The dogwoods (botanical name cornus) are a fascinating and very decorative group of shrubs and trees.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
There are a great many different ones, ranging from ground-covers to trees of 10 metres or more.
One that is often seen in Tasmanian gardens is cornus capitata, or the Himalayan strawberry tree.
This is an evergreen tree growing to about six metres tall.
It has small cream flowers in December, followed by green fruit which ripens in autumn to look like strawberries.
These are edible but pretty bland. They can be made into jelly or used to give bulk to stewed fruit or jam.
Cornus unedo is very similar. This is the Irish strawberry tree.
The flowers resemble lily of the valley and it too has strawberry-like fruit.
If you have a wet spot near a pool or drain, try the Siberian dogwood, cornus alba sibirica, a shrub that grows to two metres.
In autumn its leaves turn a rich burgundy, and in winter the stems are a deep red.
Next to it you could plant cornus sericea flaviramea, which likes similar conditions.
It has yellow autumn foliage and yellow green autumn cones. Both these give their best shows if pruned back almost to ground level every second year just as the buds are swelling.
Buyer Beware
Beware of buying punnets of flower seedlings which are already in bloom. These should have been planted out long before.
They are usually pot-bound and are not likely to come to anything.
Seedlings, both flower and vegetable, should be young and vigorous, not lanky and leggy with lots of root growth sticking out the bottom of the punnet.
You will sometimes see them on special. But don’t be fooled. They are not a bargain.
Helpful Herbs
No matter what the size of your garden is, you can find room to grow herbs.
They can be scattered among other plants, in a small bed of their own, or in containers.
Herbs can be used in many ways – in cooking, as medicines, for dyes, cosmetics or perfumes, to repel household pests and just to increase the beauty and pleasure of the garden.
The intelligent use of fresh herbs in everyday cooking can act as a preventive medicine, ensuring that sufficient amounts of necessary vitamins and minerals are included in the diet.
Now is the perfect time to start a herb garden.
The most important rule in planting herbs is to plant them handy to the kitchen – otherwise you will tend to use them less often.
Most herbs need only minimal care and little maintenance as long as the ground is prepared properly in the first place.
A light, compost-rich, alkaline, well-drained sunny position is ideal for most herbs.
Dead gorgeous
Did you know that the world’s foulest smelling plant is the corpse flower (amorphophallus titanum) or titan arum.
When it blooms it releases an extremely foul odour similar to rotting corpses which can be smelled from nearly a kilometre away.
It’s a native of the Sumatran rain forests which grows to 2.4 metres tall and 1.5 metres across.
There is a famous specimen of this in the Tropical House at Kew Gardens, London, cultivated for over a century, which produces its monstrous flower every decade or so.
This is even worse smelling, it seems, that the stink lily, dranunculus vulgaris, which is found in some Tasmanian gardens.
The most poisonous plant is the castor oil plant (ricinus communis). Its seeds yield the poison ricin, which is 6000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom.
