Moonlight White Gardens

It's nice to have a white garden, for enjoying on moonlit nights. What dry climate plants show up well in the moonlight?

Irises can be tough, once established. I saw a whole paddock of white iris growing outside Grenfell, once, in a state of abandon. They'd multiplied by themselves, for decades, somehow, without much rainfall or care.

African Daisies can be tough. I've noticed that. The white-petalled ones show up well at night. You can grow them from cuttings in a jar of water, from late autumn through winter. Just keep them on your window sill, and change the water once a week. Plant the rooted cuttings out in spring, and water them well for the first summer, so as they become established.

Wormwoods are a must-have. They are silver-leafed, and show up well in the moonlight. Artemisia arborescens is probably the toughest wormwood of all. You'll find it growing near the ruins of abandoned farmhouses. It's as tough as old boots. It has a nice scent, too, when you crush the leaves. It's soft to the touch, as well.

Again, you can grow it easily in jars of water indoors from autumn through winter, to be planted out in spring. Alternatively, you can cut dozens of good-sized cuttings in a wet winter. Get around your grounds with a long metal tent peg, and bore deep holes as you go. Fill each ''drilling'' with a wormwood stick, and poke the dirt back in around it, as best you can. Pour a bucket of water on each cutting, and then forget about them, leaving them to root--or not!!--with only the wet soil and any further rainfall to get them through. If you are lucky enough to have a wet winter, and a wet spring, some of those cuttings will root, and, indeed, some can even, somehow, survive a first summer, on rainfall alone, without being tended to much. Of course, it depends on exactly how much rainfall they get in that first summer that will guarantee whether they make it or not. They'll look shocking, for that first year, but if they make it through, alone, you'll have them for years and years as friendly silver companions. I have dotted the sticks around my garden, in wet winters, for years now, and am now lucky enough to have many of them in various stages of growth--all over my property. Silvers, blues and greys are restful on the eyes, in the daytime, too.

An interesting thing about wormwoods is that certain birds, including currawongs, seem to use the leaves as a medicine--possibly an anthelmitic. They mash the pecked-off leaf with water, in the shallow part of the stream, or a birdbath, and then sort of gargle it around in their throats. I don't know if they swallow the juice or not. I suspect so; that they purge themselves, somehow, with it. This self-medicating, by birds, is interesting, and reminds me of Yogi Ramacharaka's amusing account of clever Indian ibis giving themselves rectal douches with their very long beaks.

Senecios are another silver-leafed plant that shows up well in the moonlight. They are very easy to grow from cuttings, too, directly into the soil. Go to a well established senecio, and lift up some of the older branches around it that have been lying on the ground--the ones with all rotting leaves on them. Look carefully, and you'll find that the branches have roots on them where they were moist and touching the soil. Clip off some of those rooted branches and plant them out, and they should do well. Alas, senecios would appear a little more thirsty than are their relatives, the wormwoods, but they are still pretty tough. You can keep them hanging on through a drought summer with a little extra water, and mulching will help, as well as soil improvement at planting time. Senecios come in different colours, so look around. You can get them with pink blooms, or blue- or lemon- coloured. They are usually grown for their silver leaf display, but if you plant masses of them, the floral display is very nice. As I write this, I have hundreds of pink senecios giving a lovely display--silver leaves and pink blooms. Very nice. Again, soft to the fingertips as well. (Touch should always be a consideration in any garden!)

Silver-leafed wattles are a must for a moonlight ''white garden''. Acacia podalyriifolia is very tough, and gives plenty of strong yellow colour for the daytime cottage garden, as well. Check out your local forestry commission nursery for other useful silver/grey wattles, of varying sizes and shapes and habits.

Other tough plants that spring to mind, for a moonlit white or silver garden, are:

Agapanthus--these bulbs are very tough, and the white variety will show up well in the moonlight.

Allium--quite a tough little bulb. Spring blooms can later be dried, and used as perpetuelles.

Almond blossom--nice white blooms from late winter to early spring. Honeyeaters like almond blossoms, as well. Look fantastic on moonlit nights. Cockatoos will come to crack the nuts open for food.

Belladonnas--look around bulb suppliers for the white variety. Beautiful perfume, and make a change from the ubiquitous pinks.

Freesias--white- and cream-coloured ones give nice perfume in spring.

Horehound--nice fragrant little silver/blue/grey herb. Very tough.

Jujube--lovely silver leaves. Exquisite perfume from tiny orange flowers. A must. Very drought resistant.

Lucerne trees--nice white, slightly fragrant blooms in spring. Honeyeaters value them. Some trees are more drought-resistant than others, so save seeds of ones in your district that are doing well in abandoned places.

Olive--tough tree whose leaves have attractive silver underlinings.

Plum blossom--nice source of white spring blooms. Most plums are pretty tough. You see 'em growing by roadsides where people tossed the seeds from car windows.

Tritelias--small bulbs that give white star-shaped flowers in spring.

White bougainvillea--remarkably drought-resistant, once established, but you'll probably opt for a flaming purple one, instead, to light up your garden in the daytime. I wouldn't blame you!

White jacaranda--not as showy, in the daytime, as a purple jacaranda, but nice on a moonlit night, with white petals on the path. Very tough trees, once established.

White oleanders--give good drought resistant summer blooms. Very tough, indeed!

Moon Wallabies

Imagine walking in the moonlight, with Willie Wagtail singin', as he's wont to do on full moon nights. Thousands of frogs are croakin' down in the reedy ditches by the railway line. You walk in your garden and albino wallabies are shimmering in the light. The white horses in the field are galloping. The African daisies are clearly visible. The wormwoods shine silver....

Silky Oaks

Why aren't silky oaks available in more colours and shades? Nurseries just usually sell the same old orange ones. I did read that there is a white one available, but I've never seen it for sale. Surely, by now, there should be all sorts of shades available?

Yes, they are very beautiful--just as the plain, ubiquitous orange garden variety type--but imagine stands of silky oaks that include several shades of orange; or reds; or lemons; or apricots; or pinks or creams. It should be possible. For some reason, they don't seem to do much creative breeding work with the toughest and most useful--in the sense of drought-resistance--of plants. Dry climate cottage gardeners need as big a colour palette as possible! We don't want an infinite choice of thirsty multi-coloured petunias! We want drought-hardy colour that we can make good use of. Things that will stand the heat and dryness. (Silky Oaks may be very popular as an indoor plant, in the Northern Hemisphere; but if they have created more colour shades up there, they are most certainly not readily available, here, Down Under!!!)

Silky Oaks--Grevillea robusta--are very much tougher, and longer-lived, than the smaller grevilleas available. I've often thought it would be interesting to graft some small grevillea types onto a big Silky Oak, just for the fun of it. Certainly, the honeyeating birds find them an important food source.

Silky Oaks are very fast-growing with extra water to begin with. As they get huger and well-established, you won't have to worry too much about them, then. When ablaze with orange bloom, and shimmering in the morning sunlight and haze, they certainly look wonderful amongst other more lime green trees. The contrast is quite spectacular, and gives an almost citrus feel to the landscape--all tangy like biting on a combo salad of limes and cumquats.

I have also come to observe how marvellous the orange blooms look against a background of grey sky--very dramatic effect, indeed, before a thunderstorm. The arrangement of the brushes, too, can remind one of Chinese and Japanese landscape art. Silky Oaks tend not to have the flowers evenly dispersed all over the tree, making them look a bit scruffy, wild and haphazard. Plant breeders could do some work to make them bloom more evenly. Varieties with a longer flowering season would also be a treat for hungry birds eager for nectar. (If they can do this with bottlebrushes, and small grevilleas, they can do it with Grevillea robusta, too!) These trees are a must for native birds, and they don't catch on fire as readily as eucalyptus trees do. They are big and mighty and give your garden some good structure to work within and around.

Periwinkles

Periwinkle--Vinca major--are great for dry climate cottage gardens. True, they can run wild, but it has been my observation that they will not cross under a regularly walked-on clay path; so they can be confined by a path alone. They don't self-seed--in dry inland areas, at least. I haven't seen any come up in situations other than where they were originally planted.

Plant breeders tend not to bother with plants that can survive well without lots of water, chemicals and sprays--probably because the cu$tomer$ won't need to come back!!!; so it's quite surprising, when you think about it, that there are not more cultivars and hybrids of periwinkle around. They do a lot of work with the thirstier Vinca rosea, for example; but there's no reason why (tough old) Vinca major could not be worked up into umpteen different colours and shades; and have that wonderful drought-resistance. (They could even breed non-invasive varieties!) Why bother with a water-guzzling lawn, when a carpet of periwinkle stays green and glossy, long after the grass has turned white? It will eventually die back for summer, but you can then mow it down for the summertime, and it will return again in winter.

Vinca major always puts on a marvellous spring show of beautiful blue propeller-shaped flowers--yes, it's related to oleanders and frangipanis. There may be pink or white or double-petalled varieties around; but you don't see them very often. Many people consider it a weed. It certainly grows along dunes and beaches along the coast. You sometimes see it in country cemeteries. There is, too, a variegated variety you see around in people's gardens. These do make a nice leaf contrast to the plain-leafed type.

Periwinkle is a most undervalued plant. It can survive just on rainfall, once established. Of course, it will give better, more and larger blooms if it has rain or watering at blooming time.

Wild Fennel

What is wrong with wild fennel? It's a great drought-resistant plant; and has soft fern-like foliage. It's got pretty yellow flowers that attract useful wasps to the garden. It gives off a beautiful aniseed-like scent. It grows in very impoverished conditions. It's an edible herb (--but please don't mistake it for hemlock, which is a close relative that looks very similar!!!).

There's a certain rattly wooden bridge my boyfriend and I drive over, and we love it on hot summer days, because the scent of the blooming fennel wafting up is so sweet and delicate. Very nice. Like some exotic spice.

We used to observe it growing in the top end of Centennial Park, in Sydney, too, and admired its attractive yellow blooms. It's great stuff, really, and could be part of the dry climate gardener's colour pallette; just as wild chicory could be. (It's another fabulous roadside plant that is very underestimated. The blue dandelion-like rosette flowers of wild chicory also grow in very impoverished and dry roadside conditions.) I've always liked the pink blooms of wild salsify, too, but the roots from the wild plants are certainly too woody to eat as the tender root vegetable fine chefs work with.

Onionweed's *not* a problem!!!

Why do people hate onionweed so much? I think it is a beautiful little flower. It is not as glamorous as, say, a little white allium, or a snowflake; but it is pretty enough, nevertheless, in its own way. (We can't all be outstanding glamour-pusses, you know!) It also has quite a nice fragrance; though not very strong. It's nice in a vase with other flowers, and has its own delicate beauty.

City gardeners seem to hate it. I, however, think it could be a very useful dry climate cottage garden plant. Certainly it was more respected once, long ago. It's not so drought-hardy that it grows in the desert, but it does seem to be pretty tough where there's a little water to be had.

Around the river, in Forbes, NSW, it seems to thrive. And it's lovely to walk through countless thousands of them, there, as I have done. I think they are wonderful. I have no objection to them whatsoever, and wouldn't care less if they ''invaded'' my garden. Such an event would delight me no end.

Wild Opium

Opium poppies--Papaver somniferum--used to be quite common in Australian cottage gardens in the old days. They were brought by early settlers; probably both Europeans and Orientals.

When I was a child, in Orange, NSW, fifty years ago, we had big opium poppies growing wild in our paddock. We also had the little Flanders Field-type ones, as well; 'cepting they were more often various shades of salmon pink than the brightest red sold on Poppy Day.

The big pink and strawberry jam-red opium poppies were usually sticky with aphids sucking milk, and picking the flowers always made one's hands all messy, with the gooey latex. Opium poppies don't have any hairs on their stems. That's how you tell it's opium. Other poppies always have hairs on their stems.

There's always a lot of hysteria about growing cannabis illegally, but wild opium has always grown about the place. I was once admiring a beautiful white horse, by the suspension bridge, in Canowindra. It had blue eyes, and a yellowish mane. There were all opium poppies and smaller poppies growing along the fence. A very pretty scene, indeed.

Opium poppies grow along roadsides; and railway lines; and in vacant lots. You can't stop them! I saw some opium poppies, a few years back, growing in a vacant lot--on government premises; a demolition site--at Forbes, NSW. They were very pretty, and blooming out of rugged gravel and concrete rubble.

I've always liked to admire opium poppies. My boyfriend thinks they are pretty, too. I like poppy seed buns--the horseshoe type. So delicious.

I only take tea and coffee and chocolate. I don't take (or believe in) tobacco or booze, or illegal drugs; but I can't see the point in having an hysterical attitude to marijuana when alcohol and tobacco cause so much human suffering; destroy so many lives. It's all a rather double standard, as far as I can see. So it always amuses me when I see wild opium growing harmlessly. And looking so pretty, too. And no-one bats an eye-lid; coz they wouldn't believe it was opium if you told them! They walk right past the opium without realising what is growing on right in front of them.

Schotia afra

I am very proud of my Schotia afra tree. It was grown from a bean I acquired, some years ago, from Tasmanian mail order seed people--Phoenix Seeds.

This tree has proven to be very drought-hardy, and I can't imagine why they are not grown by everybody. The amount of heat and dryness they can stand, once established, is quite amazing; but they will not grow very fast without extra water. They are evergreen, and have pretty pink to red flowers that drip with nectar for the native birds. The foliage is green and dainty. They are also quite frost-hardy; and mine has endured quite heavy frosts since its babyhood. Still, I do think they'd be happier, in infancy, if swaddled in a little shadecloth; or grown under some pioneer species--like a tree lucerne--for protection.

The beans they produce are edible--either green or mature. I recall they are also called ''Hottentot Bean'', by some. They are a good permaculture species for any dry climate garden. It's probably easiest to start them off in pots, and grow them indoors, as attractive houseplants, for the first year or so--as I did. Once blooming, they are a good source of colour for the dry climate cottage gardener.

Jujube and Jasmine

Jujube is a remarkably tough tree. It has small yellowish-orange flowers in spring. Very fragrant, indeed! The leaves are silver-grey-blue, and look nice on moonlit nights. These deciduous trees are easy to propagate by digging up and transplanting nearby root suckers in the wintertime.

I suspect you might need two different varieties for pollination, as mine have never yet fruited--in twenty years. This does not bother me, however, as it means I don't have to worry about fruit fly, but just grow them for their beautiful foliage and fragrance. They also have thorns, which means they are a good abiding place for small birds--out of reach of cats.

Jujube and jasmine should be planted as near each other as possible. Although both have exquisite individual perfumes, when the two perfumes mingle it results in a heavenly perfection--like you might expect to inhale on the breeze of some fantastic and exotic Arabian Night.

Jasmine aren't super drought-tolerant, but grow some near the house if you have some water to spare--somewhere where their roots can be protected by the cooling shade and litter of other trees and shrubs. Let them climb through the trees, and layer themselves upon the ground. After blooming, they can then die back in the summer heat, and go sort of dormant--in a survival mode; just barely alive--and return to healthy and green vigour again, in the cooler and wetter months. Letting them layer themselves, with abandon, seems to let them find and suck up a bit more water.

Woodbine Honeysuckle

These shrubs are fantastic. They are an excellent source of late winter perfume. Bees love them, too. The scent is sort of lemony, but also a bit like Brut aftershave. Their Latin name is Lonicera fragrantissima. Well, yes, they sure are fragrant! They have white and cream flowers, with a touch of pink.

They are easy to grow by taking cuttings in winter, and planting them directly in the ground; but you've got to keep those roots damp enough, for the first summer, to get them well-established.

They are a very good privacy plant, as they make a sort of hedge. Blackbirds like to nest in them, and sing. Woodbine do get a bit straggly, however, and can be clipped back a bit anytime, but it's best to do so after flowering. Who'd want to miss one iota of that beautiful perfume? The younger clipped canes are very supple and long, and could be used for making excellent baskets with.

Woodbine are very tough, but do like some water in the worst of the heat. Better planted near the house, for fragrance and cooling shade.

Originally from China, they were introduced to the West by the Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune. What a wonderful favour he did the world!!!!!

''English'' Cottage Gardens

When I was in infant's school, decades ago, now, the headmistress gave us all a lecture on Commonwealth Day. The gist of it was that we were all, basically, ''part of England''. That's, at least, the impression I got. The vases of delicate thirsty ''English'' flowers in the hall seemed to stand as proof of our ''Englishness''. We were read ''Pookie'', a story about a rabbit in rather ''English'' conditions. We also were obliged to sing and dance to a song that went, ''I want to go to London Town, How shall I get there...?'' There was a picture of Betty Windsor on the wall, and the Union Jack was intertwined with the Australian flag. Australia was supposed, somehow, to be this far-off ''England''.

You can't, realistically, though, expect to have delicate and thirsty ''English'' plants, in any great number, in the Australian heat and dryness--not without environmental consequences. This is not England!!! I know in the village in which I live that people still use huge amounts of water trying to keep ''English'' lawns alive and green. They pump out huge amounts of underground water--a finite resource--to do this. This is not right! It is unfair to the environment. Our psychology must change.

It's crazy to try and make a cottage garden out of thirsty ''English'' plants. They just cannot cope with the heat and dryness. You can, however, create a beautiful cottage garden effect, by careful selection of attractive dry climate species, including native Australian ones.

Belladonna Lilies

Belladonna lilies are excellent bloomers for dry conditions. They seem to suddenly bloom immediately after thunderstorms in midsummer--the very electrical sort. They can stand dreadful heat, but seem to like a bit of water to keep their bulbs fat and juicy enough for survival until the winter cool, which is the time when their (glossy and attractive) leaves grow.

They certainly are pretty, and loved by everyone. I like the perfume; and so, too, do the bees. The pink ones are those most commonly seen. The white ones, with yellow hearts, are less common; but it's well worth the effort to search the bulb suppliers for them, as well. If you want differing shades of pinks, simply save the seeds after blooming. They look like small pink pearls, and swell into bulbs when you raise them in rich potting mix. It is an exercise in patience, however. To get a bulb to its first bloom takes some years. I got mine, anyway, to the size of oranges; and it all paid off--with the seedlings of far more interesting shades than the same old ubiquitous pink variety sold in shops.

When a clump of belladonna gets too thick, you can divide the bulbs up and propagate them that way. Of course, to do that, it would be best to do it when they are in their dormant stage.

The white variety would be excellent for those sorts of little bush churchyards and cemeteries that have to get by with little water, and little care.

Giant Kalanchoe Redbells

Giant kalanchoes are ideal for the dry climate cottage gardener.

• They have excellent floral displays--of beautiful red-orange bells--in autumn and spring.
• The bells will be visited by some honeyeaters.
• The spikes of bells make an excellent and long-lasting cut flower.
• They are fleshy succulents, and drought-hardy like cacti.
• They won't catch on fire.
• They are easy to propagate. Just break off a piece, and locate them wherever you desire.
• The leaves are very attractive, with bright red lines around the edges of the ''blades''.
• They can stand quite heavy frosts.
  
  
  Our garden has become quite magical with kalanchoe redbells everywhere. A little bit of red lights up a garden; so giant red kalanchoes can become an important part of the dry climate gardener's colour pallette.
  
  Personally, I can't get enough of them. My boyfriend loves them, too. I'm determined to plant more and more of them every year. It's a pity that they aren't commonly available in more colours. If plant breeders can make so many different sweet pea colours, all from the one original wild Sicilian sweet pea, then there's surely the possibility of dry climate gardens full of kalanchoe bells of various colours--pinks, whites, yellows, oranges, reds etc.
  
  They are very tough and, once established, will survive drought; but do need a bit of water to get them off to a good start. Once they get to a nice big size, you can pretty much sit back and admire them forever, as they take care of themselves then. But they do appreciate an occasional drink of water.
  
  

Loquats

Loquats are a much undervalued tree, and so despised because they are attractive to Queensland fruit fly. But let's look at their good points!!!

• They are quite drought-resistant once established.

• They stay nice and evergreen, in winter, when so much else is all bare and deciduous.

• They bloom in mid to late winter, when there isn't much perfume around. They have a very nice fragrance.

• Their flowers are attractive to honeyeaters. Most fruit trees' blossoms don't attract honeyeaters. (Almond blossom is another exception.) Any source of nectar is welcomed by hungry birds in the colder months.

• The baby leaves are soft and furry to the touch, which is nice.

• They are a shapely and attractive tree.

• If you pick the fruits just as they begin to change from green to yellow--just before the fruit flies ''sting'' them--the fruits make an excellent pickle. Indeed, the best sweet mustard pickle I have ever tasted, in my entire lifetime, was made with greenish loquats as the main ''vegetable'' ingredient. So they are useful; and a more drought-resistant food source than, say, most of the common orchard fruits. They don't have to be harvested for ripe fruits alone, but can, thus, be grown specially for unripe fruits. This does defy ordinary thinking, though, which says that fruits are ''supposed'' to ripen fully.

• The ripe fruits are enjoyed by native birds.

• Native butterflies like to suck sweetness from where the birds have pecked on the fruits.

• Freshly cut branches of ripe, juicy loquats (and cumquats, too!) make attractive and colourful table decorations--and interesting conversation pieces. Your dinner party guests will be delighted to pluck and peel fresh fruit, themselves, straight from the tree!

Prickly Pears

Imagine thousands of acres of seedless and thornless prickly pears, growing out in Australian Outback orchards, and yielding wonderful drought-resistant harvests of delicious purple fruits. It hasn't happened yet, but one day it will.

There is absolutely no reason why plant breeders can't produce non-invasive, seedless and thornless prickly pears, grown for flavour as well. But that isn't how things work. Instead of drought-resistant cactus orchards, we have to have water-guzzling agriculture with thirsty trees not wholly suited to the hot dry climate.

My boyfriend and I think prickly pears are one of the most delicious fruits of all--so sweet, juicy and luscious, you'd be hooked once you've tried them. They are still to be found growing wild all around Australia.

Prickly pears have beautiful yellow hibiscus-sized flowers in spring. The ''pear'' fruits are a reddish-purple colour when ripe. There is also another type you sometimes see, which has giant orange flowers, and orange fruits. They are, of course, as cacti, very drought-resistant, tough, and don't need very much water at all.

If you want to pick them as bush tucker, get some heavy garden gloves and a pair of barbecue tongs. Bring a pair of tweezers, too!! In the countryside, you'll see the ripe fruits all purple and succulent in the late summer. Twist them off with the barbecue tongs. Then hold the fruits over a jet of gas flame, until you are sure all of the thorns are burnt off. Rinse. Then carefully peel the fruits to remove the skins. Rinse again, then pat dry with a tissue. Hold the peeled fruits up to the light, carefully, to examine for any stray thorns. We don't want you getting a thorn in your mouth, throat or tummy! Having satisfied yourself that no thorns remain, you are free to use the fruits as you wish.

They are lovely eaten fresh, as they are. You could blend them fresh with silken tofu or icecream. You could stew them, or make them into jams. They are a nice useful sweet fruit that can be used in many ways. Prickly pears are a most underestimated source of quality food.

In Mexico the young tender cactus pads are eaten as a green vegetable. Indeed, you can buy cans of cactus greens as part of the El Paso range of Mexican foods in Australian supermarkets. To cook the young cactus pads, simply harvest them in the same way as the fruits, and then blast them with a hot gas flame--again, to sizzle off the thorns. Wash and peel them, and cook them up as a green vegetable. Very nice, if a little gluggy, but what do you expect from the innards of a cactus? You can get used to cactus greens, just as one gets used to okra! (Try ''Okra Winfrey and Bryant Gumbo''--a delicious and fiery coconut milk curry combination!!!!) You can't cook up the big old cactus pads, as they are far too fibrous and tough--like for making rope with. You'd need a hacksaw to cut them with!!!

The breakthrough will come when seedless and thornless varieties are made widely available. It's not as if they will guzzle up valuable water, or be sown left, right and centre by birds. They will become a useful drought-resistant source of fruit and vegetable food. No-one enjoys picking out cactus thorns with tweezers; but the fruits are too good to pass up. Thornless varieties mean that there'll be no more agony involved in picking what must, surely, be one of the tastiest fruits of all? Everybody should have the right to taste and enjoy prickly pears. ''Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear....''

Mulberry Syrup

Established mulberry trees are, actually, quite tough in a drought. They'll look terrible; may have branches and leaves die off; but they can hang on, if they have to, for quite some time. If they don't have sufficient water, in late spring, the crop of berries will all be aborted. So, if you're after berries, you've got to keep them well watered for at least the fruiting season.

The lush green leaves give the garden a cool feel, and plenty of shade. Nice leaves for silkworms; but the mulberry's near relative, the Osage Orange--Maclura pomifera--is even more drought-hardy than the mulberry; so if you are in a very dry place, and wish to raise silkworms, then having plenty of Osage Orange trees around would be a good backup source of leaves for hungry silkworms. Don't forget to give the silkworms a few beetroot leaves so as they can spin some pink silk, as well.

You'll find some parrots possibly visiting for a juicy mulberry snack; but you'll definitely have blackbirds coming to eat the berries; and you'll see their purple droppings all about the garden. Blackbirds like to sit quietly in mulberry trees; to quench their thirst; and to refresh themselves in the shade--their beaks stained purple.

To make your own mulberry cordial refreshment, simply get a large saucepan and fill it with ripe mulberries. Give them a quick rinse--if they need it--and drain saucepan. Then put them on the stove until they start to sweat, the juice leaking out of them. Stir with a wooden spoon, and keep moving the pot so as not to let them burn or caramelise. As they soften, mash them until all of the juice is squeezed out. Drain the syrup out, and sweeten it with sugar to taste. It makes a great fruit cordial, or ice cream topping. This will make a nice red/purple cordial, but you can also use honey-sweet white mulberries as well. It should also be possible to perform all of the above procedure with a microwave oven, simply sweating and steaming the mulberries under a ''tent'' of cling wrap. Again, stirring occasionally; then mashing; extracting off the liquid; and sweetening. Don't forget to toss the fruit remnants into the compost heap.

Japonicas/Japanese Quinces

Japonicas are always so pretty in late winter to early spring, when they flame. They are quite drought-resistant, once established, but not indestructible; so they do fare better with some summer water. The red and pink ones seem much tougher than the pure white variety sold. I observed the white flowered shrubs to be of smaller stature, and much thirstier--less hardy-- than the others; the reds, pinks and corals.

Japanese Quince flowers attract honeyeaters; so that's a plus for hungry birds in late winter (when food seems hard to come by!). A drawback is that the fruits are attractive to Queensland Fruit Fly. The small yellow fruits, however, do have a sweet perfume, and make nice short-term paperweights--inspiring to any writer. Such a delicious fragrance. The fruits are very hard to cut, but are edible when cooked. Bill Mollison recommends them in his edible landscaping book, Permaculture One. They are very sour, but one fruit cooked with a batch of apples gives a dessert a nice tang. You'll certainly need some sugar! It's amusing and interesting to try, anyway. I enjoyed the sting of them in apple pies.

It's fun to grow them from seeds, though it does take a couple of years before you can check out the first blooms. Put the seeds in the icebox for a few weeks as they like a blast of cold to help them germinate well. I was lucky enough to grow a red one that had a slight purple tinge to it. Quite unusual. I'm sure it would be possible for plant breeders to to come up with a bright purple one. Japonicas are an essential source of colour in the dry climate cottage garden. If you are short of space, be bold and plant a pink and a red one in the same hole. That'll guarantee you a showy display! You've gotta have colour; and bare branches covered in flaming red japonica blooms are one of the outstanding sights of late winter.

Bioluminescence in Earthworms

They didn't ever tell me that common earthworms glowed in the dark! Of course I'd heard about fireflies; and those much celebrated glow-worm caves in Lithgow and New Zealand. (A Mr Gavin Scobie told me about them, decades ago. He'd actually been in a glow-worm cave; and described the experience to me.)

A couple of months back, I was walking outside in the early evening and I suddenly noticed a strange glow from the soil. At first I thought I was seeing things, but I looked again and again, and the glow remained. I looked above, to see if it was from reflected starlight, but once I covered the ground, with my hands, and tested it again and again, I was sure that it wasn't the starlight at all. The glow was coming from the soil, somehow.

After a couple of suspicious nights I established that it seemed to be coming from earthworms, usually on the surface of the soil; but sometimes below. I used a spoon to dig up patches of light, and would usually find a worm in the spoon with the soil.

I was out there, night after night--like a fool--in the cold and wind, with a blanket wrapped around me, looking at the strange glowings from the soil. Dark starless nights proved that it wasn't starlight, or a trick of the eyes. I'd search for glowings, and a torch would usually reveal an earthworm on the soil. I found that damaged, dying or dead earthworms seemed to give off the most radiance.

Experimenting was fun, and I even put some worms in a jar, and brought them into bed with me for a few nights; and, yes!, in the dark under the blankets, it was not my imagination, at all! But these little worms were glowing as they moved. They looked very cute, and I showed them to my boyfriend.

The glow can be seen only when you look in a particular way. Possibly in a such a way that allows more subtle and paraconscious visual perceptions to be absorbed. This is probably why nobody had ever before told me that earthworms glowed in the dark! I don't think ''most people'' know about it. Why didn't teachers tell us of this wonder in kindergarten? I don't remember them saying so. Unless, maybe, the earthworms around here are of an unusual type, or something. I haven't heard that the soil around here is rich in radium, or anything.

Hey! Maybe it's phosphorescence, like when you chew a peppermint tablet in front of a mirror at night, and watch the glow between your teeth. (If you try crushing a hot peppermint in the dark, on a brick and with a hammer, you'll see what I mean. But please wear safety glasses, as you don't want to be hit in the eye by shards of flying peppermint!)

I suppose it could be some sort of bioelectricity. That book The Secret Life of Plants; and the follow-up book, The Secrets of the Soil, talk, as I seem to remember, about roots of onions giving off some subtle light as they grew. I guess plants and creatures still have to communicate as best they can, in their own ''primitive'' and ''peculiar'' ways. (I know there's a genetically engineered tobacco plant, in the Smithsonian Institute. It's been crossed with a firefly, and glows a little in the dark. I heard all about it on Voice of America once. And isn't their a genetically engineered fish available in some U.S. aquarium shops that glows in the dark? Still, those genetically engineered organisms wouldn't have normally glowed like that.)

My boyfriend looked up ''worms'' and ''glow'' on the Web, and found out a little--that it was called ''bioluminescence'', and something about it being a characteristic of ''annelids'', and such. I suppose that they need the light to get around, underground, and to ''see'' each other with! Perhaps they glow more, when they are dying, out of desperation? Trying to signal to friends, maybe? It's hardly burning methane like the will-o'-the-wisp!!!

There are fish at the bottom of the ocean that get about--glowing in the dark. There are fungi, too, that glow in the dark. Indeed, one type of fungi found in decaying sticks glows in the dark. Witches were very impressed, so I read, and so became the tradition of what is commonly called the ''magic'' wand.

I haven't been doing my evening experiments, in recent weeks, because it has been so dry, and the worms must've all went down lower, looking for water. Now that the ground's wet again, I'll be sure to be out and about to see if the nightly glowings have returned. I find them very pretty and mysterious phenomena. It makes me think about the soil under my feet a little differently; like it's sort of alive. As if it has a spirit and life of its own. It probably does!