November 2006
Contents
The Story of Josephine
Schedule for the next few months
The November garden
Everything you ever wanted to know about roses, and a bit more too
Cooking with Roses, including Rose Cream Tart, plus a few other recipes like Rose perfume and Not Quite Cleopatra's Cold Cream
Christmas Presents to make
. Giant hanging baskets
. Gardener's gloop
. Chocolate Lip or Foot Balm
. Linen bags
. Christmas pot Pourri
. Rock pot Pourri
. Chocolate Gum or Grape Leaves
The Story of Josephine
Once upon a time there was a kangaroo. Her name wasn't Josephine. It was Fuchsia. Her mother had been shot but Fuchsia, her joey, had survived, and in a round about way she ended up with us.
This was long before I ever wrote a book... well, no, actually, I'd written lots and sent a couple away, but neither had been published yet. My marriage had broken up and I lived on the few dollars from the odd article or story, and by cooking at a local restaurant on Saturday nights, while Edward and his baby sitter watched TV upstairs, and ate garlic bread and mushroom steak and great bowls of salad, which I think has remained Edward's idea of a grand meal ever since.
Down in the valley we still lived in what was basically a machinery shed, with gas lights and a bathroom with a roof but no windows.
It sounds a grim time, but it wasn't. It was magic. Edward was a toddler, and the trees were bearing fruit. It rained a lot that year and the creek gurgled and the grass grew...
The three of us went for a walk every dusk, that gentle time when the sun is behind the ridges and the animals come out to drink. Well, I walked and Edward toddled and Fuchsia jumped in great bounding circles around us...
Some time that summer I put a 'Newspaper Mama' tape on for Edward to dance to while I made dinner... and when I looked around the two of them were dancing, boy and kangaroo.
Every time I put a tape on after that Fuchsia danced, wonderful leaping dances over chairs, and as she got bigger sometimes over Edward too.
And then...
I still shiver when I think of it. I wrote at a friend's house sometimes, up in town, with Fuchsia in her basket and the friend's dog Imma sitting on my feet. Imma, one of the gentlest, best-trained dogs I have ever known, half black lab and half Alsatian - Imma would sniff at the basket but never even growl.
But one day my friend and Imma joined us for our walk. Something, a hawk maybe, spooked Fuchsia, so she ran. The running must have stirred a distant instinct because suddenly Imma ran too, and grabbed Fuschia by the throat.
Edward was screaming and I was crying as we pulled Imma's jaws apart. I had seen a wallaby injured like that just the year before – only two puncture wounds, but the wallaby's windpipe had been pierced. She died soon after...
I tried to lift Fuchsia to see how badly she'd been hurt. But she ran. I was an enemy now. I smelled of dog. I never held Fuchsia again.
I never saw her, either. Not really. Not to say, yes, that's the kangaroo I know.
But about a year later, driving Edward back from preschool, I stopped to open the farm gate. The tape was blaring out 'Newspaper Mama' and Edward was singing, and up on the hill was a mob of roos.
As we watched one of them broke away from the others. And she began to dance.
I don't think the joy of that moment will ever leave me. And I hope that's what Josephine will bring, too – joy. Kids need joy in their lives, a sense of exultation, a knowledge that, yes, there may be bad things in the world, but there is infinite happiness too. I hope that every kid who reads this book will dance.
The Josephine Cake for Christmas
So called because it dances into your mouth, and I developed the recipe while writing Josephine.
I wanted a cake that was reasonably virtuous for a low fat diet, and very very dark and fruity.
This is about as rich, dark and fruity as it gets – in fact it's not cake like at all, just more compressed rich fruit. There are no eggs or added sugar in this cake, or alcohol, though you can replace a cup of water with whisky, sherry or brandy.
It's also the easiest cake you can make and moderately healthy – no saturated fat if you use a good margarine or sugar (though it's very sweet with all the dried fruit) and incredibly moist and dark. Just a delight.
P.S. It has dates and prunes in it, neither of which Bryan likes. But he loves this cake – mostly because he has no idea the prunes or dates are there. They just add to the general moistness and darkness.
The smaller cakes made in coffee cups make great Christmas presents. Make them now (i.e. within a month of Christmas) and wrap in alfoil then cellophane and ribbons and keep in a cool place till Christmas.
You need:
1 3/4 cups plain flour
2 cups water
juice of 2-4 lemons
1 can condensed milk – can be low fat
1/2 cup chopped prunes
1/2 cup chopped apricots, dried
1/2 cup chopped dates, fresh or dried
1 cup sultanas
1 cup crystallised cherries
1-2 cups other dried fruit or more of the same... I like crystallised pineapple but crystallised ginger makes a great cake, or currants, crystallised apricots or just more sultanas...
250 gm butter or marg OR 3/4 cup light olive oil or other bland oil
whole (peeled) macadamias or almonds to decorate
1 large or 2 small cake tins OR about 10-12 coffee mugs, lined with 2 sheets of baking paper
alfoil
Place everything in a saucepan except the flour. Simmer ten minutes. Stir now and then to stop it sticking. Add more water if it looks dry – some fruit is drier than others and will take up more water. Turn off heat.
LEAVE TILL COOL – or almost cold anyway.
Add flour.
Pour cake into pan/s. Smooth the surface. Place nuts on top in a pleasing pattern.
Put pans in the oven. Now cover each pan with alfoil, with a hole (about the size of your thumb nail) in the top to let out steam. This MUST be done or the cake will get black and hard on top before it's cooked.
Turn oven on to 125-130º C.
Leave 2 – 2 1/2 hours, or 1 1/2 hours for the coffee cup cakes. Lift up a bit of foil and press cake with a finger (adult) or teaspoon – if it springs back it's cooked. Otherwise leave till it is cooked – might take another hour for a big cake tin, less time for smaller cakes.
Take out of oven. Leave in tin till cool – the cake may break if you take it out hot.
Can be iced, or glazed with 4 tbsps jam or marmalade heated in a pan or microwave till runny then brushed on. But also good just as it is.
New Email Contact Address
I've just been hooked up to a new email address, jackief@dragnet.com.au
I've never given out my email address before – we have such poor phone lines out this way (curse Telstra forever) that our system just collapses if we get too many emails, or emails with lots of data, like big attachments, or, even worse, photos attached.
But this one is separate from my home and work system, so I'll see how it goes. But please, please don't send attachments or photos! And please, please don't send me lots of questions where the answers are in my gardening books, or ask for material for school projects that's already on jackiefrench.com. I'm not sure I can answer more queries than I do already! In fact I'm pretty sure I can't.
And if you just want to say 'hi' or it isn't urgent, please write the message in the guest book at jackiefrench.com, and I'll answer when I check the messages once a month.
The address above is just if there's something that's urgent or that I really need to hear. If there are too many emails for our phone lines to cope with I'll have to stop using it.
Schedule for the Next Few Months
Thursday to Saturday, 9–11 November
Ourimbah Children's Literature Festival at the Ourimbah Campus of the University of Newcastle. Which will be fantastic, if anyone can get to it – but as one of the patrons I'm biased. Come to think of it, no, I'm not – it really is an excellent programme. There are sessions for kids on Friday. On Saturday I'm speaking on 'You Are What You Eat' and 'Writing and Inspiration'
Sunday, 12 November
Launch of 'Josephine Wants to Dance' and performance at the Bungendore School Fair, plus a talk at the Wildcare Stall there
25 November
Open Garden Workshops at our place. The Fruitful Garden... how to grow 270 sorts of fruit in drought, heat and frost as well as providing a haven for wildlife. Limited places, bookings necessary. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for details. (Please don't contact us. We can't take the bookings – they have to go through the Open Garden Scheme)
January, Saturday 27
Talks at the Jindabyne Visitors Centre as part of their tenth anniversary celebrations.
February, 2007 Perth Literary Festival and talks at Port Hedland and Mount Newman in the Pilbara.
April, 2007
Open Garden Workshops at our place. The Fruitful Garden...how to grow 270 sorts of fruit in drought, heat and frost as well as providing a haven for wildlife. Limited places, bookings necessary. Contact the Open Garden Scheme for details. (Please don't contact us. We can't take the bookings – they have to go through the Open Garden Scheme)
Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 May 2007
Allwrite Festival, Adelaide.
August, 2007
Book Week talks in Sydney and Melbourne (just a few) Contact Lateral Learning for details (bookings@laterallearning.com.au).
New books
Josephine has leapt into the world – see above... and next weekend I go to see Bungendore Primary School give the first live Josephine performance. Can't wait!
Apart from Josephine, there are 'The Goat who Sailed the World', the true story of the goat who sailed with Captain Cook; 'Macbeth and Son' – a novel about the battles for the truth fought by a modern kid and his counterpart in eleventh century Scotland; 'My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken'; and 'Phredde and the Haunted Underpants'. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty varied bunch...
November in the Garden
What to Plant in November
One of the joys of gardening is growing plants that are hard to find in shops. The seeds of all of these should be available at your nursery:
. multicoloured corn in red, blue, black, orange and white to give away or pile in a decorative dish on the table
. gourds – they come in hundreds of shapes and sizes, for kids toys, ornaments, rattles or use the big ones as storage jars or bowls!
. the world's largest pumpkin! Look for packets of 'giant' pumpkin seeds – and watch the kids race down each day to see how much they've grown. (Don't be too disappointed when you come to eat these – they have been developed for the Halloween and The Biggest Pumpkin at the Show market which are quite separate from the pumpkins for eating market so they are often pretty second rate when it comes to taste and texture. Australians are pretty spoiled for good quality eating pumpkins so we have high standards when it comes to the best pumpkin for different cooking purposes – in scones, roasted, stuffed and baked, in sweet, spiced pies, as soup, in curries, risotto)
Hot climates
Food plants: Choko, lemon grass, sweet potato and passionfruit vines, Jerusalem artichokes, paw paw and Cape gooseberry seeds. Also the seeds of artichokes, basil, beans, beetroot, capsicum, carrots, celery, celtuce, chicory, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, tropical lettuce, melons, okra, parsley, peas, peanuts, pumpkin (not in humid areas), radish, rosellas, sweet corn, tomatoes and salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba.
Plants for beauty: Seeds or seedlings of ageratum, alyssum, amaranthus, carnations, celosia, coleus, cosmos, dichondra, echinops, erigeron, gaillardia, gazania, gloxinia, gourds, hymenosporum, impatiens, nasturtiums, phlox and salvia.
Cold and Temperate:
Food garden: Seed potatoes, sweet potatoes, choko, strawberries; seeds of artichokes, asparagus, basil, beans, beetroot, broccoli, burdock, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cauliflower, celery, celtuce, chicory, collards, coriander, corn salad, cress, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale, kohl rabi, leeks, lettuce, melons, okra, parsley, peanuts, pumpkin, radish, rosellas, salsify, scorzonera, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba, and zucchini.
Flower garden: Achillea, ageratum, alstromeria, alyssum, amaranthus, aster, balsam, bellis perennis, bells of Ireland, brachycome, calendula, candytuft, Canterbury bells, carnation, celosia, clarkia, cleome, coleus, coreopsis, columbines, cosmos, delphinium, dichondra, echinacea, echinops, erigeron, euphorbia, foxglove, gaillardia, gazania, globe amaranth, gloxinia, godetia, gypsophila, helichrysum, heliotrope, hellebores, honesty, lavender, marigolds, nasturtium, petunia, phlox, Flanders poppy, portulaca, rudbeckia, salpiglossis, salvia, scabious, sweet William, viola, zinnia and snapdragons.
Roses, Roses, Roses... the complete guide to growing the very best.
If you ask ten women for their favourite flower, nine of them will say 'roses'... and the tenth will probably pause and say, '... and roses too.'
Wild roses were nature's lushest bloom, and humans have been breeding them to make them even more glorious for over two thousand years. For centuries the only flower grown in peasants' gardens from England to China would be a rose bush.
Which means roses are very easy to grow. Even in a drought your roses will bloom and bloom. In fact especially in a drought – roses love sunlight, and they get plenty of that in a drought. Give them a weekly water too, a generous mulch and a nice feed every spring and you'll have flush after flush of flowers.
Where to plant your roses:
In full sun!
On the other hand, some gardens – like ours – don't have much sunlight, because I've gone wild planting shrubs and trees. So I grow rambling roses and pillar roses instead that climb up trees till they reach the sunlight. Every spring we have glorious canopies of roses above our heads, sprinkling petals down. Magic.
Roses will also climb along a fence or up a pergola or across a wall of your house. But you do need to choose the right ones, not just for your climate but for the spot where they're going to go. Ask the kindly – or at least profit-watching – staff at the nearest nursery to help you choose the ones you need.
There are also roses that tolerate shade. See below.
Which rose?
These days roses have been bred for a purpose. Hybrid teas produce long-stemmed roses, perfect for cutting and keeping in a vase. Floribundas are bushier roses, with a more attractively-shaped shrub, and masses of blooms for about nine months of the year. Their flowers have shorter, often lax, stems that only really look great in small vases.
But there are also lots of other types of rose: tea roses and bourbon roses and moss roses and wild roses, as well as modern roses that have been bred to look and smell like our idea of an old-fashioned rose, big bosomed and fragrant.
And then there are patio roses, bred to – you guessed it – go well on patios. And carpet roses, bred to form hardy carpets of flowers for about nine months of the year. And miniatures and...
... and I could go on for a whole book.
The best solution for novice rose growers is to work out:
. where will your rose go?
. how big should it grow?
. what colour?
And ask! Just work out where you want your roses, find a good nursery and browse!
P.S. One caution when falling in love with a rose at the garden centre (although no one ever takes advice when in the grip) – the close-up photos of individual roses that they print on labels don't give you much idea of how the shrub looks in the garden, whether it shrugs off black spot and if the buds continue to open when it is wet and stormy or turn into mildewed brown lumps, the balance between foliage and flowers (both colour and size), whether the dead roses hang around looking like screwed up, used tissues or fall cleanly off the bush.
Over the years you will find that some of these colour your feelings far more than those little photo promises. Not to mention perfume, autumn foliage, hips...
The Best Roses to Choose
Hybrid teas
Good points: The best long-stemmed cut flowers, flushes of flowers all season.
Bad points: Can be rather gawky so they lack grace when seen as a shrub. Need pruning and spraying.
Best look: As a formal rose garden surrounded by low growing annuals, lavender or salvias to hide the bare thorny trunks.
How to cosset: Prune in winter – i.e. cut back each branch by about a third, and cut out a third of the branches. Feed every month except in winter for lots of flushes of roses.
Loved by: Those who fall in love with the great gorgeous flowers or want to rescue a dead stick from the supermarket...
My favourites: Sutter's Gold, Peace, Papa Meilland, Mr. Lincoln, Gold Bunny and Diamond Jubilee.
Floribundas
Good points: Flower and flower and flower. They don't need much pruning except to cut out dead or straggly stuff, and one feeding a year is usually enough too.
Bad points: Floppy stems, though with care they can look great in bud vases or poked into bouquets.
Best look: As part of a formal rose garden, or in cottage gardens or as a rose hedge.
How to cosset: Trim out straggly or thin stems twice a year to keep the bushes neat; mulch and feed in spring.
Loved by: Secret romantics.
My favourites: Flower Carpet, Golden Touch, Bonica, Iceberg, Queen Elizabeth (although this is very vertical – requires low plantings to balance the upright nature of the shrub), Sexy Rexy, Sea Foam, White Meidiland, Heidesommer and Marlena
Rambling Roses
Good points: Grow FAST, laugh at droughts, low maintenance and masses of flowers.
Bad points: Neatness fanatics may think they look messy. Many are once flowering – although to make up for that a lot have a great display of autumn hips.
Best look: Rambling over fences, pergolas, over sheds and verandahs.
How to cosset: No need to prune (except to stop your place looking like Sleeping Beauty's castle); feed when you get around to it.
Loved by: Creative dreamers.
Possibles: Climbing Albertine, yellow or white Banksia, Mermaid, Wedding Day, Bloomfield Courage and Francis E. Lester.
Pillar Roses
Good points: Pillar roses are climbers with one or more straightish stems – a neater look than ramblers.
Bad points: Ramblers mostly find their own support – pillar roses need to be attached to posts or pergolas, or twisted around them.
Best look: Verandah posts and pergolas.
How to cosset: Prune straight after flowering, NOT in winter
Loved by: Generous organisers
My favourites: Climbing Gold Bunny,
Handel, Ophelia and
Meg.
David Austin and old-fashioned roses
Old-fashioned roses vary from single China or rugosa roses to droopy cabbage type blooms - most visitors to our garden don't realise that our China and Rugosa roses ARE roses, they look so different from the more familiar hybrid teas. David Austin roses look and smell like old-fashioned roses, but have the shape, hardiness and free-blooming generosity of modern roses.
Good points: Usually more graceful bushes than hybrid teas.
Bad points: May need regular pruning and spraying for black spot.
Best look: Anywhere, suit formal rose gardens, cottage gardens or just to turn a corner of your garden into flowers and beauty.
How to cosset: As for hybrid teas.
Loved by: Those who love adventure and new experiences
My Favourites: Wife of Bath, Cressida... blast it, every one of them...
Weeping roses
Good points: Stunning display when flowering.
Bad points: May only bloom once a year; may look boring when not in bloom; difficult to mow or weed under.
Best look: By themselves surrounded by lawn or low-growing flowers.
How to cosset: Trim thin or straggly growth; do NOT cut back branches – either cut them out entirely or leave them alone.
Loved by: Planners and perfectionists.
Standard roses
Good points: Can make a stunning architectural effect in a garden
Bad points: Stems may snap – the top graft is often a weak point so avoid planting in windy areas; avoid in backyard cricket or skateboarding situations.
Best look: Along paths and avenues. Also look great in a line of pots on a patio, with flowers spilling out of the pot below.
How to cosset: As for hybrid teas.
Loved by: Those who like to do things PROPERLY.
Ground cover roses
Good points: Flower and flower; hardy.
Bad points: Weeding is difficult so the initial thorough preparation and mulching of the bed is essential.
Best look: En masse down banks, spilling out of pots and hanging baskets or under taller roses.
How to cosset: Feed twice a year; most don't need pruning or spraying; weed or mulch thoroughly.
Loved by: Rose addicts who like every square millimetres covered in roses.
Patio Roses
Good points: Hardy, long flowering, smaller bushes.
Bad points: Roses did NOT evolve to grow on patios, so you'll have to repot with fresh soil every two years and feed and water well.
Best look: On patios! Most patio roses tolerate some shade, but avoid baking deserts or full shade.
How to cosset: Use water-retaining crystals, slow release fertiliser, mulch with coconut fibre, repot before potting mix turns to concrete; may need spraying for black spot.
Loved by: Rose lovers with a patio.
Best roses in the shade
Yes, you can grow roses in the shade – SOME roses. Others just slowly wither away. Look for the magic words 'shade tolerant' on the label. There are shade tolerant ground covers, hybrid teas and floribundas. My solution to an increasingly shady garden is to grow ramblers up my fruit trees and let THEM find the sunlight. Also look for the new 'patio roses' especially bred for shady patios.
Good points: Roses AND lots of shrubs trees and shade.
Bad points: Roses in shade never produce as many flowers as roses grown in sunlight.
How to cosset: Shade may mean competition with other roots for food and moisture. Be liberal with both.
My favourite: Shady Lady.
Some really fascinating roses:
If you want to have the most interesting rose garden around try Rosa mutabilis (each flower changes from red through pink, yellow, cream and white), Viridiflora (green flowers), Rose of Madeira (the fiercest, biggest, reddest hooked thorns you have ever seen – I grow one just to teach the possums that roses fight back) or Rosa moyesii with its incredible elongated scarlet hips in winter.
Roses for the Sub-Tropics:
Yes, they exist! Pop down to your local nursery and ask. You may find Gold Bunny, Satchmo, Angel Face, Just Joey, Iceberg, Altissimo, but there should be others too.
Winter Flowering Roses: Go for the new carpet roses, Iceberg, the Aussie-bred rose Lorraine Lee, Rosa mutabilis, Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison, Mrs Fred Danks.
Thornless roses: White or yellow banksia roses, Renae, Pinkie, Crepuscule, Zephine Drouhin... and there are others too.
Some More About My Favourites Because I Can't Resist (roses do that to you...)
Rosa mutabilis – which most people don't realise is a rose when they see it in our garden - it almost always has masses of single butterfly-like flowers that change from pink to red to cream to orange. It sounds horrible but isn't.
Berlina: This hybrid musk has sprays of small pink flowers all summer, even the one with temperatures over 40 for three months and no rain or watering for nine months! It even has a few flowers in winter.
Climbing Albertine: Three months of massed roses over our front fence every spring to early summer. No perfume and they don't flower again till next year, but they are possibly the greatest joy in my garden. Albertine will also happily climb up a tree. They look particularly stunning up red-leafed plum trees.
Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison: Fruit salad scent, perfect old fashioned pink roses, and they even have a few blooms in mid-winter. A joy of a rose. The climbing version seems to be a freer flowering and less fussy plant than the original shrub.
Iceberg: Iceberg is the world's most planted rose. I find it a bit boring, but I love the climbing version. It wanders along the pergola outside my study, mingling with passionfruit and clematis. There's now a pink form too. Iceberg is planted so often for a reason – flush after flush of flowers for about nine months of the year, fast growing, hardy, disease resistant. They're not flowers to stick in great tall vases, but a nosegay of them does look pretty in an old teapot on the kitchen table.
Gold Bunny: A million (well, it seems like that) gold blooms all summer.
When to Plant your Roses
Now! i.e. spring to early summer. Because most roses bloom most magnificently in spring you can see them in bloom to choose which one you want to buy.
Winter is the time to buy bare rooted roses, ones that have been dug out of the ground when they are leafless. But you can also buy roses in pots at any time of the year and plant them. Just remember to keep them moist for a few months after planting, especially if it's very hot, or even give them a temporary shade cloth shelter for a month or two in a very hot climate, till their disturbed roots recover.
What to Feed Your Roses
Mulch: A good mulch – lucerne is the classic rose mulch and roses really do brilliantly with it. You can buy bales of lucerne, or much easier, compressed lucerne in various forms.
Sugar cane mulch is also good for roses, as is pea straw, but NOT tan bark or any mulch that takes ages to break down, as earwigs will love it, and then climb up and eat your rose buds. Stick to mulches that break down fairly fast and stay moist, and replace them when they look thin.
Rose tucker: You can buy special rose food, or use a good organic mix like Dynamic Lifter or Charlie Carp or any of a dozen others. I like old hen manure, stuff that's broken down so it doesn't pong and won't burn the roots. A seaweed-based foliar fertiliser – one that's applied to the leaves – will also help prevent black spot and help the rose cope with cold and heat too.
Why Roses May Fail to Bloom Abundantly
Shade
Roses won't bloom in dense shade. Check they haven't been overgrown by a tree or shrub. Roses grown against the house wall may be shaded by the eaves as they grow taller. Prune them lower – or cut away vegetation around them.
Starvation
If the flowers are small or lose their petals after a day or two or there aren't regular spurts of new growth and buds and if the leaves are small and pale, your rose is hungry. Feed it a scatter of Dynamic Lifter every two weeks or blood and bone or a proprietary rose food dusted over a good mulch. (On the other hand too much nitrogen leads to masses of green leaves and fewer flowers... just like a child fed chips and iceblocks will have more than enough calories - but never make a champion.)
Earwigs
Earwigs love rose buds. Put out crumpled newspaper for the earwigs to shelter in during the day. Every second day stuff the old paper (and its cargo of earwigs) in the rubbish or compost or worm farm and put out new stuff. A thick band of tree grease – or any grease – will stop earwigs climbing up.
Too Many Rose Hips
If you leave the dead flowers and rose hips on the bush there'll be a long time between rose 'flushes' as the bush matures its seed. Prune off roses as soon as they've finished flowering – with a little extra stem as well. This constant mini pruning will stimulate new growth – and masses of blooms. Unless of course it is an old variety that only flowers the once anyway – then you may as well have the hips.
Other rose problems include: root rots (give the bush a shove. If it seems shaky you have a problem), waterlogging, not enough new growth (hybrid tea roses for example bloom on new growth – and if the rose is on a diet it won't bloom), too much or too little pruning (some roses like Constance Spry flower on last year's wood; most hybrid teas need the new shoots that are stimulated by regular pruning to give a splashy display).
Black Spot
This is THE rose disease especially in coastal areas with high humidity. In mild cases the leaves just look splotchy and ugly; in really severe cases the shoots die back or the rose bush can lose nearly all its leaves and won't flower either.
Black spot spores overwinter either on those deadish leaves that stay on the bush or on the soil, and incubate when there's dew or other moisture on the foliage for four hours or more. (This means that in wet or humid weather your rose bushes need umbrellas to stay free of black spot.)
Cover the bare soil by spreading with thick mulch every spring or late winter. Prune off ALL old foliage every winter and spray with Bordeaux spray. There are several commercial fungicides that can be sprayed every three weeks on the leaves during summer.
My response to black spot is to pretend I haven't noticed the odd yellow and black blotched leaf. But if the bush is dying (which can happen) I spray with 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda mixed into 1 cup of milk and 3 cups water, every three days, both under and on top of leaves.
Well-fed roses will outgrow black spot – at least most of them will (if you have a black spot prone bourbon rose like La Reine Victoria, for example, you'll need to stick it in a raincoat to stop it getting black spot entirely). Take a look at your spotty rose bushes. The old leaves will look awful - but the newest leaves will be unblemished. Remember too that in most varieties the more new growth, the more roses.
How to prune an average rose (in other words a hybrid tea).
Wait till August, just before the world starts to warm up. Now trim back all straggly stuff; then cut back every branch by about a third, with each cut just below an outward facing bud. (I know this sounds complicated – but once you have your secateurs in hand you'll work it out.)
Pruning other roses
Prune climbing rose after they've flowered; many rambling roses don't need pruning at all – just hacking back sometimes so you and the rose can both fit in the garden. When in doubt – ASK when you buy the rose what care it needs.
Useful tip: Always keep your rose labels if you are a beginner – it will tell you if it's a hybrid tea or other type of rose, and possibly how to care for it too.
Four Tips For Perfect Roses.
1. FEED roses well. More new growth means more flowers. I combine mulch with Dynamic Lifter or our own hen manure every spring (If I get around to it) – but most proprietary rose foods are good in small regular amounts if combined with mulch for organic matter.
Don't feed roses though if the soil is dry. That goes for any plant – too much tucker in a drought can kill them.
2. PICK your roses often. Picking stimulates new growth. Always 'deadhead' old flowers so the bush doesn't have to put all its energy into ripening rose seeds in the hips, except where you have a once-only flowering rose which produces lovely hips as part of its garden-worthiness or at the end of the season as the frosts approach and you want to harvest the hips for jam, jelly or tea. Dead roses also harbour disease.
3. MOW the grass around your roses and only plant low growing flowers around them – or, even better, surround them with a mat of flowering chamomile or thyme. Crowding your roses will increase humidity and black spot. (Planting LOTS of garlic under your roses may help reduce black spot too.)
4. SPRAY roses with Bordeaux in winter to reduce black spot - and if it appears, feed your roses extra well - new growth is more black spot resistant.
Having Fun with Roses
Roses as Cut Flowers
If you have ever wondered why florist roses last for weeks and yours wilt within a few days, it's because they've been picked correctly.
Rose buds should be cut as soon as they show colour preferably in the late afternoon. Scrape the ends for 2 - 3 cms and split them. Stand the ends in hot water for 30 seconds, then place in a bucket of water overnight before arranging the next morning. Well-fed roses last longer too.
Add floral preservative, bought from your florist or garden centre, to the water. Your roses will last twice as long. Don't stand the vase near a hot sunny window, or by the heater either, or next to the stove!
Wilted Roses
If your roses are just beginning to wilt, place in about 5 cm boiling water and leave to cool, then cut off 5 cm of the stem – the boiled bit – and place the rose up to its head in tepid water for a couple of hours. But a really droopy rose won't recover.
Rose Perfume
You need:
Half a cup of vodka
At least 12 cups of fragrant rose petals, plus other scents – lavender flowers, jasmine flowers, dried lemon or orange rind (not fresh unless you have a passion for interesting fungal growths). (It's said that the only really aphrodisiac scent for men is cinnamon or mixed spice, though I suspect roast lamb has its place as well, though not in perfume.)
Half a cup mineral water
Cover the scented material with the alcohol in a glass jar with the lid on. (Make sure the jar doesn't smell of Vegemite or pickles or last week's mango chutney). Don't be too ambitious: Arpège wasn't built in a day. Keep the recipe simple if you're a novice.
Leave for three hours. Strain out the petals, sniff.
If the perfume isn't strong enough – and unless you have used very strongly-scented blooms like lavender or jasmine – it won't be. Add more petals or leaves to the faintly-scented vodka and repeat three or even ten times till you have a truly fragrant brew.
Now add the mineral water.
Use within a month, as the scent may fade or change, so you end up with the smell of compost instead of roses behind your ears.
Herbal bath gel
Ingredients:
1 cup peppermint mint
1 cup of lemon verbena
1 cup boiling water.
3 drops of lemon or rose oil
1 drop Tabasco sauce
2 tbsp gelatine
1 dessertspoon shampoo
3 dessertspoons aloe vera gel
Simmer herbs and water for five minutes. Strain and while the
liquid is still hot mix in gelatine. Leave to set. Add one
dessertspoon shampoo and three dessertspoons of aloe vera gel.
Store in an empty shampoo bottle. Squirt a little into your
hand in the shower and use instead of soap. (I keep ours for days
when I'm feeling blah and need a treat.)
(N.B. Test a little first to make sure your skin isn't sensitive
to any of the ingredients.)
Not Quite Cleopatra's Moisturising Cleanser
2 tablespoons honey
2 tbsps powdered milk (or 1 cup ass's milk simmered for an hour)
6 tbsps glycerine (from the supermarket)
1 teaspoon rose oil
2 tbsps of virgin olive oil, almond oil or avocado oil (from supermarket or health food store)
Heat the honey till it's runny. This should take no more than three seconds, or the kitchen will be full of burnt honey fumes and your fire alarm will start screeching. Take the pan off the heat and mix in the powdered milk (the milk doesn't dissolve as well if you don't heat the honey). Mix in the other ingredients.
To use: Smooth on; wash off.
Cooking with Roses
Rosewater
Take very fragrant roses, cut off the white at the bottom of the petals (this tastes bitter), place in a jar and JUST cover with vodka or brandy. (Brandy will add its own flavour; use vodka for a purer rose taste). Leave in a dark cupboard for an hour, then strain and add new petals. Repeat till you can smell the rose scent as soon as you open the jar – then use liberally wherever you might use vanilla essence.
Rosewater smells divine but the home-made version will only last a few weeks – the scent will change and may become unpleasant.
Rose Syrup
rose petals
sugar
lemon juice
water
Take a pan of rose petals, the more perfumed the better. Just cover with water, bring to the boil, take off the heat at once and leave overnight. Mash the petals into a mash with your fingers then strain. Add an equal volume (not weight) of sugar to the water and a squeeze of lemon juice. Simmer till the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Take off the heat, bottle and seal.
Rose Cream Tart
Ingredients:
250 gm plain flour
180 gm unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons iced water
Filling:
150 gm caster sugar
1 cup rose petals
600 ml cream
9 egg yolks
100 ml lemon juice
Rub the butter into the flour till crumbly. Mix in the iced water, knead well and leave wrapped in plastic in the fridge for an hour. Then roll out, fill a pie dish and bake blind at 200ºC for 10 minutes. The pastry will keep its shape best if you place a layer of dried beans or uncooked rice at the bottom while it cooks.
To make the filling, place sugar, petals, cream and egg yolks in a blender till smooth. Pour into the pie crust, bake at 180º C for 25 minutes, or till just set. Dust with icing sugar, and serve hot.
Try fetta and rose petals in oil. This keeps for at least six months, so you can haul the jars out of the larder and gaze at the rose petals whenever you need reminding of summer and bees.
Ingredients:
1 cup deep red (preferably) rose petals, with the bitter white bit at the end snipped off
2 cups fetta, in chunks
1 teaspoon rose water (optional)
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
olives (optional)
olive oil
Place petals, fetta, rose water and zest in a jar (make sure the petals are generally scattered through, not in a layer at the bottom.
Fill right to the top with olive oil. Put the lid on. Leave in a cool place (not the fridge or the oil will turn cloudy) for at least a week, if not a month or two.
Makes a good gift or a joyous lunch with excellent bread - just spear out the fetta and smear the scented oil and soggy petals on the bread.
Rosehips
Rosehips should be gathered after a frost when they are ripe and deep red. They are very easy to dry – just place them in the sun for a few days – or leave them on the bush to dry.
Rose Hip Marmalade
Boil three cups of rose hips till tender in three cups of water. Sieve. Add an equal weight of sugar and the juice of three lemons to the juice. Boil till it gels.
Sauce Eglantine
This was one of Queen Victoria's favourites.
Boil six cups rose hips in as little water as possible. Press through a sieve. Add one cup white sugar and the juice of three lemons. Simmer till thick. Serve with roast mutton or any fried food.
Rose Hip Syrup
This is high in vitamin C and was the traditional 'spoonful of medicine' to keep children healthy over winter. The less you cook your syrup, the fewer vitamins will be lost.
Ingredients:
6 cups rose hips
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
juice of two lemons
Boil the sugar, water and lemon juice for ten minutes, stirring well till the sugar is dissolved. Chop the rose hips as finely as possible – there is no need to top and tail them or remove the seeds – and place them in a warmed jar, then pour on the boiling syrup. Put the lid on the jar at once.
Shake the rose hips in their syrup every day for at least three weeks, then strain, rebottle and store in a cool dark place.
Quick Gifts for Christmas
Well, quick to make anyway... they do have to be prepared a month before.
A Giant Basket
You know those gorgeous great hanging baskets that sell for about $120? Well, you can do it yourself for about $15. Buy the basket, liner and potting mix, and plant seedlings of some fast bloomer like petunias, vincas or nasturtiums, or herbs like thyme or prostrate rosemary or aloe vera that tolerate a bit if drying out occasionally. You can add a few allysum seedlings for froth or colour too. Another option is a selection of fast-growing succulents.
In four weeks time they will be a VERY nice present.
Chocolate Foot Balm (or After Dinner Mint Lip Balm)
Ingredients
half a cup olive oil
1 teaspoon beeswax (from a BEESWAX, not parrafin, candle)
2 teaspoon cooking chocolate
half a teaspoon peppermint oil (peppermint essence is alcohol based and not nearly as effective – most of it evaporates)
Melt the wax and oil in a saucepan CAREFULLY – it can really burn if you spill it. Add the chocolate, stir well, take off the heat when melted.
Scoop off the brown scum (don't worry, the chocolate scent lingers). Add the peppermint oil (if you use essence be careful – it will spit as it touches the hot oil).
Pour into WARM small jars (cold jars may crack).
Dab on feet, especially heels, elbows or cracked lips. Beware of wombats. (They're fascinated by the smell.)
Gardener's Gloop
Ingredients:
1 cup marmalade, strained
2 dessertspoons good detergent
Mix and bottle. Use a dab to clean your hands when they're really grotty; it's bloody good stuff.
Chocolate Gum or Grape Leaves
Ingredients:
cooking chocolate
Cointreau
chopped macadamias
peppermint essence
Clean, dry, long and perfect gum or grape leaves.
Melt chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave; take off heat, stir in a few drops of flavouring or nuts; press gum leaf into chocolate to coat it on one side. Leave to set; peel off the leaf... and you have a chocolate gum leaf.
N.B. Do not eat the gum leaf unless you are a koala.
Christmas Pot-Pourri
Ingredients:
2 sticks cinnamon bark
half a cup of dried cloves
2 cups gum nuts
1 cup mistletoe leaves
scented oil to sprinkle on gum nuts
a few dried petals just for colour
Mix and package (i.e. in cellophane or an attractive bowl)
Linen Bags
Ingredients:
1 stick of cinnamon
1 cup whole black pepper
1 cup dried cloves
1 cup bay leaves
6 cups lavender flowers
5 cups rock salt.
a few drops of perfumed oil
Sew into small bags and tie up the top with a ribbon.
Rock Pot Pourri
You need nice-looking smooth pebbles for this, not sharp edged ugly ones.
Wash the rocks. Dry them. Place in a jar. Make sure the jar is no more than half full. Add your favourite scented oils – I like a combination of rose oil and lavender with maybe a little lemon oil too. You will need about a tablespoon of oil for a 500 gm jar. Put the lid on firmly. Keep in a warm place – a sunny windowsill is ideal. Shake gently once or twice a day. The oil will be gradually absorbed by the rocks.
The day before Christmas arrange in a decorative bowl and wrap. The rocks will gradually lose their perfume, but should still be faintly sweet smelling a year later.