There comes a time in every gardener's life when you think: exactly who am I living with?
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Is your wisteria on the back pergola really trying to grow through the window and strangle you in your bed? Does your lavender hate you, and that's why it's turning brown? What is that large green-leafed presence in the corner of the garden and is it supposed to turn that colour?
Be honest: do you really know the root habits of your trees and shrubs garden? How many of them are likely to be sneaking under your foundations and into your pipes? Is the magnificent tree where the kookaburras perch nightly likely to drop a branch - or its whole trunk - onto your living room in the next big storm?
Few gardeners make rational choices about plants. We inherit them from those in the house before us or because Great Aunt Martha gave us a potted Phlobotomy neanderthalis for Christmas and we plant it out the front hoping that is what it's going to like. We fall in love with blooms and bung them in, with little knowledge of what the plant likes or how high and wide it intends to go over the next decade or three.
Even worse, kind friends give new gardeners a few seedlings of something that is guaranteed unkillable. It's only when you discover that it's plotting to take over Parliament that you realise it's listed at numero uno on the ''weeds are our enemies'' register. And, yes, that it truly is almost unkillable. (I am still gently cursing the ''friend'' who not only gave us potato vine and jasmine but planted them for me as a ''surprise''.)
Even if you think you know a plant, you may be in for surprises. Good old camellias, for example, can come in a variety of forms from relatively fast-growing, carefree sasanquas to glorious reticulatas that will cark it in the frost, though some do indeed thrive in our climate. The trick is knowing which.
A rose is a rose is a rose but that rose can be like Peace or Mr Lincoln and give you long-stemmed flowers all through the warmer weather, or it can be a variety with a single flush of stunning floppy pink wonders in late spring then go all blotchy and mildewed (although vigorous) for the rest of the year while it clambers over the fence and shed (Dorothy Perkins).
So how do you find out exactly who you're living with?
1. Google. Use the name if you know it, or a few distinguishing characteristics. You could type in ''mauve flowers in autumn'' and hopefully you'll have a photographic line-up to choose from, including this season's most likely contender, crepe myrtles, now at their vivid best. Choose the entries that look the most authoritative and preferably are Australian.
2. Say ''humans are at the top of the food chain'' firmly to yourself, then head out with the secateurs (or even the long-handled loppers). Every vigorous plant can be, and probably should be, regularly trimmed, for its own health (pruning promotes new growth) as well as safety, so it doesn't get top heavy and fall on the house. Just don't prune down into bare wood where there are no leaves - or at least don't attempt that sort of savage pruning all in one go. Try a few experimental more-severe cuts before attacking a bush or tree all over - some will send out new shoots from old wood and others will just die.
3. You are not alone. Whatever problem you've had in the garden, other gardeners have experienced it and probably written about it. Google again, or head to the library for a book on plant problems. As a very, very last resort, email me.
Our gardens are a bit like constitutional reform or exactly what does happen in stage four of a teenager's video game: so complex and with so many nasty possibilities lurking around every corner that we'd rather not think about them.
Gardens can be an enchantment to partially shield you from the world. Love at first sight is magic, as you gaze at the pot of flowers across the nursery, but a bit of ''getting to know you'' is even better.
This week I'm
■ Growing giddy with the scent of 500 giant ginger lilies;
■ Enjoying the first of the autumn flush of roses;
■ Combining rose-scented and lemon-scented geraniums (pelargoniums) for pleasant whiffs across the breakfast table;
■ Picking pears, peaches, apples, grapes and passionfruit;
■ Promising that, yes, I'll mulch the vegie garden tomorrow - or maybe next week - to stop any weeds that may lurk and go to seed and spread again in spring;
■ If we had any pumpkins this year I'd be leaving pumpkins in a sunny spot (i.e. on the shed roof or on paving) for a few days to ''cure'' so their skins will harden before storing them (on their sides - moisture collects in the tops and bottoms and the pumpkin may rot); and
■ Chipping back the weeds that grow in the crevices in our paving (or rather Bryan is doing the chipping). If you have a long-handled ''chipper'' this is as quick - and less polluting - than herbicide. A longer-term solution is to fill in the crevices with concrete, or seedlings of white alyssum so the weeds can't get a hold.
Layers of love
Autumn has come and the leeks are fat. Leeks taste like onions with oomph - sweeter and more flavourful. The trick is to be ruthless, tossing away the tough tops and outside layers, and keeping the soft inner white and pale green bits. We plant loads of leeks in spring, then eat them from autumn onwards.
Leek and mushroom soup
Serves 4 as an entree.
6 leeks, trimmed and finely chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cups mushrooms, thinly sliced
6 cups stock - chicken or miso
Place the oil in a fry pan, sautee the leeks on as slow a heat as possible until soft; add the mushrooms, stir for three minutes, add the stock and it bring to the boil then simmer for five minutes.
Quick leek and potato soup
6 cups stock
4 leeks trimmed and finely chopped
4 potatoes, peeled and sliced
4 tbsp butter, optional
Boil for 10 minutes or until spuds are cooked. Mash spuds with a potato masher or (with more effort) a fork or blend (but be careful when you whiz spuds - if you over-do it you can end up with a nasty, slightly sticky, gluey mess. It is safer to go with a less violent method and retain a little texture.)
Serve hot, with cream added if you like it hot and rich.
Baked leeks
6 leeks, trimmed
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup cream
Place leeks long ways in a baking dish. Cover with the liquids. Bake at 200C for about an hour or until leeks are soft and the juice evaporated to a thick sauce. Eat hot.
Leek and mushroom not tart
4 leeks, trimmed and finely chopped
2 cups chopped mushrooms
1 cup cream
4 large eggs.
Mix. Bake at 200C until firm - about 40 minutes. Eat hot or cold.