Intro | How to (really) make soup
The ABIA Award – and many, many thanks
The Great Queen Victoria’s Underpants launch, and other new books
When gardeners go barking mad | What to Plant now.
Don’t Miss
Hitler's Daughter, the Play
The brilliant Monkey Baa productions are reviving the award winning Hitler's Daughter: the play this July and August at the Seymour Centre, Sydney.
Book now in case it's all sold out. (Again).
Intro
It’s cold. My toes are cold, my fingers are cold, the wombats are cold. Mothball is outside my study window looking in with that accusing look as though to say, ‘My paws and tummy are too close to frozen ground. Change the thermostat immediately.’
I can’t remember when it’s been as cold as this. Nights are often frosty here in winter, going down to minus nine at times. But even today, when the sky is a high clear blue there’s no warmth in the sunlight.
Bryan says there’s a large band of cold air trapped high above us, blocking the heat. And it’s true, weather seems to have vanished. As I look outside none of the leaves or rose petals (mutabilis blooms even in winters like this) are even trembling with the slightest breeze. It’s like summer 2003, when month after month was dry bushfire wind, as though all weather patterns have taken a holiday.
Actually the rest of me is warm: one pair of long johns, three layers of wool, ugh boots and thick socks, plus the exhilaration of the walk up the mountain this morning. And there is soup on the stove, bubbling gently. Even the scent of it is warming. It’s a ‘bung it all in’ vegetable soup, which looks like it’s mostly accidental: if it’s in the garden or freezer I throw it in the pot – but is, I suspect, really the result of many decades of soup making. There is an art to a good soup; but when it’s a really good one, it can be the backbone of your days.
How to (really) Make Soup
When I was 16 I knew how to make soup. You either opened a can or opened a packet, and added milk or water. It wasn’t till I had to stretch a packet of chicken and vegetables soup (serves four) to feed 22 hungry students for dinner that I learned how to make good soup.
It was the days of ‘group houses’ for uni students, and for a good few years after uni too. We’d have been communes, if we’d had anything to commune. As it was we each owned a couple of pairs of jeans, a shirt or two, and a ‘good’ dress leftover from the years we went to Sunday school, cut back to make it mini skirted and with a few flowers embroidered over the soup stains. Canned soup stains, because that was how soup came in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, safely tucked into a can or packet.
The 22 dinner guests didn’t come to the house I shared with two other girls. My housemates had gone home for the weekend, and I was alone when a man had arrived, drunk. I was scared (who he was and what he was doing there is another, slightly melodramatic story that I won’t go into here).
So I ran, into the darkness and along the street, leaving him fumbling and mumbling, until I came to another house where there was someone I was on nodding terms with from uni.
It was one of those big old Queensland houses up on stilts, with an enclosed veranda that housed three students, and perhaps half a dozen more sharing rooms inside. In the way of such houses I was accepted into the living room with no questions asked – I think everyone assumed I was the guest of someone else. And as it was time to have dinner, I offered to make it. I’d learned by then that anyone who can cook has a pretty good chance of being accepted even on small islands and possibly alien universes. I wanted to be accepted enough to be offered, if not a bed, at least a bean-bag for the night. I’d even been shopping when my unwanted visitor arrived, so had in my shoulder bag – compulsory for all students back then, sometimes tie dyed, otherwise Indian cotton – a packet of dried chicken and vegetable soup, a packet of cheap Chinese noodles, a couple of carrots, and an onion – enough for the half dozen or so in the house when I arrived.
But as the soup simmered more arrived… and more. I foraged in cupboards, found dried spaghetti; someone had a vegetable garden, down the road and went to get a bunch of silver beet, basil and tomatoes and zucchini. Someone else went back to their parents and found potatoes and a giant cabbage, that somehow I had the wit to stir fry and wilt with garlic before adding at the last minute.
And at the end I had a soup. It was profoundly not like any soup I or anyone at the table had ever eaten before, having only a homeopathic amount of packaged soup at its base. Everyone scraped their bowls and wanted more.
The week after that the Uni Co-op opened, run by students, selling food from sacks and boxes, relentlessly healthy food, and incredibly cheap - brown rice, lentils, more brown rice, more lentils, wheatgerm, dates, brown rice, lentils.
Most of it didn’t taste of much: you need to know what you are doing to make lentils taste good. But by then I had my first vegetable garden, and herbs planted as cuttings from someone else. And as I’d discovered from the soup that fed the twenty two, you can’t go far wrong with a soup made on a base of fresh veg, not if you know to stir fry the cabbage – or broccoli or Brussel sprouts or Chinese cabbage or wombok – and add it at the end. (These days a student in a similar predicament might add palm sugar, lime juice and chopped coriander instead.)
I make two types of soup. The first has a base of homemade stock; either chicken or other bones simmered for an hour (or ten minutes for fish bones, otherwise it has a faint hint of glue) with celery, tomato, carrots, parsley, garlic, red onions and other veg simmered for an hour. Sometimes it’s a veg base alone, with no meat. In each case the veg and bones are strained out, all their flavour gone, and then other ingredients are added to the stock.
This soup is superb, rich enough to lure you through the worst bout of flu.
The other sort of soup is a quick one, with packaged stock, for when I’m cold or tired, and Bryan is hungry. It is still good soup; just not a superb one.
Chicken Stock
Chicken bones make the best stock I know. You can use either ‘raw’ bones or bones from a cooked chook. Simply cover the bones with water, put the lid on (or you’ll steam up the kitchen), adding more water as necessary. Simmer for at least two hours. If you like, you can add an onion, bay leaves, chopped carrots or parsnips, a bunch of parsley or a few sprigs of thyme. But the essentials are chicken bones – lots of them. When the stock has been simmering for two hours or so, let it reduce until it covers only half the bones. Strain it off and leave it in the fridge. It will set to a firm jelly and will keep for at least a fortnight if covered with a little clarified butter or chicken fat when cool. Or you can freeze it until it is needed.
Turning Stock into Soup
Good soup is made from good stock and what is fresh and flavoursome in the garden. Sauté vegetables in butter or olive oil until tender. Add the stock and cook for a few minutes, then mash or purée in a blender. Then you have a soup, a wonderful, rich, kitchen-scenting soup. Make sure the veg are well cooked in the butter or oil before you add the stock, as the sautéeing brings out the flavour, then cook as little as possible after adding the stock so the scent and subtleties aren’t lost. If you want thin soup, just add more stock.
Some soup combinations
1 onion, 6 large carrots, 3 cups of stock
1 onion, 2 cloves garlic, 3 large beetroot, juice of 1/2 lemon, 4 cups of stock
1 stick of celery, 2 carrots, 1 onion, 3 cups of stock
1 onion, 3 small potatoes, 3 cups of stock, optional 1 tbsp fresh chopped dill
1 cucumber, unpeeled, and 3 cups of stock (you need a blender for this one)
1 onion, 6 small zucchini, 3 cups stock and a few chives to garnish
1 cup mashed pumpkin, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 3 cups stock, optional 1 tbsp curry paste
3 parsnips, 1 onion, 1 teaspoon curry paste, 3 cups stock
1 onion (make sure it is soft before adding the tomatoes), 1 carrot, 4 large, squashy, red, peeled tomatoes, a few basil leaves and 3 cups of stock
2 onions, 6 cloves garlic, 20 flavoursome mushrooms, 4 cups chicken stock
Ultimate Comfort Chicken Soup
Take a very large pot and add:
1 kg chicken wings, chicken carcasses or one elderly chook
6 carrots, chopped
6 leeks, white part only, well chopped
The green part of the leeks
1 bunch celery, well washed (leave on the leaves), chopped
6 red onions, chopped
10 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bunch parsley
1 fresh chilli
Simmer everything for one hour.
Remove the chook when cool and chop up the meat. Strain out the veg and put in the chook or compost bucket.
Now add freshly sautéed veg , your choice:
chopped leeks,
skinned tomatoes,
chopped carrots
fresh chopped mushrooms with chopped parsley or coriander.
Optional ½ cup barley or pasta
If you are using the barley or pasta, cook it in the stock then add the freshly sauted veg and chicken meat just before serving, or storing in the frig. .
This gives you a rich stock plus the taste of fresh veg – more work, but a far more delicious result. But the ‘all simmered together’ soup is wonderfully comforting too, if less haute cuisine.
Tomato soup
This is one where you can use canned tomatoes.
4 cups skinless fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes
4 carrots, peeled
the tops of half a bunch of celery
2 red onions, peeled and sliced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 tbsps olive oil
2 cups stock- vegetable stock works well, or the stock above without the chicken.
Optional: basil, thyme, oregano, coriander, chilli chopped
Sauté the onion and garlic and carrot till the onion is very, very soft. Use a low heat so it doesn’t brown. If you don’t do this the onion will turn into plastic when you add the acid tomatoes.
Add other ingredients. Simmer till carrot is soft. Whiz in the blender or mash if you don’t mind a lumpy soup. Keep in the fridge till ready to serve then reheat, with one of the herbs scattered on top, and chilli too, if you need extra warming or some fire in your life.
Wombat news
Mothball is getting old. I knew she was old in wombat years – she is about 16 now, and most wombats here only live to about 14. But she till looks like a sumo wrestler; still dominates the orchards around the house…
Or did. Last week Short Black (small, round and black) sniffed Mothball’s bum – a good way for one wombat to know what the other is thinking or feeling – then dared to go around and eat from Mothball’s dish. Five minutes later Short Black reared up and bounced on Mothball’s nose.
I have never, ever seen Mothball treated with anything but respect – or mostly terror. Even more extraordinarily, Mothball backed away, then went to sleep in a patch of sun.
She still looks a fine, big, healthy wombat. But that is the tragedy when you are a human and love species that don’t live as long as us. I have seen so many wombat friends grow old and die now, generation after generation. But Mothball…
Yes, I love her. Not as a cuddly companion, but as a strong and stroppy presence in my life. She is also the wombat in ‘Diary of a Wombat’, and without her it would never have been written, and without that book, our lives wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable and secure as they are now, for that book led to many others.
So I’ll make sure there is fresh water, so she needn’t wander too far to find it; put out extra food – the food I put out here is simply a supplement to the animals’ wild diet, and I suspect that it simply gives them the strength to forage more widely. And hopefully I will still have the privilege of watching her life through my window for another year at least, or even two.
But all things pass. Even Mothball.
New Awards
‘Baby Wombat’s Week’ (with thanks again to Mothball) won the ABIA (Australian Book Industry Awards) Younger Readers Award last week and so many thanks not just to those who voted for it, but to the booksellers who have always been part of the partnership of the ‘wombat books’.
No one ever expected ‘Diary of a Wombat’ to be a success, certainly not an international success. It was written from love, illustrated by Bruce because it made him laugh and reminded him of his dog Smudge. But booksellers fell in love with it, and urged their customers to read it, and slowly, year after year, the book’s sales continue to grow.
I always feel guilty when given another award for the wombat books, as my role is such a small part of it all. First there are the wombats – the real ones, who the books are based on. I turn their adventures into text; Lisa Berryman, Jennifer Blau, Liz Kemp, Kate Dinnely from Harper Collins work with me, all of us picking and prodding and coming up with new inspiration; Bruce takes what we have done and turns it on its head and sideways and adds more magic than you’d think an artist could be capable of; Natalie Winter designs the script, the pages, the covers… and finally, years later, we have a book.
But even that isn’t the end of the partnership. Everyone who reads it to a child – or an adult – is part of it all; every bookseller who smiles and says, ‘I think you’ll like this’… we are all people of the book, linked by the love not just of a story, or illustrations, but by a tangible, most lovable object: a picture book, the sort of book that will stay in your memory all your life.
New books
When ‘Victoria’s Underpants’ has been launched… I say ‘has been’ not ‘have been’ as we didn’t launch her underpants as such, only the book about their creation, recorded with all due hilarity by Bruce Whatley. Queen Victoria appeared in all her regal glory at the CBCA Conference in Sydney – which was one of the best conferences I had ever been to, everyone going to the same sessions, strangers meeting by bookstalls and discussing the last session, as everyone had shared the same experience.
For those who couldn’t be there, here is the Royal speech, given with my drama - and brilliant hilarity.
Queen Victoria: Lords, Ladies, gentlemen, and most worthy members of the CBCA…
For centuries we women were held hostage by our underwear.
Or should one say: one’s lack of underwear!
What protection are petticoats against a blusterous tempest, a charging tiger, a brigade of Boers?
Why were there no women in the Charge of the Light Brigade?
How can a woman charge anywhere at all when a gentleman may see a flash of ankle, a naughty knee… or even… worse?
As a gel, one longed for many things:
. to roller skate
. archery
. horse riding or even a brisk walk upon the hills.
But modesty – and my Mama – forbade it all.
And then I became the Queen.
A Queen can change the world.
It was Our decree that an invention be created, to adorn the royal person, and that by Our majestic example gels throughout the empire could do… all sorts of things.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the CBC, We present to you… the invention that liberated women:
(At which point the assembled company saw the underpants in all their royal glory)
The Underpants!
It is impossible to praise this new invention too highly.
They keep the royal person safe from wandering breezes
From peeping Toms
They even let Us ride a bicycle.
But most of all underpants mean that women can stride out across the world, sure that no one will ever see…
anything they shouldn’t.
And so to record this momentous event, We required Bruce Whately, Esquire, and Miss Jackie French, to write the history of the invention that changed the world.
They have done this right nobly.
It is a story of passion, drama, and embroidery.
It is a saga of grit and determination, linen, ruffles and some lace.
It is a tale of the vision and nineteenth century engineering that created not an iron bridge or ship, but a garment worthy of the Queen of an empire upon which the sun never sets.
Mr. Whatley’s most brilliant portraits of my person, while a little… imaginative… are indeed what Mr. da Vinci might have achieved had he been given a truly royal inspiration. Mr. Whatley’s images preserve true modesty while still showing ones’ undergarments in their true majestic glory.
Miss French has faithfully recorded the touching struggles, the desperation, inspiration and British industry of those tasked with producing garments that would actually touch the royal skin.
And if Mr. Whatley and Miss French failed to mention the moment when my darling Albert was so inspired by the underpants that he turned to me with passion blazing in his eyes and said…
… well, even in these days of underpants and liberation, some things must remain left to the imagination.
Mr. Whatley, in recognition of your stalwart endeavours and true genius We now pronounce you Admiral of Berry and Illustrator Royal.
Miss French, we pronounce you Keeper of the Royal Wombats. May their whiskers never grow less, and your and Admiral Whatley’s work be acclaimed throughout the nation.
Miss Berryman, I annoint you Mistress of the First, Second and Fifty-Sixth Draft, and Dame of the Red Correction Pen.
And to the noble worthies of the CBC, arise Dame Margaret Hamilton and Dame Gail Erskine.
The sun may have set upon my empire now, Ladies and Gentlemen, but my underpants have gone on forever.
Wherever women conquer, may the tale of the royal underpants be told!
Let the festivities commence!
Other new-ish books
‘A Year in the Valley’
This is a reissue of ‘Seasons of Content’, with a new introduction, as well as a new ‘What Happened Next’ section about our lives in the Valley since I wrote the book – more than twenty years ago now. I wrote it mostly for my own pleasure then, and only hauled it into publishing shape on an impulse many years later and sent it to HarperCollins. It is about the Valley – the wombats, our lives, and the dances of the lyrebirds. It is also very much about food: the growing of it, the cooking, the sharing with friends, human and otherwise.
‘The Tomorrow Book’
Illustrated by Sue de Gennaro… a look at the paradise we could create, maybe just tomorrow.
This is a special book. It’s closer to my heart than anything I’ve written before and Sue’s work is inspired: funny, whimsical and extraordinarily beautiful. It’s what happens when the King and Queen retire and go off in their campervan, leaving the kids in charge, and they find the solution to each of the world’s major problems in their library and create… tomorrow.
Every one of the solutions really does exist – and the possible tomorrows are very, very good indeed.
P.S. Sue created the extraordinary artwork in collage, using materials she found in her kitchen, from tea bags to labels. It is too magic to even have words to describe it.
‘Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs’
The sequel to ‘Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior’ continues the crazy adventures of Boo, werewolf and hero-in-the-making!
 Boo’s back… in another crazy adventure of Heroes, dinosaurs and the most fearsome weapon in the universes… the zombie sausage!
Boojum Bark, werewolf puppy and student Hero, is about to do what no Hero has done before – go into the scariest universe of them all, the Ghastly Otherwhen, rescue his mum and come back alive.
And he’ll need help from his friends: mysterious Yesterday, gorgeous Princess Princess Sunbeam Caresse of Pewké, Mugg, the down-to-earth Zombie, and Squeak the warrior mouse.
But the Ghastly Otherwhen isn’t what Boo expects! And his friends start acting strangely, too…
What is the bond between Yesterday and her dinosaurs? Why won’t she let Boo rescue her from slavery? Can Mugg really be as dumb as he looks or are Zombies smart in Zombie ways? And could Princess Princess be an actual Hero underneath her cowardly exterior?
The bogeys are scarier – and the food is grosser than ever!
And illustrator Andrea Potter’s dinosaurs are the best in the universes.
Oracle
Set in ancient Mycenae, this is the story of Nikko and Thetis, acrobat brother and sister who are plucked from their village to become performers at the court of the Mycenaean King. But Thetis is both blessed and cursed - if she speaks at all, she must tell only the truth.
So what happens when she tells the King a truth about his future that he doesn't want to hear, a truth of destruction and death?
This is a story set against a colourful and sometimes harsh world, where life is short, where the King's rule is absolute, and justice is not always tempered with mercy.
It's also an inspiring story about one boy's using his ingenuity and courage to fight for freedom.
Last but not least, it's a fascinating look at one of history's earliest whistleblowers, and her extraordinary destiny as Oracle of Delphi, one of a line of soothsayers foretelling the future over a thousand years.
Schedule for the Next Few Months
I’m sorry I can’t accept every invitation – there are often two or three invitations to talk somewhere each day and, much as I’d love to, there is no way I can do them all, or even most of them. Basically, I can only do one trip away from home a month, and that includes trips to Canberra, so I mostly only speak to groups of more than 200 and when it will take no more than six hours travel each way (except Western Australia). I’ve also stopped doing early morning and after dinner talks.
But as I have family in Brisbane and Perth I always love an excuse to travel there... or anywhere that might involve a stopover in Perth, too.
New South Wales bookings are done by Lateral Learning, Queensland bookings by Helen Bain at Speaker’s Inc, Victoria by Booked Out, simon@bookedout.com.au, and for other bookings contact me at jackiefrench72@gmail.com.
But please don’t use any of these addresses for help with school projects; help in getting a book published, or just to have a chat – again much as I’d love that, too, I can’t manage to answer more or, truthfully, even the number I get now. I already spend half my day answering queries and, despite having help in the office, am not quite sure how to cope, as questions come from overseas as well as Australia these days.
There are answers to nearly all your project questions and queries on how to get books published on the website and answers to all gardening questions so far received are in my books.
April onwards: Sue de Gennaro’s artwork for ‘The Tomorrow Book’ will be at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre. Contact the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre for more details.
July 7: Sydney, National History Conference.
July 14-17: Whitsunday Literary Festival, including a public gardening talk, Mackay, Qld.
July 30: Seymour Centre, Sydney. Opening night of Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People’s incredible play of ‘Hitler’s Daughter’. I’ll be there, with knobs on.
August 2-7: Talks and workshops at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, contact the Centre for details or bookings.
August 18: Abbotsleigh Literary Festival, Sydney.
August 19: Talks at Ashfield Primary School and a public talk at Haberfield, Sydney on books, chook and wombats, and how to grow just about everything. More details in the next newsletter (i.e. I don’t have them yet). It’s a free session, with no bookings necessary.
September 7. Talks at Wollongong, NSW. Contact Di Bates and the Wollongong Children’s Book Council for details.
August 26: Moruya, launch of the fundraising wombat calendar. More details next newsletter. Free session, open to the public.
September 1 and 2: Melbourne Writer’s Festival, 11.15 a.m.
ArtPlay, Birrarung Marr.
Topic: Did you know that Queen Victoria had some very special special underpants indeed? Bestselling author Jackie French takes us on a journey through time as we explore historical secrets that changed the world!
Event 2 Wednesday, 1/09/2010, 12:30 p.m., BMW Edge, Federation Square, What Makes a Hero?
Topic: Ned Kelly, Simpson and his donkey, the pioneering women of the First World War... Australia's history is full of people who've done extraordinary things. Join Jackie French as we explore what the stories of our best-loved ancestors have in common and try to answer the tricky question – what really makes a hero?
Thursday 2/09/2010, 12:30 p.m., ACMI 1
The Horse That Bit the Bushranger
Roaming the bush and terrorising the gentry, bushrangers were an unmissable feature of rural Australia for a hundred years or more. Hear the stories of our most famous bushrangers and how their unique way of life came to an end, with best-selling historian Jackie French.
September 18: Talk to Friends of the Botanic Gardens, Canberra, 12.30 in the auditorium. All welcome, adults and kids.
October 2, 3, 4: Talks each day at Floriade, Canberra.
October 10: Talks at Floriade, Canberra.
October 27: International Children’s Day. I’ll be speaking at the awards in Canberra in my capacity as ACT Children’s Ambassador, and probably giving a talk or two somewhere else in Canberra that day too, if previous years are anything to go by.
November 6 and 7: Open Garden workshops at our place. Contact the Open Garden organisers for bookings, act@opengarden.org.au. If you want to make a weekend of it, there are lots of places to stay, from cheap pubs to luxury B&Bs close by. Look at the Braidwood web site.
November 20: Eurobodalla Slow Food Festival at Moruya, NSW. I’ll be giving a series of talks during the day, on everything from fruit trees to wombats, and launching the festival once again as its patron.
March 19, 20, 21, 2011: Keynote address at Wombat Conference, Albury.
May 18, 19, 2011: Talks at Gold Coast Schools. Contact Helen Bain, helen@speakers-ink.com.au
July 18, 19, 2011: Talks at Brisbane schools. Contact Helen Bain, helen@speakers-ink.com.au
July 20, 21, 2011 Cairns: Cairns Writer’s Festival.
When Gardeners Go Barking Mad
It was only today, gazing out at our Japanese maples in the frost, that I realised you can tell how long a gardener has been getting their hands dirty by what they passionately adore in their garden.
Beginning gardeners go for flowers, all bright and glowing. More experienced gardeners start to think about the leaf colour. But you know you've really become a true gardener when you start appreciating bark. Just like Nichole Kidman would be gorgeous dressed in a doormat, many plants are stunning no matter what they wear.
I suppose appreciating bark is a bit like eating pumpkin – you try coaxing a toddler to eat pumpkin. But we experienced eaters start salivating at anything yellow. And it's the same with bark. You usually can't tell how glorious a plant's bark is going to be while it's young. You have to know what that dingy potted stick is going to look like when it's grown up, and trust in your gardening skills to get it there!
There is really an extraordinary range of different barks. I think my favourite has to be the dapples of spotted gum bark (Eucalyptus maculata), mostly because it's a treat to see it down the coast as we can't grow it in our frosty climate. The reds/pinks/creams of Smooth Barked Apple (Angophora costata) are pretty stunning too. Other good warm climate 'bark trees' are Lemon-scented gum (Eucalyptis citriodora) with its fragrant lemon scented leaves and smooth pinkish cream trunks, Snow-in-Summer or Melaleuca linariifolia, or Water Gum, Tristaniopsis laurina.
Water gum is often naturally multi-trunked, with wonderfully mottled bark and massed yellow flowers in late summer. Water gums are nice small trees for small gardens, growing to about seven metres, evergreen, and native to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
Possibly the most striking bark for cooler areas is that of the Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera, a close relative of the common Silver Birch (which is pretty good bark-wise too). Both need regular watering and won't take hot dry winds.
Or you might try Acer davidii, the Snake Barked Maple, with its white stripes down green bark, or the Paperbark Maple, Acer griseum, with its constantly peeling bark that shows the new reddish brown growth beneath. Both give stunning autumn colours too. But I love the bark of the common Japanese Maple too, lacy grey green with red stems.
The Tibetan Cherry (Prunus serrula) has small and not really spectacular flowers, but the bark looks like it's been French polished.
Then there's the Irish Strawberry tree, with its red and pink flaking bark – you often find it in gardens crammed with other shrubs, so the lovely dappled effect of the bark is lost. The Irish Strawberry tree tolerates both extreme cold and endless heat, and yes, you can eat the fruits but probably won't want to! Crepe myrtles develop beautiful smooth sinewy trunks with tan and grey patches and, of course, there is the lovely dappled tan with grey trunks of the Chinese elms.
Decorative barks really need to be displayed properly – not swamped with leafy shrubs or distracting flowers. The old gardening rule of 'one gets lost, lots look great' really applies here. A copse of birch or maple trees looks far more effective than a lone tree. (You need at least three trees for a copse!) Most trees grow tall and straight when planted close together, or cut the young tree back to stimulate side shoots that will each develop into a trunk. (You need to have a lot of gardening confidence when you do this – I'm still terrified each time that the precious plant will die.)
The only real problem with being a bark lover is that you need patience. Any twit can bung in a punnet of pansies and they'll look great two weeks later. But you need at least two years for most barks to start showing their true colours – or sheens and ripples, anyway.
But it's worth it. A grove of gorgeous barks looks stunning even in winter, when everything is bare. In fact it looks even better in winter, when there is nothing to distract you. I think I survived the last drought by being able to run my fingers over the wonderful twists and colours of our Japanese maples and thinking, 'Who cares about flowers and green leaves, this is beautiful.'
What to plant in July:
Flower garden: Advanced seedlings of white and purple alyssum, calendulas, everlasting daisies, Iceland poppies, pansies, primulas, violas, wallflowers, cuttings of lavender, wormwood, daisies and native shrubs.
Frost-free areas only: Coleus, gerberas, impatiens, nasturtiums, petunias, zinnias and ornamental shrubs
Tucker garden: Broad bean seed, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings, winter lettuce seedlings, radish, spinach, garlic cloves (press them point upwards into the soil), artichoke suckers.
Frost-free areas only: Any veg you can get your hands on! Plus fruit trees and passionfruit vines too.
Pottering in July
July is the perfect 'let's organise the garden' month. Summer's heat has vanished and the worst of winter hasn't arrived. This is the time for working out exactly what your garden needs – a lily-pond, a swing, a paved backyard or tree ferns or fuchsias to brighten up the shady bit by the side of the house.
. Spray the leaves of indoor ferns – they dry out quickly once you start heating the house.
. Dig up dahlia tubers from large clumps; start another dahlia bed or give the extras away to friends.
. Mooch around garden centres, nearby streets and parks to choose the best winter-flowering grevilleas, wattles or early cammelias for your area
. Feed winter bloomers like pansies and primulas every three weeks for a fabulous display.
. Don't waste autumn leaves. Compost them, mulch shrubs, or pile them where you want to make a new garden bed in spring to kill the grass underneath. When the weather warms up plant seedlings through the mulch and add snail pellets!
. Hack back grape vines, especially if they look tatty and mildewed. You don't have to wait till grape vines have died off totally before pruning them.
. Hang baskets of pansies either side of the front door for long-lasting winter cheer.
Useful tip: If beetles are bugging your plants, vacuum them off. If the cord won't reach invest in a portable car vacuum cleaner. Dispose of vacuumed beetles thoughtfully!
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