Jackie French's tips on growing hibiscus

The edible bit? Not necessarily the flowers, though presumably they aren't toxic. Some varieties of hibiscus flowers, or more accurately the buds, are used for herbal tea, especially to give colour to the usually pale brown and not at all rose-looking rosehip tea. Note: do not do this with your backyard hibiscus till you are sure exactly what variety you have and which ones are used for tea.

I could pretend I haven't done this, just in case giving you the names of the edible ones makes you over-confident and causes you to bung the ones nearest you into the tea pot, but in reality I am too settled on the sofa with the laptop to go and look up the many books on the subject, cross-referencing to make sure every authority agrees. When dealing with potentially toxic plants, books feel more reliable than Google, even if they aren't.

But in either case, don't accept the first reference you find, nor even the fifth, as it is all too easy for one inaccurate reference to be copied by another and another until it becomes the accepted wisdom rather than regurgitated hearsay.

Back to the blazing red hibiscus. I've grown them next to the rainwater tank, thus giving them reflected light and retained warmth at night, and they have grown and grown and grown, stems and many, many, many leaves which are the bits you are expected to eat, either in salads or stir fried. The flowers are bright red too. As I said, the label didn't say if the flowers were edible too, or not, so I crossed my fingers and nibbled one, which was a bit like eating a bit of Wettex, and I didn't drop dead. I don't advise eating the blooms, anyway, though if they do turn out to be non toxic they might add colour to tea, though not appreciably to its taste..

The taste test? They are OK. The young leaves are best, the most tender and very slightly sweet, in the way a soft-hearted lettuce is sweet, not the in your face sweet of an apple. But even the older leaves aren't too bad, mixed with some softer leaves or finely chopped. And they do add stunning colour.

Stir fried they are even better, done for about 20 seconds until limp, with garlic and olive oil and a touch of lemon juice, though their rich red turns darker and is not as spectacular. Dip them in tempura batter and fry and you have something that looks glorious and tastes like, well, crisp tempura batter and whatever sauce you have with it. But as some food-loving culture declares, half the pleasure in food is through the eyes.

Admittedly, this bush has been fairy well cosseted, with a cool rainy season and even getting watered now and then, as well as well fed, as the tomatoes were just below it. (It is very difficult to over-feed a tomato.)

If you grow edible hibiscus and neglect them, you may get red-coloured, thin doormats, just as tough and not quite as delicious, either raw or fried. But they will still be beautiful, so very, very red, and the serrated leaves are striking.

Whether they survive winter or not will depend on where you grow them. Our spot by the tank has kept the bushes alive for one winter so far, and with fingers crossed for the next, though the bushes did die back. You won't be as lucky in a more exposed and frosty spot. In frost-free areas you have a glorious, perennial, largish bush, but remember: new growth is best to eat, so keep well trimmed to encourage new leaves. The easiest way for this to happen around here is to let the wallabies at them.

The wallabies don't like our other hibiscus at all, the classic, cold-climate deciduous ones that bloom in late summer and autumn, either soft blue or brilliant white. In autumn the flowers drop, the leaves turn butter yellow and then fall too, and you are left with bare branches till the first spring buds. Winter is the best time to prune them if you don't prune them the branches will grow higher and higher and the flowers end up so high that you either have to crane your neck to admire them, or grow them below the house as we do, so we look down on the flowers from the front steps.

Do not waste the prunings. Bung them into a pot of sand, keep moist and most will sprout and turn into new bushes. Don't plant them out till they are a year old, no matter how flourishing they appear, to make sure they have a decent root system. Two years is even better.

But if you don't get round to pruning or feeding or mulching, you'll still have masses of blooms, though well-fed ones last on the bush for longer. They are, however, one of the best shrubs for any garden that you plan for neglect.

As are the luscious in the ornamental not the edible sense frost-tender hibiscus, those stunning ones bred for the most spectacular flowers possible, each one only lasting a day or two but being replaced almost endlessly on a well-fed and watered bush. A neglected one will still bloom, but not as gloriously or as much.

I wish we could grow the tropical ones here. They were the flowers of my childhood, the kind you tucked behind your ear or left on a guest's bed to welcome them, or placed by each place setting on the table. Traditionally, a guest is welcome to linger at dinner till the flower wilts. Or the cook does.

I'll be growing more edible hibiscus bushes, next year, not just for ourselves, but as Christmas presents (spoiler alert to all on the Christmas list). I should have found out by then if they grow as easily from cuttings as their relatives. I suspect edible hibiscus will be fabulous in pots, and grow happily even in cold weather on sunny patios. They are beautiful enough to grow even if you don't eat them. And, if you do, one bush per average family is enough to say smugly, "We are totally self-sufficient in hibiscus, leaves you know".

* trying to remember to feed and water the spinach so it can feed us;

* discovering that raspberries taste far better after a cool summer this autumn's crop are stunners and there are so many;

* filling brown vases with the last of the red dahlias before they die back for the winter;

* wondering if I plant bok choi and broccoli now whether I'll remember to de-caterpillar them, or if they'll end up as a vital stage in cabbage white butterfly production;

* thanking Bryan for mowing the grass the wombats would thank him too, if wombats ever did gratitude as the grass was getting too long for even them to enjoy eating, not to mention tickling their tummy fur;

* picking the first winter-fat lemons absolutely gorgeous ones this year;

* still not getting around to stewing nearly enough apples to give us apple crumbles all winter but there are still the sturmer pippins, french crabs, yates and lady Williams to go; and

* picking the feijoas and wondering who to give them to. Feijoas make an Ok jam and chutney, and are not bad stewed with apple, none of which is quite enough to bother growing them. Even the fruit bats ignore them. They can be eaten fresh, too, even if you are not a fruit bat. But a late-season apple is sweeter and crisper and more conducive to an afternoon's inspiration on the computer.

The runner beans are drying on the trellis, just in time for the first of autumn's bean soup. "Just dry" beans are magic sweet and nutty and quite unlike long-dried beans, that will never be quite as tender, or canned beans, that will never have the flavour. But this soup can be made with any of the above good, even great, but only superlative with fresh dried beans.

6 red or brown onions, peeled and chopped
1 bulb garlic, peeled and chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
2 stems celery, with the fibrous bits peeled off, finely chopped
1 bunch Italian parsley, finely chopped
10 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cored, or 1 large can tomatoes
1 bunch basil or handful of thyme
3 litres chicken or vegetable stock
6 cups water, or more
4 cups fresh dried or long-dried beans, or 6 cups canned beans, washed
4 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

Note: Any beans can be used, but all will give differing textures and flavours. You can also use a combination.

If using long dried beans, cover them with boiling water, leave overnight, then drain and use.

Saute onions and garlic in the olive oil till soft. Add stock and beans and thyme, if using that instead of basil, and simmer for 1-12 hours, or till the beans are soft and just beginning to crumble. Add water if it is getting too dry. Once the beans break when pressed with a spoon, remove the thyme. Add the other ingredients except the basil, simmer till soft. The soup should now be thickish with broken beans. Add the chopped basil cook another minute, and serve, Can be reheated, and freezes well.

How do chefs make food taste good? About three times as much butter as you'd use at home. This is a soup for showing off maximum effect for minimum effort.

4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
250g butter (yep, one whole rectangle of butter)
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
4 large onions, peeled and chopped
2 sticks celery and the most tender of the celery leaves, chopped
2 litres chicken stock homemade if possible, but this is still luscious without.
1 bunch chives, finely chopped
6 tbsp creme fraiche

Simmer all the vegetables except the chives in the stock and butter till the carrots are tender, about ten minutes. Blend. Reheat. Add most of the chives, serve, and add a dab of creme fraiche and scatter of chives. Serve very hot.