Waxing lyrical about building a home for birds, bees and the rest of my family…
I am rather excited about this… I am selling some of my photography on Redbubble. They will print them on everything from shirts to phone cases to shower curtains.
If anything interests you, you can find my store here. Also very open to feedback. 🙂 Redbubble designs are not printed with the watermark which is added here for statement of intellectual property rights.
Wattle or Acacia trees are iconic in Australia because of their golden blooms. This variety is just as striking as the Golden Wattle which is Australia’s floral emblem.
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This Acacia is found in coastal regions and tablelands from Brisbane south to Sydney. The second half of the scientific name, “fimbriata” is Latin for “fringed” and refers to the tiny hairs on the leaves. The leaves, like those on most Acacia species, are not true leaves. Rather, they are “phyllodes”, or modified stalks, helping the tree prevent moisture loss. We have lots of these trees in our area and the profusion of yellow that lines the roads and pops up in the bush is wonderful to behold!
It’s a great plant to help prevent erosion and with pruning makes an effective and pretty privacy screen. The thick foliage weeps in a way that reminds me of weeping willows although, of course, it doesn’t hang as low as a willow.
First Nation Peoples in Australia harvested the nutritious seed which is up to 25% protein. They were eaten straight from the tree or roasted to make a paste or damper. In season the seed pods are abundant, suggesting an excellent yield for anyone taking the time to harvest from this tree.
King Parrots love the seed pods from this plant. The King Parrots in our area have trained many residents to feed them, but when the Brisbane Wattles are covered in seed pods they ignore the humans and forage instead. It’s leafy crown offers excellent coverage for small birds. We even had a Scaly-breasted Lorikeet chick sheltering in one of ours after it fell from the nest. It remained in the tree, visited frequently by the parents until it fledged.
Wishing you glorious green and gold in your garden,
Jane Frost
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This plant is truly unique, owning a genus all to itself. It’s closest relative, which it can be confused with, is the Scrambling Lily (Geitonoplesium cymosum) also alone in its genus. It is found all along the East Coast of Australia in dry and wet forests and heathlands.
It was the orange berries on this vine that first caught my eye in the Wild Woods, one of my bush rehabilitation rooms. I took photos and submitted them to a Facebook group for identification. I was relieved that it was native and thrilled that it was edible.
The white arils in the berries taste like coconut, but they aren’t a substantial harvest. Apparently the roots, which are popular with Wombats and Bandicoots, are crisp and sweet. I haven’t sampled them yet, but as soon as I have some growing in my Permaculture Room I plan to try them! The roots can be up to a metre underground so it hardly seems worth digging in to our compact soil and depriving the ecosystem of this endemic species. The other advantage is that I can continue to harvest seeds from established survivors.
In my area Wombat Berry can be found sprawling across the ground or climbing anything from fences to shrubs to small trees. It is an understorey plant so it is frequently found in the shaded areas and a great vine to grow in a shady spot. I have one established plant that has survived for years in a very sunny spot with compacted soil, but it is the exception to the rule. The rest are all in well-shaded locations.
There are two forms of this plant and countless variations in those two forms. The leaves can be very thin or as broad as a Scrambling Lily. Another way to distinguish the two plants is that the Wombat Berry leaves connect directly to the stem whereas Scrambling Lily has a short petiole (stalk). Wombat Berry flowers look furry whereas Scrambling Lillies don’t.
This hardy survivor lasted through the two year drought with no apparent issues, though I wonder if the root would be as palatable after a lengthy time without rain. I haven’t observed any species eating the berries or digging up the roots but the berries frequently vanish from the most visible vines. From research, I suspect it may be King Parrots who reportedly love the berries and seeds. Wombats and Bandicoots are rarely sighted in our area due to being displaced by development. Perhaps this is why I never see any signs of digging around the plants.
Wishing you small pleasures,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
References
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I am slowly building up a community of native grasses, hibiscus and Westringia. The canopy is already there. The spiky Native Hibiscus species offer shelter and protection to smaller birds as well as food for pollinators. The native grasses welcome lizards and frogs.
FEATURE PLANTS:
EXISTING STRUCTURE
CANOPY – This area has a canopy formed by Soap Trees (Alphitonia excelsa), Black Wattles (Acacia sp.), She-oaks (Allocasaurina sp.), Spotted Gums, Grey Gums and Ironbarks. The canopy creates dappled shade for most of the day, but the area is exposed to the East by our driveway and the West by the road we live on. This means that it gets good light in the morning and late afternoon.
SMALL TREES – there is a well-established Brisbane Wattle (Acacia fimbriata) in the centre of this area that deepens the shade and offers habitat to birds. One season we had a baby Scaly-breasted Lorikeet sheltering in the foliage after it fell from a nest. Every day the parents would make frequent visits to feed it as it tried to practice flying. Eventually it fledged and we haven’t seen it since. The bright yellow flowers on this tree bloom every Winter and the following seed pods feed many species including King Parrots. Apart from this tree there are Grevillea species that are all around the area. I suspect that they are Grevillea banksii. Regardless, they attract lots of birds and bugs to their red flowers. Another small tree in this area is a Callistemon with green bottlebrush flowers that I love! Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I rarely see them because the insects and birds love them. This small tree has been stripped of leaves more than once by bag moths or sawflies, but it always comes back.
SHRUBS – There were two large, established Westringia fruiticosa here when we moved in. One has since perished during the 2 year drought. I replaced it with another Westringia in the hopes of regrowing another good screen from the road. Since then I have planted more Westringia in the space to create low shrubby shelter for birds and insects. The insects love the tiny purple flowers. At my local council nursery I managed to find two variegated Westringias on the TLC rack which I am hoping will create some lovely contrast. I have also planted some small Callistemon species to fill this area out with more bottlebrush blooms and shelter.
GRASSES – This area was dominated by Lantana when we moved in with a few Lomandra grasses. Since we have cleared the Lantana, the Lomandra has spread with some other grass species. Two different Commelina species have appeared too. The native Commelina diffusa has stayed but I have removed the Commelina benghalensis.
VINES – Two vines dominate the vertical space. A frustrating invasive passionfruit vine that doesn’t produce edible fruit and Scrambling Lily. The latter is a lovely endemic species with delicate flowers and edible berries that taste a bit like grass. The birds love them. I remove the passionfruit frequently but it’s naturalized in this area and its seed germinates readily.
SOIL – The soil is covered in a thick layer of debris, mostly from the Allocasaurinas and Eucalyptus trees. This restricts the species that can grow and needs to be cleared from new plantings. The soil underneath is hard and hydrophobic. I tend to dig bigger holes than I need and I use seaweed soil conditioners to help new plants. The soil is slowly improving naturally with biodiverse species forcing their roots through the compacted earth but it means that growth is not as vigorous as I would like. I am sure that the nitrogen fixing Wattles and She-oaks are helping support the soil infrastructure.
UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS
BANKSIA – I now know that Banksias love sun and well-drained soil. This dappled shade and compacted clay was never going to work. It’s a shame because we planted three Banksias and all have died.
STILL TO COME:
Pictures of the Brisbane Wattle (it’s about to burst into bloom).
Wishing you a joyful garden entrance,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
A few years ago I was watching “Gardening Australia” when they visited a gardener who talked about Garden Rooms. Her garden was divided into themed sections like a series of rooms with different environments and functions.
Themed areas in a garden with clear boundaries
What is a garden room?
The idea captured my imagination and I started to plan. A few months later I had planned all of my landscaping in “rooms”. Each part of my garden would serve to showcase its function for my family. That vision has been refined and reimagined too many times to count as I work out what will grow where and struggle with elements I can’t control like a two year drought. Still, the concept looms large in my mind and I am still enamoured with the idea and I am very slowly making it come to life.
A peaceful place full of plants
What is a garden room?
What is a garden room?
Really it’s anything YOU want it to be. In the Northern Hemisphere it’s conservatories and summer houses. I asked my Instagram followers what they thought garden rooms were. The predominant themes were of course lots of plants, but also peaceful places, places to relax and drink tea, and themed areas.
A place in the garden to relax and drink tea
What is a garden room?
How do you create a garden room?
First you have to work out what the term “garden room” means to you. Here I will give brief introduction to how I am constructing my garden rooms and what I hope to achieve in each one. I have given each area or room in my garden its own name that alludes to it’s function and the kind of plants I want to use to “design and decorate” according to that function. As I have time I will publish a blog post on each room detailing the vision, the progress and the challenges.
A conservatory
What is a garden room?
The following photos are evidence that this is an ongoing process. There’s no quick way to landscape and maintain 3 acres. Life happens and one falls behind but the vision remains and motivates me. Let’s take a stroll through the garden rooms…
The Native Foyer
As the name suggests, this area is near the front gate. I want this garden to not only welcome our human visitors but also small birds, insects and other animals.
For more detail about “The Native Foyer” click here.
A summer house
What is a garden room?
The Fairy Path
This room happened by accident. Originally it was an area near the carport that hosted a number of native “volunteers”. When we renovated it, we couldn’t get the space to work until we created a narrow ring path. Adults can use it but it’s just the right size for young children to run and explore. A little fairy house magically appeared overnight and the die was cast!
Anything you want it to be
What is a garden room?
The Tropical Room
This room is in an enclosed space near our front door. A glass sliding door also opens into the space and I have grand visions for a water feature and pond surrounded by lush greenery. Originally I planned to fill it with Native Rainforest plants but the drought taught me that I will need to be more creative. For the moment it features a small pond made from a large pot that we bought about 13 years ago.
The Playroom
This is our backyard. It’s part kitchen garden, part sensory garden with playground equipment, my greenhouse and two garden sheds. There’s a large expanse of lawn on the slope which I tolerate because it is lovely on bare feet and has patches of groundcovers. All non-edible exotics have been removed, apart from the large trees which offer shade and a place for our bird visitors to perch. Feature plants include Lemon Myrtle, Anise Myrtle and lots of edible flowers.
The Permaculture Room
This room includes my wonderful contour banks of fertile soil that is growing edible trees as well as fruit and vegetable crops. The chicken shed is empty right now while we renovate the area to include a fenced off free ranging area to stop the chickens from digging up my plants. The chicken shed is uphill from the garden encouraging their fertile waste to wash into the permaculture garden, while the insects that visit the garden should visit the chickens too making a tasty nutritious snack for them. My compost bins and manure pile are also in this room.
The Wild Woods
This room is my bush rehabilitation area. Every so often I go through and remove any invasive pest plants that I can find. I identify the new plants that have grown and expand my knowledge of what the bush “should look like”. A seasonal creek, fed by upstream dams runs through this area to our dam. The gully is gradually filling with dry rainforest plants, some planted by me and some that have appeared as if by magic. When we moved to the property, our neighbour’s grazing animals were using our property. Since we fenced them out, it’s amazing how the bush has changed with all the new plants appearing.
The Natural Gully
This room is also a bush rehabilitation area but it is slightly different to the upstream area. It is mostly populated by She-oaks (Allocasaurina) and Grass Trees. We are extremely fortunate to have some very large Grass Trees, one of which at least is sure to be more than 100 years old. Another joy in this area is the native Slender Hyacinth Orchid which can only be found in the wild. We only see it once a year, but it’s a lovely surprise on the forest floor. I have planted some Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta) in this room as they were once common in this area.
The Sunroom
This is the area between our backyard and the dam. Eventually I hope to make this a wildflower meadow, but the soil needs more rehabilitation before that can be attempted. I have planted some endangered shrubs here and it marks the beginning of the Bush Tucker Grove.
Bush Tucker Grove
This area has been planted with Native Bush Tucker trees. Bordered by the Wild Woods, the Sunroom and the Playroom, I hope it will eventually bring lots of birds to overflow into the other areas. This spot was hit hard during the drought and we lost four Macadamia seedlings, but it is recovering well this season with the remaining Plum Pines, Umbrella Cheese Tree and Native Mulberry amongst others putting on some sturdy growth.
The Green
This area is a wide expanse of soft green grass, tended by my partner and loved by the local ducks. This is where we set up the telescope to view events like Lunar Eclipses.
The Border
This area is long and narrow, along our boundary with a driveway for a battleaxe block. I am in the process of planting a long edible hedge and some vines to make our house less visible from the road. The plants that I have chosen will hopefully entice the smaller birds to visit too.
The Roundabout Room
This is part of our driveway and is reminiscent of a roundabout. The large Spotted Gums and Ironbarks make this garden a challenge, but it’s slowly developing into a lovely feature. It has a large (to my mind ugly) succulent facing the front gate that I would love to get rid of, but as my partner says, at least it’s growing and drought tolerant. Perhaps I’ll remove it when the other plants get bigger.
Thanks for joining me on this stroll through the garden rooms,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
I can’t imagine not having a Lemon Myrtle Tree now. So easy to grow, so lovely to look at, so useful in the kitchen. Every Australian household should grow one of these!
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This tree a wonderful addition to a kitchen or permaculture garden. It’s leaves, flowers and seeds are edible and have countless uses.
Lemon Myrtle leaves have the highest levels of citral, the active ingredient, of any plant tested. This is what creates the lemon flavour. Citral is also a powerful anti-fungal and anti-microbial element sometimes used to treat warts, cold sores and acne. The leaves also contain calcium, antioxidants, vitamin A, vitamin E, folate, zinc and magnesium.
The most common use is as a herbal tea, which is as easy as plucking two or three leaves and pouring over boiling water. After 5 minutes to infuse your tea is ready. Add some honey for a delicious honey and lemon tea in winter or whenever you have a cold. The tea makes a lovely refreshing Summer drink too!
This tree was used extensively by First Nation people both as a food and a medicine. The leaves can be chewed as a cold and flu treatment. I tried this recently, but I couldn’t chew the leaf for long and made a tea instead. I use the leaves as a substitute for bay leaves in savoury dishes. I also stuff chicken with the fresh leaves before roasting and add it to tuna slices. Olive Oil infused with Lemon Myrtle (see recipe link above) is great for frying chicken or fish. I use it when frying home-made chicken nuggets and it adds a lovely subtle lemon note to the panko breadcrumbs. A dried powder from the leaves is a wonderful addition to sweet baking. The menthol component of the flavour tends to become stronger in heat so it’s best in sweet dishes that have a short cooking time.
The flowers and fruits attract lots of birds and beneficial insects, while the thick evergreen foliage offers refuge to smaller bird species all year around.
Commercially this plant is also used to make soaps, lotions and other beauty products. It is now grown around the world.
The other reason to have one of these trees is for their ornamental value. They have lovely thick foliage and in early Summer they are covered in star-shaped, honey scented flowers. After the flowers the nut-brown seed cases are just as pretty, looking like tiny flowers. I think they would make wonderful confetti.
Lemon Myrtle is notoriously difficult to propagate. I tried more than 20 cuttings this year and only one was successful. Cuttings should be taken in autumn from soft or semi-hardwood.
Lemon Myrtle grows vigourously in its home range which is the subtropical climate of South-east Queensland and Northern New South Wales. It can also be cultivated in cooler zones where it won’t grow as big or in the tropics where it grows enthusiastically. Young trees need lots of water in hot weather but it’s worth it for the benefits of this lovely plant.
Wishing you evergreen joy in your garden,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
References:
Sustainable Gardening Australia
Member, M. & Cross, J. (2018), Root to Bloom, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne.
Jane Grows Garden Rooms has started publishing on Medium! In pursuit of creativity and new audiences there’s even a publication…
I will continue to post Plant Profiles and details of my garden adventures here on my blog. There’s a lot of things I want to say that aren’t exactly “on topic” here so I am going to use Medium for that.
If you’re interested you can find the publication by clicking Tea with Mother Nature.
So far I’ve published four “stories”.
Ten Australian Bush Foods for Your Garden
The Moth who Flapped her Wings
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The fruit of this plant has been hailed as a superfood. The berries are about the size of a blueberry and the flavour (from my experience) is reminiscent of blueberries with a touch of eucalyptus. The scientific name refers to the berries and translates to Sweet Southern Myrtle (Latin: Austro=Australis=Southern, Myrtus=Myrtle, Sweet=dulcis). The Naturalist James Backhouse, who travelled through the Australian colonies and took specimens back to Kew Gardens describes the berries favourably and cites them as an important food for local Aborigines. His quotes are recorded variously in historical record.
“…Taking therefore my compass, I determined to make my way direct to my companions, whom I succeeded in reaching, after same fatigue, by wading through a lagoon and crossing some steep hills. The latter was overgrown by Myrtus tenuifolia, a Myrtle of low stature with narrow leaves, and sweet aromatic, white berries spotted with purple. These are the most agreeable native fruit I have tasted in Australia; They are produced so abundantly as to afford an important article of food to the Aborigines…”
James Backhouse in A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies 1843
I planted two of these and the one in full sun thrived while the one in part shade was slow but steady. The plant in full sun flowered and fruited readily until a combination of flooding rains and increasing shade from the plants around it caused it to perish. I was devastated and unknowingly made the situation worse by giving it more water. If this happens again I will remove and replant in a position with better drainage and more sun. Apart from this event Midyim Berry Bushes have been a rewarding addition to my garden.
The red new growth is delightful and the tiny flowers are gorgeous. Add to this the grey berries speckled with dark blue spots and this species is a perfect feature plant.
If you want to grow this subtle beauty, find a spot with good drainage and plenty of sun as well as protection from heavy frosts. This will reap rewards with occasional watering in hot weather.
Wishing you bursts of berry goodness,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
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Blue-banded Bees, Teddy Bear Bees, Sweat Bees… all the buzz pollinators love this rainforest plant which flowers sporadically all year and produces edible berries.
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*Cuttings or seed
This plant has beautiful lush green foliage with contrasting reddish stems. In good conditions it has a lovely thick habit and flowers over and over again. The berries are slightly sweet, but not exceptional. The children love them for the blue stain it leaves on their tongues.
I love this plant for the flowers and the bees… and the leaves and the stems… what’s not to love about this plant? It is a little more maintenance than most of my garden. The three plants I have don’t thrive on neglect, but I wouldn’t call them high maintenance. I do need to keep an eye on their moisture levels and throw them a handful of fertiliser every now and then. Most sources say that they flower in Spring and Summer, but mine flower sporadically through much of the year. The flowers are more consistent and plentiful in Spring and Summer, but they are by no means absent during the rest of the year.
It is a variable species meaning that different specimens may have different features despite being the same species. Botanists think that with further study the plants may be divided into more species. All the leaves have a distinctive difference to their overseas cousins, however, rather than having one central vein and two on each side (five longitudinal veins altogether) this plant has only one vein on each side of the central leaf vein making three in total. It is distributed from the South coast of New South Wales all the way along the coast to the Kimberlies in Western Australia.
Wishing you floral abundance,
Jane Grows Garden Rooms
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Jane Grows Garden Rooms 