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DOWN IN THE GARDEN: Merry Christmas Trees, Bushes and Flowers
CHERALYN DARCEY
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The ancient tradition of bringing evergreen plants into our living areas in December was a way to celebrate life continuing during the winter months.
This carried on throughout different beliefs until it coincided with the Christian Christmas observances.
As the world became smaller with the advent of faster communication, shipping and evolving growing methods we have seen a blended version of this tradition across the world with plants that symbolise the time of Christmas.
This week we will explore ways you can bring Christmas Cheer into your gardens and homes with plants.
Christmas Trees
In the 16th Century in Germany people would bring in entire evergreen trees and decorate them to become ‘Paradise Trees’ for Christmas Eve.
This was symbolic of the tree from the Garden of Eden in Christianity.
Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert, raised the popularity of the Christmas tree in the UK after a newspaper illustration of them with their children around the palace ‘Christmas Tree’ inspired the people of the time.
From there, the modern-day Christmas tree as we know it was born and spread across the world. So, what about growing your own Christmas Tree here on the Coast? Australian native trees that will give you the Christmas look but will be far better suited to the environment here and fit in with the wildlife locals includes the magnificent, and large, Norfolk Pine (Araucaria heterophylla).
Woolly Bush (Adenanthos sericeus) is perfect for small gardens growing to about 5m and with bonus vivid orangepink flowers in spring and early summer this will delight both you and your local pollinators.
If you have a dinosaur lover or botanical history buff in your family, then try our Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) as your garden Christmas Tree.
One of the rarest and oldest trees on Earth, it will grow comfortably indoors and in sheltered spots in the garden.
How to Look after a Cut Tree
Firstly, look for a tree with pliable green needles and the least number of brown needles.
Give it a good shake and if a few needles fall off, that’s ok, but lots means it’s on the way to the compost heap too soon! Once home, cut the end of the trunk off to ensure the free uptake of water.
Cut off at least a few centimetres to reveal a fresh surface.
The best practice is to use a tree stand as this enables the base of the trunk to sit slightly off the bottom and will leave the cut surface free to drink.
For every 3cm diameter of trunk you will need at least a litre of water in your stand so for a bigger tree, place your stand in a larger container.
Check water level every day and top up as needed.
Keep the Christmas tree away from heat sources.
Compost your tree either in your own garden, mulch up or take to your local green waste disposal centre.
Poinsettias
A native of Mexico, the poinsettia is a very interesting plant.
Firstly, they are not vivid red flowers that you are observing at all but the red ‘bracts’ of the plant, modified leaves that surround the true flowers.
Look closely and you will see that within this ring of festive red, tiny creamcoloured flowers that are the true blooms nestle within.
Poinsettia flower and display their colourful bracts, not only in red but pinks, oranges, creams, and whites, in the winter.
To supply the market in our Australian Summer Christmas, they are grown in cold rooms where winter is emulated.
Light is limited and they are kept cool.
After Christmas, you can plant your potted poinsettia out into the garden and while you won’t be enjoying their famous display next Christmas, you will have a ‘Christmas in July’ display.
Tip prune in late summer to encourage flowering and be warned they have a poisonous sap so protect yourself when handling and particularly pruning.
They also may not be suitable around young children and pets as they are toxic.
Australian Christmas Bush
Here on the Central Coast and across our state, NSW Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) is our Aussie festive native.
People in colonial times simply looked to flowers that reminded them of the key symbolism of the European Christmas of their birth places.
Christmas bush, with its bright red flowers in tiny bell shapes and its appearance at the ‘right time’ would of more than fit the bill.
Similar in ways to the poinsettia, the flowers are not the part of the plant that endear us to it.
The flowers are small creamy-coloured blossoms that fall away in spring to leave sepals that turn a gorgeous red by late December.
Find a full sun spot to plant your Christmas Bush and feed during spring with a native-specific fertiliser only.
This is advised to increase the number of blossoms which will lead to a showier festive display.
When harvesting your Christmas bush, never remove more than a third of the plant and cut branches at an angle with sharp secateurs.
Remove all foliage that will sit below the waterline in your vase, change water every second day and snip drying bottom of stems as required.
Other Christmas Bush varieties include Victorian Christmas Bush (Prostanthera lasianthos) and South Australian Christmas Bush, also known as Tasmanian Christmas Bush (Bursaria spinosa), both of which will grow in Coast gardens.
GARDENING BOOK REVIEW: Everlastings by Bex Partridge
Hardy Grant, London, 2020, ISBN: 9781784883393
My copy is sprinkled with crushed leaves and peppered with my own little notes as I adore it.
This is one of the best modern titles on the art of drying and using flowers and foliage with extensive harvesting and drying notes along with brilliant inspirations and twenty easy to follow tutorials.
There are lists of flowers and foliage with best harvest times along with advice on the best drying methods for each.
Within the tutorials, I love the floral crowns, hair clips and dome jar which would make a delightful and unusual gift.
The popular floral hoops and botanical chandeliers are included along with lots of hints and tips to ensure longevity of your designs.
Everlastings is suitable for absolute beginners through to advanced crafters and floral designers.
It would be a great addition in a gardener’s library to inspire additional ways to use the flowers and foliage they grow.
GARDENING GUIDE FOR COAST GARDENERS THIS WEEK
The sapsuckers are out and about.
Make a note to treat your plants during the nymph stage in winter but now, hit with a strong jet from a hose, pick off by hand and drown in a bucket of soapy water.
You can plant the following now: Culinary herbs, beans, beetroot, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, cape gooseberry, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, celery, chicory, chilli, choko, cress, cucumber, eggplant, endive, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, marrow, melons, mustard, okra, parsnip, pumpkin, radish, rhubarb, rocket, salsify, silverbeet, spring onion, sweetcorn, squash, tomato, ageratum, alyssum, amaranths, aster, begonia, California poppy, celosia, cockscomb, coleus, cosmos, cyclamen, dahlia (seed), gazania, gerbera, marigold, nasturtium, petunia, phlox, portulaca, rudbeckia, salvia, snapdragon, sunflower, torenia, verbena, vinca, Viscaria, waratah, zinnia
Next Week: Gifts from and for the Garden
Cheralyn Darcey is a gardening author, community garden coordinator and along with Pete Little, hosts ‘At Home with The Gardening Gang’ 8 - 10am live every Saturday on CoastFM963.
She is also co-host of @ MostlyAboutPlants a weekly botanical history & gardening podcast with Vicki White.
Send your gardening questions, events, and news to: gardeningcentralcoast@ gmail.com
YOU & YOUR GARDEN: Retirement Village Gardening Club
Now settled into Wood Glen Retirement Village, Erina after leaving her native England, Jill found that gardening was something she needed to almost relearn.
Although entranced by the way her beloved roses and lavender seemed to flourish here, creating, and maintaining a garden was more than a little different in her Australian garden bordering the Central Coast bushland.
To help in her endeavour, Jill has created ‘Green Thumbs’, a gardening social club that meets monthly for the residents of Wood Glen.
They swap cuttings, seeds and advice over a cuppa and a few laughs.
I was invited to come along to this month’s get together and was greeted by a bunch of plant passionate people of all levels of gardening skills.
While answering questions for The Green Thumbs about their gardens, I also heard about their club and exciting future.
“We welcome anyone to Green Thumbs, you don’t have to be an experienced gardener, maybe you just want to care for a few potted plants.
It’s just another lovely way to help share the knowledge while getting together.” Jill said.
While focusing up to now on their own gardens, The Green Thumbs are now creating a Community Garden for residents with a focus on edible plants.
This area will provide another avenue to meet, to share healthy outdoor activities as well as create an opportunity for those with grander gardening dreams to keep growing.
A Retirement Village Gardening Club just takes someone to step up and host.
Like the Green Thumbs you could meet in an outdoor shelter or in inclement weather, at a central meeting room.
Ask people to bring along cuttings to share and as always, you will find the conversation flows easily when those interested in gardening get together.
CCN BOOK REVIEW
The Sentence
Author: Louise Erdrich Publisher: Corsair
Tookie is an Ojibwe woman, living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
She is a self-described “ugly woman”, inside and out who enjoyed lying.
She has also just gotten herself into a heap of trouble.
She thought she was helping a grief-stricken friend (and making a quick buck), but in fact she was committing a federal offence.
She was arrested by Pollux, a tribal officer, who seems gutted by the fact he has to arrest her.
She is given a severe sentence, sixty years in prison.
She was in her thirties when this happened but hadn’t matured yet, “It was 2005, but 1999 was how I partied, drinking and drugging like I was seventeen, although my liver kept trying to tell me it was over an outraged decade older.”
But that was before.
Prison can change a woman.
Thank goodness for books.
Once in prison, her seventh grade teacher reached out and sent her a dictionary, the first word she looked up was ‘sentence’.
The example given, “The door is open and Go!”. “They were two of the most beautiful sentences ever written.”
There were some road bumps while she was in prison – for instance, segregation with no books was the punishment for trying to kill herself with paper.
But now she has become a model prisoner and after ten years her sentence was “commuted to time served.”
Tookie gets released and tries to join the world.
She gets a job at an Indigenous bookstore, owned by Louise (as an aside the author owns an independent bookstore in Minneapolis which focuses on native American literature, wink wink).
Pollux asks her to marry him, yes the same Pollux that arrested her.
Life seems to be going pretty well for Tookie, until the death of Flora, “a stalker-of all things Indigenous.”
She was a wannabe, “I used to wannabe an Indian.”
She was persistent in proving she was of Native American descent.
She even showed Tookie a photo of her great-grandmother, “The woman in the picture looked Indianesque, or she might have just been in a bad mood”.
Flora was a woman of good intentions but was quite annoying.
And now she has taken to haunting the store and freaking Tookie out.
But soon the ghost of Flora takes second seat to the riots and looting that takes place in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
And then there is a pandemic.
No matter how much hand sanitizer and masking the disease will affect someone close to Tookie.
While reading I kept thinking I must have missed out on an earlier book that explained Tookie more, explained Pollux more, explained their relationship more.
It was a big leap from the tribal officer that arrested Tookie to the ex-tribal officer becoming her husband.
I also didn’t really get the ghost story of Flora.
After a while I could see why she was such an annoying customer because she was a very annoying ghost.
But, despite all of that … Tookie was great, the references to books were great, the writing was great, the characters were great, the story itself was great in the beginning and end (albeit only just OK in the middle).
Kim Reardon The Reluctant Book Critic
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ARTS & CULTURE
ABC - “The Friends” Safeguard ABC’s independence, funding, & standards. Meetings through the year & social mornings Well-known guest speakers 0400 213 514
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CENTRAL COAST ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
Free social French conversation groups, small classes at East Gosford and Bateau Bay Inquiries - Nathalie 0416 303 804
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CENTRAL COAST ART SOCIETY
Lectures, demonstrations and discussion. Weekly paint-outs enquiries Tuesday. Phone: 0428 439 180 Workshops: 1st and 3rd Wednesdays 9.30 am to 12.30 pm, at Gosford Regional Gallery & Art Centre. Phone: 0409 666 709 Social Meetings 1.30 pm on 4th Wednesday for demonstration 4325 1420
publicity@artcentralcoast.asn.au
TUGGERAH LAKES ART SOCIETY
Join us for the fun and enjoyment of art! Attend a weekly art group with mentors, exhibitions, workshops and a monthly members meeting with guests and prizes, held on the 4th Thurs of the month at The Entrance Community Centre 4333 8387
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CENTRAL COAST POETS INC
Would you like to read, write and share your poetry. We hold workshops and create anthologies. We meet the second Saturday each month. Wyoming Memorial Community Hall. Contact us by email
info@centralcoastpoets.com.au or you may ring Clive 0419120347
HANDWEAVERS, SPINNERS AND TEXTILE ARTS GUILD
Spinning and weaving, patchwork and quilting, felting and other fibre and fabric crafts, community quilting bees - Day and Night Groups 4325 4743
www.cottagecrafts.net.au
COMMUNITY GROUPS
CENTRAL COAST CARAVANNERS
3rd Sun - Jan to Nov Trips Away, Social Outings, friendship with like minded folk Geoff 0447 882 150
LEARN TO DANCE
Social ballroom dancing for all ages, all you need is a desire to learn and dance, no partner required. meet every Wed -Tuggerah community hall, 2:00pm Anne - 0409 938 345
anneglazier@y7mail.com
CENTRAL COAST MARINE DISCOVERY CENTRE
The revamped CCMDC is open. Schools and Group bookings welcome by appointment. Building has special needs access and toilets Open 7 days 9am – 3pm. Terrigal. 4385 5027
ccmdc@bigpond.com www.ccmdc.org.au
TERRIGAL WAMBERAL RSL SUB-BRANCH
Pension and welfare advocates available to assist with DVA compensation claims/benefits. Breakers Country Club Wed & Fri 10am-Midday Meets 2nd Sat 10.30am Sec: 0417 384 524
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U3A CENTRAL COAST
An opportunity for retirees to enjoy a diverse range of courses and activities • Topics to explore • Activities to interest you • Discussion groups • Outings to entertain you • Socialising and learning together
0408 704 701
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Refer potential volunteers to community organisations & provide support to them. Training to volunteers and managers of volunteers Info sessions held regularly. 4329 7122
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WYOMING COMMUNITY CENTRE
147 Maidens Brush Rd.Venue Hire (Covid Rules apply) Financial CounsellingCommunity Support and AssistanceNDIS ProviderOut of School Hours CareWork Experience and Student Placements. 43237483
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HEALTH GROUPS
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
Progress Hall Henry Parry & Wells Street East Gosford
BETTER HEARING AUSTRALIA
Hearing loss management Support and educational groups providing practical experience and confidence 4321 0275
CENTRAL COAST ASBESTOS DISEASES SUPPORT GROUP
Support for those suffering with asbestos diseases and others interested in asbestos issues. You are not alone, meet with others who can share their experiences. Bring a family member or friend. 1pm at Ourimbah RSL on fourth Wed of each month. Maree 0419 418 190
GROW MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT
Small friendly groups formed to learn how to overcome anxiety, depression and loneliness and improve mental health and well being. Weekly meetings at Woy Woy and Wyong. Grow is anonymous, free and open to all. 1800 558 268
or www.grow.org.au
DYING WITH DIGNITY
Campaigning to give those suffering unrelievable terminal or incurable illness the choice to receive legal medical assistance to die. Quarterly mtgs, Erina Fair. 0434 426 486
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PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT GROUP
Last Fri 9.30am Terrigal Uniting Church 380 Terrigal Dr, Terrigal 4367 9600
www.pcfa.org.au
Help with shopping and cooking classes
4363 7111
S.A
Is Internet porn destroying your life? We may be able to help. We are a 12 step fellowship like AA. Meets every Sat at 7pm on the Central Coast Contact for further details 0473 631 439
newcastlesagroup@gmail.com
HISTORY GROUPS
HENRY KENDALL COTTAGE & HISTORICAL MUSEUM
Visit our c1838 Cottage & Museum with exhibits of early settlers. School and group bookings. Members & volunteers welcome. Open Wed/Sat/Sun 10.30am - 2:30pm. West Gosford 4325 2270
www.henrykendallcottage.org.au Brisbane Water Historical Society
FELLOWSHIP OF FIRST FLEETERS
For anyone interested in early history. Don’t need to be a First Fleeter. Point Clare Community Hall 2nd Sat 10:30am 4311 6254, 4340 4435 MUSIC
COASTAL A CAPPELLA
Award winning women’s a cappella chorus. Music education provided. Rehearsals Tuesday 7pm @ Red Tree Theatre Tuggerah. Performance opportunities. Hire us for your next event. 0412 948 450
coastalacappella@gmail.com
CENTRAL COAST CHORALE
One of the best (SATB) choirs on the coast. We seeks new members. Reading of music and
able to sing harmony would be an advantage. See our website for details and upcoming concert. 4307 9355
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SOUNDWAVES CHORUS
Male singers wanted No experience required, rehearsals 7pm Mondays at Parkview room Central Coast Leagues Club 0431 225 489 POLITICAL PARTIES
Club Umina, Melbourne Ave, Umina Beach Visitors Welcome. 0414 280 375
PROBUS CLUB OF KARIONG
Meets at Everglades Country Club Woy Woy, at 10am 3rd Tuesday each month. Enjoy a wide variety of Guest Speakers, Social outing and activities with Friendship Fellowship and Fun. 0407934003 SERVICE GROUPS
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Local, state wide, national and international issues and campaigns Council and parliamentary representation 3rd Thur
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Discussion/action - community Issues - 3 levels of Government, Ourimbah Room - Ourimbah RSL, 7.00pm - 1st. Monday 0410 309 494
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AVOCA BEACH PROBUS CLUB
with a great social program, guest speakers and optional bistro lunches. Google our name for our fully informative newsletter. Meet 10am, 3rd Mon each month at Avoca Beach Bowling Club.
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EMPIRE BAY PROBUS CLUB
Friendship, fellowship, and fun in retirement. Very active club, outings, excursions, dining - 3 times a month 1st Thur 1.30pm LIONS CLUB OF WOY WOY
Make new friends & have fun while serving your community Everglades Country Club 3rd Monday of each month 0478 959 895 WOMEN’S GROUPS
WOMEN’S HEALTH CENTRES
Counselling, therapeutic and social groups, workshops, domestic violence and abuse issues. All services provided by women for women 4324 2533
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SOROPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL BRISBANE WATER
Making a difference in the lives of women & girls through awareness, advocacy & action 2nd Thur 7 pm Breakers Country Club, Dover Rd, Wamberal
sibrisbanewater@siswp.org www.siswp.org
INNER WHEEL CLUB GOSFORD NTH
Make friends, Make a difference! Join us and develop lasting friendships with like minded women serving our community 6.30pm 2nd Wed Phillip House, Kariong 0405 385 610
