Do you know what a cardamon plant looks like? Or a Cinnamon tree? Or what turmeric actually is? I didn't either until I decided to have an edible garden. Then I began to think beyond the supermarket grocery aisle. Now I know that cardamon is a voracious beast that took me an hour to get out of my garden yesterday, but pulling it out was ok because of the sweet and spicy scent that enveloped me as I worked. My cardamom plant never flowered, so never produced pods, I think because the Sydney climate is not sufficiently tropical. Here is what the bottom of a cardamon plant looks like:
I started with one stem about two years ago and the bit you see is a quarter of what I chopped out. You can divide the stems and replant them and the plant grows very quickly, with little care, in shaded areas. It has lush green leaves and would suit a tropical garden. I am pulling mine out because I have decided to stick with a fernery at the side of our house.
Scented gardens
A scented garden is lovely, brushing past fragrant foliage and inhaling delicious scents while sipping a cool drink in the twilight is the perfect way to end the day. Jasmine, gardenia and murraya all smell heavenly in the early evening and the white of the flowers glow in the dim light.
I have planted cherry pie (heliotrope), lemon and rose scented geraniums and thyme around my front gate and mint near my front door, the idea being that ambrosial scents would waft enticingly around one as one wandered. I have found that merely brushing past a leaf does not produce the effect I had been hoping for and one has to be quite violent, stomping delicate thyme lawns and crushing leaves, to release the fragrant and intoxicating oils. So I have decided to keep some cardamon, just so I can slash it down again and release its exotic scent.
I spent about six hours in the garden yesterday, finishing the mediterranean garden, then clearing up my working area and removing tropical plants. Here is the almost finished mediterranean bit:
The empty black pots are standing in for more Japanese Box at the moment, I have to order some by mail. Behind the box hedge, at the bottom left of the photo, I will plant a hedge of lauris nobilis, a bay hedge.
In addition to the initial expenditure, I bought another 15 x 20kg bags of Cowra White gravel (@$225), 39 x box hedge ($97.50). So the total cost was about $600.
Incidentally, an edible garden and a sporadic gardener do not mix. Keeping up a vege patch is satisfying, but time consuming, especially organic gardening, so I have simplified the garden since I went back to work full-time.
