet of leeks, while the Roman emperor Nero supposedly ate leeks everyday to make his voice stronger.

• Another interesting fact that you might not know is that the leek became a Welsh emblem in 1536, and is still the national emblem of Wales.
• Daffodil is the National flower.

Have you ever wonder why Welsh are such great singers?

Perhaps because they eat a lot of leeks, think Tom Jones.

Onions, celery, and carrots are very good companion plants for the leek.

Leeks, are a cool season crop and best of all they’re easy to grow.

You can grow leeks in hot summers, but you won’t get the same quality result as you will in a cool summer environment.

I know I’ve tried and they were a thinner weaker version of the winter leek.

Leeks are usually grown from seed and are generally started off in punnets first then transplanted.

When to Sow

• Sow the seeds of Leeks from Spring until the end of Autumn in cool temperate climates, and late summer and autumn in warm and tropical zones, and in arid districts, seeds must be sown in February/early March and then you can transplant them in April and May.
• I sowed some seed a several weeks ago and have already transplanted them into the veggie bed because they were a couple of inches-about 10cm high and were the thickness of a pencil.

TIP: By the way, the seeds germinated fine from an out of date packet.

Leeks will overwinter in cool temperate areas of Australia if properly mulched, but will generally not survive periods of extreme cold.

In case you don’t know what a leek is.

Leeks look like large fat spring onions, but have a very small bulb and a long white cylindrical stalk of layers of white then green, tightly wrapped, flat leaves.

It goes without saying that good soil is the key to growing leeks.

Leeks need nutrient rich, well-drained soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0.

They’ll do well in almost any garden soil as long as it is well aerated and deep, about a spade’s depth is good.

Using some kind of dibble tool or stick to make a hole that's just deep enough to leave only the top inch of the seedling exposed.

Set the leek seedling into the hole and fill it loosely with soil.

Space the leeks 10cm or a large hand span" apart, in rows at least 25cm  or from your wrist to your elbow apart.

Find something practical like that to do you estimates.

Some people think that when growing Leeks the aim is to blanch the stems while the plants are maturing.

To save your back if you want to blanch the stems, rather than digging a trench, just use mulch.

When they’re 4 weeks old in the veggie bed, use a thick mulch of sugar cane or something like that.

In another 4 weeks or when they reach about 24cm, do the same again, or you can use shredded newspaper.

The leeks will still grow as well if you don’t do any of this.

• Some gardeners cut off the top portion of the leaves, about halfway up the plant, as the leeks are maturing.
• This supposed to bring on stalk growth, giving you a larger leek for the dinner table.

To be honest you can do all this, but if you don’t the leeks are just as tasty.

Make sure the plants get at least a couple of cm’s of water a week; otherwise the stems will be tough to eat.

Mulch to conserve moisture, and side-dress with manure tea once a month.

• Begin harvesting leeks as soon as they're big enough to use.
• Young, tender ones are good raw; once they reach the width of a paper roll, they're better cooked.
• They usually take 16-18 weeks--4 ½ months.

Quite a long time so explains why they are so expensive at the greengrocer, market or wherever you buy them.

To prepare Leeks cut them very thinly and sautee’ just as you would other members of the onion family.

 Like their allium cousins, onions and garlic, let leeks sit for at least 5 minutes after cutting and before cooking to enhance their health-promoting qualities.

Why are they good for you?

Good source of dietary fibre also a top source of vitamin C

Leeks have a high concentration of the B vitamin folate

Leeks give you small amounts of other minerals and vitamins.

The green tops have some beta carotene which your body can make into vitamin A.

Like onions, they also have some sulphur compounds that scientists believe reduce your risk of some health problems.

Leeks are believed to be good for the throat.

Leeks are low in calories and fat-free. 100g of leek has just 125kJ.

AND THAT WAS YOUR VEGETABLE HERO FOR TODAY

DESIGN ELEMENTS
Formal gardens have a long history.
Did you know that the style of a formal garden started in the Persian Gardens in Iran, such as the Monastery Gardens from the Late Middle Ages?

This style was sort of carried over into the Italian Gardens from the Renaissance that’s the 1400’s and was further refined into the formal French Gardens from the Baroque period which was around 1650.
Let’s find out what this style has to offer.

I'm talking with Danielle Collier from Artistic Horticulture.

Formal style is all about straight lines, no clutter, repeated plantings with as much symmetry as you can stuff into your garden.
Add a water feature or two and some espalier or topiary, and voila’ you have a formal garden.

TALKING FLOWERS

Anthurium andreanum: Anthuriums

Common names:Anthurium Flamingo Flower, Boy Flower, Painted Tongue and Painter's Palette

The anthurium flower derives its name from two Greek words: oura, meaning tail and anthos, meaning flower. Translated the phrase means tail flower.

Anthuriums are evergreen subtropical plants with heart shaped leaves. Similar flowers to the Madonna or Peace lily.

Botanical Bite:

These flowers are really modified bracts, called spathes.

The actual flower of the anthurium plant are tiny blooms that line the fleshy inner spike called a spadix.

In their natural environment, Anthuriums grow on rocks or trees and in the home or garden need perfect drainage around their roots.

An ideal mix is equal parts of premium potting mix and decomposed sugarcane and plants in a terracotta pot.

 Too much water in winter suffocates the roots and causes them to rot, so let plants go dry in between each drink.

Flower vase life is up to 8 weeks if you look after them properly!

I'm talking with Mercedes Sarmini of www.flowersbymercedes.com.au

Video recorded during live broadcast of Real World Gardener.

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