Author Archives: Jennifer Stackhouse

Jennifer Stackhouse

About Jennifer Stackhouse

Jennifer Stackhouse is a horticulturist and garden writer who lives on a small property at Kurmond, NSW with her family, dogs, cats, chooks & the neighbour’s horses. She was, until recently, editor of ABC Gardening Australia magazine & is the author & editor of many books on gardening, including co-authoring ‘The Organic Guide to Edible Gardens’, ‘Planting Techniques’ & ‘My Gardening Year’. She is often heard on radio & at garden shows answering garden queries.

Ripe feijoas Bounty of autumn – limes, herbs & feijoas

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WELL I’m in hog heaven. I’ve had a brilliant day scavenging fresh produce and then cooking the proceeds. I scored my first scavenge at a committee meeting for the Sydney group of Open Gardens Australia. Committee Chair Ros Andrews, had brought a basket of limes to share out. The committee meets at Ryde College of TAFE. In the kitchen adjacent to the committee room was a box of chokos pleading to be taken home. I took a couple, adding them to my stash.
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powderymildewladybird1 The vagaries of vegies

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There’s a man drought here and I don’t know what to do. I don’t think eHarmony has the answer, nor RSVP. This particular man drought has struck in the vegie patch, where my yellow button squash are producing nothing but female flowers. I have five plants and they are all laden with flowers but there’s no maturing fruit. Continue reading →

RoyalPoincianaFlower Is that a poinciana?

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Gosh that looks like a poinciana I thought, as I wandered along the road near my house taking the dogs for their morning walk. It must be an Illawarra flame tree, they’re still flowering. As we got closer it kept looking more and more like a poinciana and sure enough, as I stood next to it I saw that it was. There were the unmistakable orange and red flowers and ferny green leaves. Continue reading →

Wollemi pine Christmas tree Wollemi pine has its Epiphany

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Epiphany. January 6. The 12th day of Christmas. The day when all the decorations come down. I hope the stores are reading this blog. Although, I heard someone say the Easter decorations are already going up. Surely not! For my Christmas tree this year I used a Wollemi pine and it has been just right. Not too big, lots of cascading branches and a good green colour. Continue reading →

Healthy ash foliage Tree diseases

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I’ve just been listening to a chilling account of the spread through Europe of ash dieback. It was a special on BBC Radio 4 and part of a feature on trees.It is suspected that ash dieback (Chalara fraxinea) found a foothold in Europe some 20 years ago, probably due to spore blowing in from parts of Asia. Vast areas of ash forest, including plantation and natural forests, have been denuded of these trees. Continue reading →