Innehållsförteckning för The Useful Garden från The Useful Garden

In many of today’s gardens beauty, colour and design are of paramount importance. But the gardens or backyards of old were commonly planted to be useful rather than beautiful — to provide food and medicine and to keep away witches. A revival of interest in herbal medicine and a concern to obtain chemical-free food are leading gardeners to examine their patches of earth and make their gardens multi-purpose rather than just pretty. The term ‘useful garden’ might suggest a food garden. While this book certainly covers food plants, we use the term broadly and we look at many other uses that plants and flowers can be put to once they have been picked. The aim is to inspire you to try something a little different, to use your plants in…

Matching the growth in the use of herbal preparations is an infant industry based on the commercial production of medicinal herbs. With the large volume of herbal preparations currently imported to Australia, the aim is to supply the local market and, ultimately, an export market. This section is not designed as a primer for people interested in commercial production. It’s for every gardener and anyone with even a passing interest in the subject of herbal medicine. We hope it will inspire many gardeners to grow and get to know a large number of herbs and to experiment with them. Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.– Emma Bombeck. b. 1927 Until fairly recent times, the garden not only provided the food for the family, it also provided…

Seasonal Beauty Deciding which plants to grow according to the season is simply smart gardening. This technique will keep your garden looking beautiful 365 days a year and allows you to enjoy a bountiful floral crop no matter the month. What better way to lift the spirits in winter than with a bouquet from your garden? Seasonal gardening has the added benefit of bringing you closer to nature. It prompts you to embrace the change in season instead of simply living through it. Autumn As the weather takes a cooler turn and the leaves turn into a burnt rainbow of colour, flowers can be harder to find. Phoebe recommends taking solace in your garden by using this time to sow some sweet blooms. “Autumn is all about planting sweet peas,”…

There can be few garden owners who haven’t at some time picked flowers for other use. We draw upon the lessons of many experts in Australia’s early nursery scene to give you some ideas on what to do next and combine this with horticultural advice. In the flowers section, we draw on the knowledge of Elleni Pearce of Everbloome in Malvern and Phoebe Grealy from Salisbury Grance. We draw on the experience of artist Jean Searle on pressed flowers and Michael Bailes for pot-pourri, medicines and cosmetics that you can make from the garden. Trish Arbib and Howard Nicholson share their knowledge of edibles. While we largely concentrate on the uses of plants and flowers once they have been picked, we do also look at the way we use plants…

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.—Countess of Blessington Poets and philosophers have debated the question ‘What is beauty?’ for eons. Can herbs make you beautiful? Can herbs be cosmetic and hide some of the imperfections flesh is heir to? Who knows? But when I see a teenager (usually a boy) come to the nursery with his face covered and pockmarked with acne, it’s all I can do to restrain myself from doctoring him with aloe. I once saw a girl with radiant blonde hair in the nursery. I commented on how lovely her hair was and she told me she had been using chamomile rinses. This chapter will focus on herbs such as chamomile and aloe that have been traditionally used to change the bits of the body…

Choosing and Pressing Flowers The art of pressing flowers is a satisfying hobby that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. Pressing flowers is easy and rewarding and, by giving a little time to the choosing, picking, drying, pressing and care in arrangement of the flowers, lasting joy is yours. It’s a wonderful way of preserving and enjoying the beauty of flowers, the colour, the wonderful shapes and the thoughts provoked by each flower. Far better than to have them fade and dispatched to the rubbish bin or even to the more noble final resting place of the compost heap. Once pressed, the flowers can be arranged artistically and glued onto various materials to make attractive pictures or designs on greeting cards, bookmarks or calendars, or used as decorations…

Delicious Lavender Think of lavender and perhaps the image that springs most readily to mind is of old-fashioned, faded lavender sachets among handkerchiefs, or grandma’s soap, talc or perfume. But for us, lavender is the sensuality of a hot summer day, bees buzzing and the smell of cooking. Yes, cooking. It may come as a surprise that lavender can be used in cooking, but the flowers of English lavender can be used to great effect in both sweet and savoury dishes. Here we give you some recipes and many ideas for using lavender in your kitchen. Drying Lavender for Cooking Fresh or dried flowers can be used for cooking. As English lavender flowers for only a month or so in summer it’s most convenient to dry the flowers so you…