Celebrate Mother’s Day with Honeysuckle Cottage

       Mother’s Day Tea Party 

 Visit the nursery on Saturday 8^th or Sunday 9^th of May and Receive a warm country welcome with a delightful tussie mussie (a posy of fragrant plants) for every Mum and Granny together with a copy of the latest edition of our 8 page newsletter ‘The Green Ark’ chock-a- block with interesting articles and fabulous garden offers

 ONE FREE PLANT (a wide choice) For Every Mum and Grandma with their purchases.

 Indulge in complimentary delicious fresh-from–the-oven Herb and Cheese scones ( as raved over by Good Taste Magazine) and Lavender and Lemon Biscuits together with a wonderful range of teas and coffees to sample while you stroll around the nursery

 The Nursery is filled with Fragrant  Sweet Violets,  Lavenders, spicy scented Clove Pinks, Rare, Culinary and Fragrance Herbs, old fashioned Perennials, Shrubs and Camellias, Heritage and Nostalgia Roses, David Austin Roses, and Shrub and Climbing Roses.

 We are just 11/4 hours from the Sydney CBD. To find us, Go to the Home Page of our website www.honeysuckle-cottage.com.au and click on To Find us on the LHS, or find us on Google Map .

     30 Bowen Mountain Rd, Grosevale, NSW 2753 (Ph 0245721345)

 Travel to North Richmond, Turn off at the traffic lights onto Grosevale Rd;travel several kilometres to the Y junction and take the left fork clearly posted Bowen Mountain Rd. We are near the top of the mountain,  on the right, and at the sound of bellbirds.

It can be frustrating listening to those who persist in debunking the value of fresh organic produce compared with produce grown with chemical fertilisers and sprays. When news stories are thin on the ground, newspapers and television reporters love to trot out this hoary old chestnut. It’s one of many they keep in the drawer for lean times to fill up column inches or the three minute attention span we are now assumed to have before our brain lapses into a catatonic state until the sporting news. Taste buds alone should reveal the difference between organic and conventional produce, but there are many scientific studies to back the contention that organically grown fruits and vegetables are also better for you. For instance they have now been amply scientifically demonstrated to contain higher levels of antioxidants such as phenolics and vitamin C, those anti-cancer compounds that protect our cells from damage by free radicals. 

Most comparative studies such as that carried out this year by Buegel et al in the Society of Chemical Industry’s ‘Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture’ concentrate on the mineral and sometimes also the trace element value of foods to compare fruits and vegetables produced organically with those grown with chemical fertilisers and sprays. Usually no clear evidence of a difference is found. Certainly research into residual chemicals in organic and conventional produce, despite the tightening of regulations on withholding periods and the banning of some chemicals for horticultural use in recent times, demonstrated that organic produce very significantly reduced the risk of unwanted pesticide exposure as  demonstrated by Dr Lu in a paper  presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006. But it isn’t only the absence of residual chemicals that indicate organic produce might be the healthier choice. When research into the comparative vitamin content and levels of anti-oxidants was carried out by various research teams in the last few years, the results even surprised the investigators.

At the 2002 conference of the American Chemical Society (the largest scientific society in the world), an important paper was given by a Professor Theo Clark who had been particularly sceptical of the claims of organic proponents. But when he  and his co-workers subjected organic and chemically grown oranges to analysis for their vitamin C content he and his co-workers were surprised to find a 30% difference per fruit in favour of the organic oranges, despite the fact that they were only half the size. Clark and histeam could only speculate on the reasons for the high vitamin C level in the organic product. Vitamin C is one of many components of fruits and vegetables which act as natural anti-oxidants.

Continuing with this hot button topic in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a 2003 paper by Alyson Mitchell et al presented the results of a study of corn, strawberries, and marionberries (derived from blackberries) which demonstrated that organically grown crops were significantly higher in phenolic compounds which are potent anti-oxidants when compared to conventionally grown crops. She concluded that phenolics which are produced by the plants under natural conditions as a defence against environmental stressors such as competition from other plants or insect attack. Conventionally grown plants have no chance to ‘immunise’ themselves with phenolics as they suffer no weed competition thanks to herbicides and no insect damage thanks to scheduled sprays. The differences found were as high as 50% or greater. Mitchell expects the results to translate to many more crops.

Mitchell is almost certainly right. For instance, in a  paper published in Chemistry and Industry in 2007, a University of Davis (California) paper produced by a team co-led by Amadio and Kader demonstrated that there were significantly higher polyphenol levels in organically grown kiwifruit. Polyphenols are those compounds also found in red wine and coloured berries. The work was exceptionally thorough, comparing plants grown at the same time and on the same site by conventional oand organic production methods. And their findings did not stop there. The organic fruits had thicker skins (offering better protection against insect attack), were significantly higher in vitamin C and important nutritional minerals, and had higher overall anti-oxidant activity. Comparable results have also been found with strawberries.

 It’s really not surprising that  organic fruits and vegetables are the fastest growing sector of the industry worldwide.

Just a reminder that live plant orders cease between December 16th and the end of January. Christmas Gift orders need to reach us by Dec 17th to be sure of reaching you in time. Other than live plants we continue to send throughout December and January.

We will be closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day but otherwise will be open Thursday to Monday inclusive 9 to 5. If Tuesday is the day you will be nearest to us on your holiday, please feel welcome to visit. There are always staff here to look after you. There is an array of complimentary delicious teas and coffees here to refresh you and in weekends in mid-summer we replace our famous buttermilk scones with herbs and cheese (featured in ‘Good Taste’ magazine with our equally popular ‘Lavender and Lemon Shortbread Biscuits’.

With mango time at last upon us, we are making Queensland style mango frappés, perfect for cooling down after working in the sun. If you would like to join us, here is the recipe:

                                Mango Frappé

flesh of 2 fresh mangoes

juice of 2 limes

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

3-4 ice cubes

soda water

Place the mango flesh in a blender or processor and blend until smooth. Add the juice of the limes and the orange juice and blend. Add the ice cubes and process to just crush the ice. Top up with soda water (about 11/2 cups) and serve immediately in long frosted glasses.  Add a sprig of spearmint for even greater refreshment. If more intensive holiday therapy is required, add a little of Queensland’s famous Bundaberg rum with the citrus juices.

As a PhD in ecology I began lecturing on climate change in my university in the early 1980s. It had profound implications for the environment and I followed the science closely. Among the scientific community the evidence was accumulating and the early models, coarse grid though they were until we could collect more refined data, were already ominous. I was invited to talk to many community groups about the research behind climate change and its implications for the planet. As I continued to lecture on climate change at the university, the picture emerging gained clarity and detail. The data grew ever richer providing evidence that the world was heading into serious trouble. 

After observing a quarter of a century of upwardly trending heat and frequentlybroken weather records of all kinds worldwide,  after repeatedly refining sophisticated modelling of the world's climate, and after one of the greatest combined global scientific collaborations of all time, if not the greatest, at least 97% of climate change scientists are in agreement that climate change is real, that it is happening now along predicted lines, that change is continuing, and that we are none too steadily approaching tipping point. We are not talking about the opinion of everyone with a PhD in whatever scientific field (nor about the opinion of TV weathermen who were included among some  US climate sceptic head counts). We are talking here about the world's leading experts specifically in climate science. 

Sitting here watching yet another dust storm swirling overhead though I live on the north-eastern slope of the Blue Mountains only 50 km from the sea, having seen bush fires beginning in August this year and continuing relentlessly, watching as one disaster after the other is damaging this most climatically vulnerable and fragile of all continents,  seeing weather records shattered on a regular basis, I am left wondering what it takes to convince some politicians that climate change is real or at the very least to follow the precautionary principle. A decade ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made it clear that such extremes of weather would become a regular feature of climate change with floods and extreme heat waves, increasingly violent storms and cold snaps jolting us from one extreme to the next.

Nobody would contradict the proposition that this continent is at best climatically unpredictable. But perhaps it is like the story of the frog immersed in a container of water that is then heated. Registering incremental changes the frog continues to adapt and remain in the container until it is scalded to death. If it had been dropped directly into the hot water it would have immediately struggled to escape. Our extraordinary ability as a species to adapt to the threat of danger, even to the point of denial, seems to be in play here.

 Most Australians are well aware of climate change and the threat it poses to the world and even more immediately to Australia. They are very conscious that the world they grew up in is already irretrievably lost. The best that can be hoped for is that a livable world can still be bequeathed to the generations that follow. Even if we could completely stop carbon dioxide emissions now, further warming would continue for about twenty years as heating oceans release some of their stored carbon dioxide in a deadly self-perpetuating feedback loop (like carbon dioxide bubbles in lemonade on a hot day), permafrost continues to melt and release methane gas (40 times more potent as a greenhouse gas  than carbon dioxide) and many other environmental feedback loops come into play.

Climate sceptics have been claiming shrilly for some time that global warming is now reversing.  Yet according to the very highly respected scientific journal 'Nature' the world is the hottest it has been in 12,000 years and within one degree C of the estimated maximum of the last million years. To bring this back to recent times, the NOAA climate monitoring chief in the USA has stated that the last ten years were the hottest recorded. Climate sceptics have been playing games with the figures. 1998 was a scorchingly hot year coinciding with the strongest El Nino event of the century. Since then average temperatures have moved around with natural variability. Sceptics cherry picked the data, claiming that as subsequent years were not quite the equal of 1998 (which was a whole 0.2 degrees C above the previous record breaking year 1997), global temperatures were cooling. In reality, the CRU analysis indicated that 2005 was at least the equal second hottest temperature recorded. According to NASA's satellite data, 2005 was the hottest year ever recorded. To quote the Nasa Goddard Institute of Space Study (GISS): "2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880. The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997 - 2008."

 Internet chatter about climate cooling is just that.  Four top university statisticians in the USA were tasked by NOAA to examine climate records for the last 130 years and also satellite measured temperatures for the last 30 years and subject them to rigorous statistical analysis in a blind trial ie they were not told what the figures represented and were asked to identify any statistically valid trends. All four independently found a consistent decades long upward trend and none found a statistically significant drop in the last decade. There is no scientific legitimacy for saying that there has been a drop in temperatures in the last decade.  So where did this no doubt comforting misinformation that has been so powerfully persuasive to too many of our politicians come from ? It appears to have originally come from a UK Telegraph article published in April 2006 entitled 'There is a problem with global warming - it stopped in 1998' by a Queensland academic in the field of geology, Bob Carter who was professor of Earth Sciences at James Cook University 1981-1999 and continues as a Research Professor with James Cook and the University of Adelaide. He is perhaps Australia's leading climate change sceptic and is on record denigrating the precautionary principle which he apparently considers redundant and not to be applied to an issue such as global warming. He is certainly one of our most controversial and least media shy sceptics. 

Some politicians have stated that carbon dioxide gas is harmless because it is in the atmosphere anyway. True once upon a time, but the carbon dioxide 'sinks' of the world that maintained the balance and stored excess carbon dioxide have been wrecked by human activity. Since the Industrial Revolution and with intensified urbanisation, we have cleared land at an ever increasing rate including a shocking proportion of the Amazon Basin rainforest, once referred to as the 'lungs of the world'. 

Trees take in carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis, converting it initially into sugars and then by complex biochemical pathways into all their structural components.  Cutting down and burning forests releases massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some countries are devastating their land with deforestation for short term agricultural export gain and their primitive slash and burn techniques are releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide. As the Australian continent dries with increasing temperatures and evaporation rates, bush fires are reliably predicted to become more frequent and more devastating, adding to the carbon dioxide overload and reducing the capacity of our continent to absorb carbon dioxide.

 Our use of fossil fuels like coal and oil (both derived from ancient plant remains) are now releasing unprecedented quantities of previously locked up carbon dioxide at the same time that the world's forests and oceans are increasingly losing their ability to absorb excess carbon dioxide. It isn't that carbon dioxide is poisonous  at atmospheric levels (announced as a major revelation by one politician) but that it physically alters our atmosphere, trapping solar heat and raising surface temperatures. We are in the middle of an unasked for global experiment. We are also in an end game unless we move very decisively and with real effect.  

Some are quoting Dorothea Mackellar, taking comfort from the line in her poem 'My Country'  (written incidentally at the age of 19 while in England):  "of drought and flooding rains".  So it was and ever shall be, I hear said. Sadly, to use another quote: "You ain't seen anything yet baby." It's not that the earth, Gaia, won't survive. She has done it many times before, making whatever adjustments are needed to survive and incubate life.  It's that we may not be around as a species to take the ride. At best we may be the last generations  to enjoy what remains of the climate status quo unless something is done to reduce our constant exploitation of and damage to the planet.

 The extinction level of species is rapidly escalating. Adaptive evolution cannot  save species over the short time frame we have left to stabilise the planet. Animal and plant species are migrating where possible but the rate of their migration is not keeping pace with current temperature rises. If we can contain global temperature rise to less than one degree C (the 20th century saw a rise of + 0.74 degrees C) , the situation will just be manageable. If we avoid taking major and rapid measures to curb carbon dioxide pollution and the earth warms by two or three degrees C the extinction rate will accelerate and the world will no longer be the one we know. Current estimates based on varied scenarios predict 21st century global temperatures to rise between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees C and the IPCC have recently warned that those figures are likely to be adjusted toward the opper end. 

Today Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the renowned Tindall Centre for Climate Change stated bluntly that only around 10 percent of the world's population, about 500 million people, will survive if the global temperature rises by 4 degrees C (based on the assumption that the world population will have reached the predicted 9 billion by 2050). He described the consequences as terrifying and "For humanity a matter of life and death". He has also stated that unless very ambitious targets for carbon dioxide reduction are in place next year it will be too late to prevent global temperatures rising more than 2 degrees. Even if all the rich nations worldwide adopted a 40% plus reduction by 2020 it would still only give the world a 60% chance of avoiding a global temperature rise of 2 degrees C or more.  

Quetion: Why is it that when the world learned about the damage CFCs were doing to the ozone layer of our planet causing increasing UV radiation levels, we took fast effective action and brought about changes in a remarkably short time span regardless of cost, yet too many in Australia appear to be paralysed by the more dangerous problem of climate change and are stuck in denial?   

We have the perfect oh-so-easy gift suggestion to spoil garden lovers, whether for Christmas, for those whose birthday falls perilously close to Christmas, or as a ' thank you' present -  A Honeysuckle Cottage Workshop Gift Certificate. Of course there is no reason why you shouldn't also reward yourself for a hard year's work! The 2010 Honeysuckle Cottage Workshop program will feature eight workshops between March and November, all held on Sundays between 9.30 and 3.30 and these Certicicates can be used to attend any Workshop of choice.

These are the best of the best in Gardener's Workshops, led by top-of-the- tree experts with great communication skills, held in a luxurious facility within acres of gorgeous country gardens in the Kurrajong district of the lower Blue Mountains (across the Hawkesbury River from historic Richmond, and within 11/4hours of the Sydney CBD). The workshops are fun and exceptionally friendly with many new friendships being formed.

 The delicious seasonally based menus for morning teas and lunches are an outstanding feature and have been acclaimed to be on an entirely different level to other workshops. (And yes, we give the recipes to our workshop members.) 'Provincial France' magazine gave us a superb review for our workshops this year and the feedback from those who have attended workshops is filled with high praise. Best of all the entire day including a delicious morning tea and lunch, together with all materials, is just $90. For groups of three or more attending the same workshop, a 10% discount is offered!

Among the workshops offered for 2010 are 'The A to Z of Modern Organic Fruit and Vegetable Gardening', 'The Herbs of Provence',' The Propagation Workshop' (including budding and grafting and seasonal propagation of cuttings), 'The Gardens, Beautiful and Practical, of Tuscany', 'Creating and Maintaining the Climate Change Garden', and 'Tricks of the Trade' (including pruning for all ornamentals as well as fruit trees and the identification of weeds,  pests and diseases).

 We will also be repeating our very successful and much enjoyed 'The Magical World of Fairies' for everyone who believes in fairies. For adults the morning session involves exploring the folklore of fairies and fairy customs including the Green Man', recipes for seeing fairies, Celtic herbs of fairy magic, creating a talisman for protection, happiness and wealth, and dowsing for plant energy (fascinating!). For children (four or over ) the morning is filled with fairy crafts such as making butterfly masks and magic wands, dressing as fairies, nibbling on rose petal fairy cakes, and playing fairy based games including a magic treasure hunt through the gardens, all under excellent supervision. In the afternoon, after a leisurely delicious lunch in the green shade of large oak trees, we all join together to craft garden angels from plant materials and create individual enchanting take-away fairy gardens planted with magical thymes and other little plants, with mossy stones, little woodland pools and dwellings complete with fairy inhabitants. We saw everyone fall under the spell of their tiny worlds and most of these gardens are still flourishing and being imitated by other children and adults. (We are happy to say that grandfathers were every bit as much lost in their miniature worlds as their grandchildren.)

We will send a pretty greeting card with a message of your choice (up to 30 words) together with the Certificate, and in January we will send the annual Workshop Program so that there is plenty of time for your friend to make a choice. Prior to the chosen workshop, a letter will be sent with lots of information including tourist attractions and the wonderful range of accommodation available in the district (quite a few participants take the opportunity to have a mini break and enjoy this district which has exceptional tourist attractions), and a map to find the venue (very easy).

If you go to The Stillroom section of this website you will discover lots of other gift ideas. And for gardener bookworms, Judyth's latest book 'The Atlas of Legendary Places' is available for $55 plus $10 postage and packing within Australia and her very successful and highly praised 'In A Unicorn's Garden' which looks at medieval life and the plants and gardens of the period is available for $49.95 plus $10 postage within Australia. If you wish, do ask for an autographed copy. We will send all Christmas gifts directly to your friend if you prefer with a message of your choice (up to 30 words) on a delightful card.

 To find out more about these books, and also 'Heritage Gardening' ($29.95 plus $5 postage and packing), and 'Country Thyme' ($10.95 plus $5 postage and packing) click on the link on the Honeysuckle Cottage home page to go to Judyth's author website. To ensure that gifts reach your friends in time for Christmas, we need to receive your order by December 17th. Other than live plants we keep sending out mail orders throughout December and January. It is also possible to send Gift Certificates for varying amounts (see The Stillroom" page) which can be used for plants, books, gift suggestions and workshops.

To purchase Workshop Gift certificates or any gift items listed above:

Ring us at Honeysuckle Cottage on 0245721345 any day other than Wednesday. We would need to receive your order by 17th December to ensure that it reaches your friend in time for Christmas. We accept the following credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express

or

Email us at kamcleod@zeta.org.au with your order and ring us as above with your credit card information

or 

Write to us at Honeysuckle Cottage, 30 Bowen Mountain Rd., Grosevale, NSW 2753 with your order and credit card information including name, address, credit card number and expiry date. If you wish us to dispatch your gift directly to your friend, please include the recipient's name and address and the message you would like to have included on the gift card (up to 30 words). 

Gifts from The Stillroom can also be ordered through the cart on this website.