Sustainable Gardening in our Continually Surprising Climate
I currently have 127 different edible crops in production in my 300 square metre subtropical food garden in Brisbane. My garden had one of the three wettest Mays in 23 years 223mm fell with a 50 year average of 99mm. This plus extra warm conditions I have for the first time since I started... Read More
Fifty five years ago, a gardener from Bowen made an important decision about his work/life balance. He developed a passion for begonias and so began a lifelong project the continuous improvement of rhizomatous begonias. In the process he became one of the foremost breeders of our time. Bernard Yorke is a lawyer and cultivating... Read More
Our twenty first and final annual Open Day at Bellis in subtropical Brisbane will be held this Mother’s Day Weekend, 9-10th May 2026. Over 500 different climate-appropriate plants grow in our Wynnum garden for food, medicine, pesticides, to support biodiversity, including climate change-ready ornamentals.
I like nettles, when they re managed and grown in full view. The First Australians were eating native nettles, like Urtica incisa, long before settlers introduced their northern hemisphere relatives. So they were amongst the first to learn how to grasp the nettle , so to speak. More than twenty years ago, when living in Sydney,... Read More
How can I grow food more successfully and sustainably on a tropical atoll in the Pacific? The high rate of evaporation negates our all year round rainfall. Our ‘soil’ is mostly hungry sand and decomposed coral which is highly alkaline. Here are some avenues you really need to explore. 1) Crops with multiple uses, such... Read More
I went down a rabbit hole talking quince (Cydonia oblonga) with Millie Ross at the Queensland Garden Show and then again on talkback gardening with Kristy Reading ABC New England North West. Quince are one of the most aromatic of temperate fruits, the fragrance as they ripened in our fruit store in our London garden... Read More
Hi Jerry, I have been promoting Grevillea as good plants for stingless bees for many years, so I was shocked to learn that Silky Oak (and some other) Grevillea contain hydrogen cyanide in their nectar. My problem is, other than silky oak, I can t find a list of the poisonous varieties. Is there a list?... Read More
A modest loan and a good deposit was all it took to launch one of Bank Australia’s most prominent and successful investments: Bellis, Brisbane’s award-winning, affordable, model sustainable house and garden. Affordability is as vital now as it was in 2003, when Bellis was founded by owners Jeff and Jerry with a mortgage from another... Read More
Question: “Have you heard of Condy’s Crystals as a fungicide?”, asks T.W., a school head gardener in Brisbane. Potassium permanganate was created 1659 by Johann Glauber. To make it, he combined manganese oxide ore with potassium hydroxide forming the compound KMnO4. At school I was taught this is a reducing agent, meaning potassium permanganate loses electrons and... Read More
I ve been invited to speak about Bellis at the 8th Global Botanic Gardens Congress which is being hosted by Singapore Botanic Gardens, the world s second best botanic garden*. Established in 2003, Bellis is an award-winning pocket botanic garden, an 815 square metre property on a peculiar, ancient acid sulphate soil. This Queensland government sustainability project is... Read More