Ep 013 - Herbal Medicine, Perennials & Prepping Featuring Cheryl Gregory

speaker:
Before we start today, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Recognising their continued connection to this land, traditional custodians of all our lands, from the water running through our creeks, the air we breathe in our mountains and the stars that shine brightly in the sky. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Hello and welcome. Welcome to Seedy Chats. Hello and welcome back. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Averill, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favorite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro, or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. Bernadette, welcome. How are we going today? Hi, Averill. Yeah, good, thanks. That's good. Who do we have? You have a very special podcast guest today. Yes, she's actually a fellow prepper. Do you prep, Averill? I do a little bit of prepping. I'm not as preppy as you, Bernadette. We'll put it that way. But I do a little bit. So, yeah, I showed you, I've got my, I showed you my secret confession of our 75 freeze-dried meals. So we're ready for the apocalypse. That's right. Is there a best buy date on those? Look, no, I mean in an apocalypse I think you are about that sort of thing. I mean if you get gastro you get gastro that's it, you just deal with it because in an apocalypse, god that's hard to say. Yeah you may not be going to the doctor. Yes but the friend that we're talking to is Cheryl. Cheryl is a fellow prepper and I really like she talks in this interview about the fact that the skills that she's developed in terms of gardening and prepping and preserving and And she's also got quite a keen interest in herbal medicine, that she's developed all those with the notion that she might not need those skills in her lifetime, but she'd like to pass that knowledge down to the next generation. And I really like that. Yeah, she said that that was her purpose. She felt that that was her purpose to share that knowledge with them. Yeah, so that's always something I've felt with some of the homesteading sort of skills that I have and that I do, you know, that maybe if I teach... my daughter and then potentially if she teaches her children maybe eventually someone along the line will really need that skill. Yeah well I have said that to you is that something that you've learned from your mom is that something that your mom has done? Yeah. And you have agreed and said yes it is. I've got some crack Averill that you might enjoy. Oh let me hear the crack a bit of banter. Do you want to um but if I say this crack we're gonna have to share this with our sea chumps. Am I in it? The funniest thing that's happened to me recently, we went to a female founders festival together and Averill, I have a bloody volunteer there, she does frigging everything. Well see here I am, swept, I'm just trying to have a bloody cocktail, Frankford and a cup of coffee. And we get swept up with someone asking if we wanted to test a virtual reality. Shark. Think tank situation where you wear this virtual reality thing and you've got to walk around and do your pitch to the shark tank and yeah that was just about the funniest thing I've seen lately, Afro was you. Well the feeling's quite mutual, Bernadette. I think I'm going to have to share yours on social media now. I humbly did it so that you weren't alone. So for anyone that doesn't know what we are talking about, so we went to a networking event which we really enjoyed and when you were there you had the chance of putting on this mask. You had an opportunity to look like a total dweeb. Which Averill jumped at. Well, can I just say before I said yes, I didn't actually know exactly what they were going to do. So a lesson learned from me. Do you think it would be better? They would be like, we if you say yes, we will need your first born child. You'd like radio. So put on the the mask, the virtual mask. I mean, these are quite popular at the moment for game gaming. And aren't they like where anyway, we might share coverage of us doing it. And Yeah, you get to pitch to like a shark tank in front of your panel of people. And yeah, we were really well put in the spot, weren't we? But should we get on with it? And we had a chat to the panel, which didn't answer back, which in fairness kind of defeats the purpose. Yeah, but I don't want to point out every floor in this system, but there were a few. I did want a bit of interaction. I was waiting. I was like, there was a media guy there. And he and I spent about five good minutes just laughing at each other because he was getting right up and filming you and you couldn't see him. Do you reckon he's going to use this? I don't know where that footage is, Averill, but you should be worried. Big welcome to Cheryl Gregory on the show. A family friend of mine, long living Cam Barron, born in 1959, growing up as a Southsider in Wodum, but we won't hold that again. So, a qualified horticulturalist, qualifying at 22 and having worked as a horticulturist for over 40 years. Cheryl loves everything about plants. Her interests are self-sufficiency, especially preserving herbal medicine, felt making. and she's a secret prepper. Not anymore. Hello and welcome. Welcome, Cheryl. Hello. Lovely to meet you both. Yes. We'll see you again. I wanted to talk about your journey as a horticulturist. Yeah. I don't know if you remember, but we talked about gardening like 10 years ago. Yes, a long time ago. And I was like, not into it, don't know how you get into it. I know. And I can't believe that when I saw your little posts about Melbourne and you're sowing some seeds, I'm thinking, oh my God, she's going to try. And then you haven't stopped. I know I'm so proud of you. And now I'm in the deep end. A complete pepper. So how, where did you get the bug? Well, my father's a horticulturalist and my grandfather was an, I suppose he'd be equivalent to maybe an agronomist in this day and age, but he was really a fruit. inspector and advisor to people growing fruit during the war because he couldn't go to war because of that reason they needed somebody here to help with feeding Australians in Australia. How interesting. I've never heard that term before an agronomist. Yes I think that's what he could call it. I could be making that up. No I'm not making that up because two of my nephews are agronomists and they're sort of like agriculturalists. So that's what he did and then my dad was a horticulturalist he studied in Melbourne and then got married, moved to Canberra, worked with the government for many years while I was a child. And yes, and then I wasn't planning on doing horticulture but I had a boyfriend when I was 13 and we went to a friend's place and his mother had these most beautiful African violets and Christmas cactuses and the Christmas cactuses were flowering and I said oh I've not seen a flower so beautiful. and she gave me two little segments so they'd be as big as the tip of my thumb and she said that'll grow eventually. Well I had that plant till 2003. Really? And it was like this big, you can't see it but it was big. Yeah. And it flowered regularly and I had that for all those years then it burnt in the bush fire, not the bush, yeah it was the bush fires, 2003 bush fires but that's okay, that's the way it happens. But I was given another one after that. and it had about 10 pieces and now it's nice and big. So yeah, but anyway, that was the start of my indoor plant journey. So my bedroom at 14 was shelves with hoi, all sorts of plants. And I just loved plants. And I remember telling my dad at about 15 that I'm going to be a horticulturalist. And he said, oh no, you're not. Oh, because he said, Cheryl, it's not well paid. And I said, I don't care. It's about what I enjoy. You know, I enjoy plants and you figured that out young. I did. It took me 35 years. I know. Well, my neighbor, he said to me, Cheryl, if you're a laborer of any sort and do an apprenticeship, you'll always be employed. Yeah, right. Yeah. He said sometimes they don't pay much and horticulture would probably be the lowest paid, as in unless you ran your own business and did landscaping. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but I didn't. I worked, I did an apprenticeship with City Parks and that was four years, three years on the job and four years was the journeyman certificate which meant you traveled everywhere and did different jobs in different parts of the government which we did that the whole four years, oh sorry, the whole, the first three years and the fourth year you actually chose where you wanted to go. Yeah. Oh. And... Yes, and my love of vegetables came in from working at Government House. Oh, wow. And Government House was fantastic back then. Oh my God, they grew everything. The only thing they didn't have was chooks, which really surprised me because they had this enormous kitchen where they cooked for absolutely everybody. And they could have probably, they could have had chooks. They could have had chooks. Yeah, but they had like, Cheryl, go and weed the onions, please. Three days to weed the onions because they were like an acre of onions. Yeah, and they had fruit trees everywhere. asparagus, artichokes, all the different sort of stuff. Beautiful, yes. And you'd have to go and pick it. And so- Is it all still there? No, it's not. The fruit trees are, but I went there probably four, five years ago. Oh, that's a shame. And it's still the perennial beds. Yes. And yet still beautiful. Yeah. In its own right, but certainly not the vegetables. Some things, and they have chooks. Oh, they have to get them out. Yeah, I presume they still do, but they did then. Yeah, yeah. So that made me love vegetables, and I learned a lot of skills Italians. Yes. You know how to what tool to use. Great growers. And to this day one of my things is everyone calls a spade a shovel and it's not it's just not a shovel you know that's like calling a fork a spoon. Yes. You know. Yeah. A spade a shovel yeah I call it a shovel. Yes it's a spade. Well a spade is a spade and there's a shovel. Yes. There's different shovels and yeah yeah it's just a trade thing I would imagine. And then so then I worked there and I worked in like um. The only section I didn't work in was spray section, because to this day I'm anti-sprays. But I worked in arboriculture, which is tree surgery, Commonwealth Park, which was not Florriard, but there was the Commonwealth Park in itself. Botanic Gardens was part of it then. It's not now, it's a separate entity. And that's suburban depots. So all the depots, pretty much. And that's interesting, you were saying you were no spray back then. Was that just your own research? That was me. No, that we guess. Well, we knew about sprays. they were poisonous back then. They were horrible. Roundup hadn't even come out then. And Roundup to me is pretty safe. You know, there is all that controversy about it being cancer causing, but if you really get delve into the information, you'll find the groups of people. And so yeah, it's all a bit different. I love Roundup. What do you use at home? Only Roundup. Only Roundup. Yeah, right, okay. Yeah, I don't use it near my vegetable garden or anything like that. It's down the back, around the edges, certain weeds. I do the slasher. I'm afraid of everything and don't really understand anything, but I use the slasher, which is an organic version of Roundup, but it's very effective, just on the gravel and a few bits. Does it kill cooch grass though? No, it does not. No, it doesn't. It's a salt point shirt. That's the thing. Yeah, I'm happy to use that. I will be using that once my roundups. I have, it does kill Cooch, but you've got to roll it basically straight on it with like a, you know what I mean? It's, you've got to do a pretty, it's, I think it's really, really, really acidic vinegar. I think so. I think it's vinegar. Maybe you need to kind of damage like the actual grass, because I remember when my dad was at, my dad's a great... guy, phosphate man, and he would be like, that weed there is really resistant even to it. So he'd get his foot and he'd give it a bit of a rub and then he'd put it on it, like he'd scar it. Yeah, he'd scar it a little bit. Yeah, because he used to go around with this wand. It was like a... Oh yes, I know the wand. And anything that he saw coming up, boom, gone. He's my great man. How am I doing things with that wand? What? I know, go figure, but he never did anything about it. invented it and did nothing with it. My dad went back to Ireland and at the time we owned a garden, we had a garden store and he had asked the company how much they were. They were cheaper in Australia. He brought like four of those weeding wands home with him. Most people going home from Australia would have calendars and jumpers saying Australia, my dad had a weed wand. Oh that's so funny. Yeah, very, very handy. But yeah, he'd scar, he'd kind of scar it a little bit like rub it with his foot and then pop it on it. And it was a certain, it was a certain weed coming up through our little patio. Yeah, right. It was interesting. Yeah, yeah. We had a huge issue with cooch at our community garden, which is organic. And I watched an episode of Gardening Australia where Millie had some and she covered it with a tarp for you. And then at the end of the year, she pulled the tarp up and that cooch still wasn't there. No, no, and that's when it curls up all underneath the tarp. It's funny, because a lot of people to weed cooch out with a fork. Yeah. Worst thing you can do. That propagates it. Yeah right. People just don't realise that when you hear snap snap snap that's all nice little cuttings under the ground because you're sure as hell not going to get all of them. Yeah. That you better off doing it with a spade. Not a shovel. No a spade or a or a round mouth. Not a round mouth. A post hole shovel and you just lift it and then you pull it all out. and then you go to the next section. So you section it and then you just gotta keep on top of it. I'm a little bit worried with my raised beds. So they're pretty high and I've noticed that it's right coming from the bottom. Like it's a serious job too. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how to cure that one other than round up. I've been thinking about it the other day, yeah. I mean, I could treat it with it and leave it for a long time and then. Could you spray the base? It's too late because it's covered in soil. Sorry, I keep touching your leg with my foot there. Oh, I don't mind you touching my leg. Yeah, I don't know. That's where it's coming from. Like it's coming from Planoin. Bloody Cooch. It's pretty amazing. It is. It's certainly. It's going to last anything that we're prepping for. It's like, it'll be me. It'll be me, those freeze dried meals on the couch. We'll be eating, is it edible? It's Cooch edible. I mean. We could, we could, yeah, look into that. Well, it would be edible, because I know a man that was in the war, and he said they used to eat the tar. Oh, you're okay. Tar, like for rota. Oh, rota. That's how starving they were. Isn't that terrible? I wouldn't survive a tar. No, God no. I'm sorry. I used to eat cooch to think as a kid, just on the oval at school when I was bored. Yeah, yeah, pull the center out. Dehydrating cooch and you can have a cooch stew. So, so pretty amazing journey and then I guess you've never lost the love for gardening. Oh no. All these years later. Yeah. And particularly you're very passionate about perennials as well. Perennials, yes. I had, I worked in Albert's garden which was in Pialigo, was the most beautiful garden. Perennials everywhere and I didn't realise at the time because I was still, I was probably about 30 I think. I had small children, 27. I was probably 33 and um... We used to do mail order, not much mail order, it wasn't popular then. And so people would come to the nursery and just buy perennials. But the things that we had there, I mean, I'd love to get them now because they're all herbs for herbal medicine. And I can't get a lot of that stuff now. You were saying about the herbal medicine, I'm really interested in talking about that because that's something I'd love, I mean, to get into more. And I think there's lots of benefits of things that we don't even realise. What are some of the things that you're growing for your herbal medicine. Or that you would love to get your hands on if you could. Prunella, oh look, a Prunella, scutellaria, there's, oh look, philipendulas, there's, and you probably can't even think of what any of these are. No, no, no, I've never, yeah. And that's one of the things with herbal medicine, I went into it thinking, oh well I know all these plants, I know a lot of plants, right? Yeah. And I'm thinking, that won't be so hard for me. Yeah. Well it is hard, because it's nothing to do, it is to do with the plant, that it's about the person. So really being a doctor, which is, to be that and I don't want to be a practitioner I actually want to be a seller of herbs okay yeah maybe the plant yes maybe a baby plant yes for people to grow um good little niche market it is yeah so I'm thinking yeah the herbal thing goes in with my prepping thing and yes yes yeah it all ties in because I my my reason for being on this planet I feel is to teach my teach somebody about the future and what's going to happen. And maybe it's not you that needs this skill. Maybe it's your granddaughter. No, I don't think it is me. Yeah, I think it's somebody else. So it's whoever's interested because I find that a lot of young ones aren't interested in gardens at all anymore. especially vegetable gardening. They'll grow one tomato or one capsicum, but not on the scale that I like to prepare, prep and have it in the freezer or the dry, we kill our own chooks as well. We've got meat birds, but as in back to the herbal thing, so it's more about the person. You've got to diagnose them. See, you could be constipated, you could be constipated, you're constipated because you're tense and anxious and something's going wrong in your life. You could be constipated because you just ate too much meat. She knows us so well. I feel like she's peering into my soul. I'm slightly nervous. That's enough darkness. It's more about my...um...anyway. So I'd give you both different things. Yeah, right. And that's what I didn't realise. For the same ailment. Yeah, for the same ailment. But that could be four different types. Yeah. So you're all getting different stuff. So really it's quite difficult. Is there anything that you make at home? Yes, I've just made comfrey bar, well not just made, six months ago comfrey, actually it's probably even longer. a comfrey balm, which is fantastic for it heals from the outside in. So you don't want to put it on deep wounds. But like I've just cut myself two weeks ago and just kept that covered with comfrey balm. Comfrey is great as a tea for the garden too, isn't it? It's yes, and compost for the compost as well. Yeah, yeah. I've never actually seen comfrey in real life, though. I don't know. Is it like a big leaf? Yes, it's a big leaf. comes out like this is quite scratchy, quite textured. Is that airy? Yes, airy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did comfrey root, balm, a lot of people will do leaf, but I did root because that's another experience. cuts in inflammatory. I've given it to a few people for arthritis, for their hands. One lady I gave it to for her knee, she said it worked really well, so she's put it on her hip. I know that I healed up very quickly there. Normally that's that fine papery skin you get when you get old. You know? It's like crepe paper they call it. It's more like silk. But yeah, so that works really well. And I've just had a batch of... Now, Hypericum is St. John's Wort. Oh, yes. Which you've probably all heard of. Yes, I'm growing. I'm growing a lot of it at the moment. Oh, you accidentally. Yeah. On the property. Yes, yes. It's a pain in the butt. Yeah, I've been I was pulling it out of the weekend thinking. No, don't worry about it now, because you'll be spreading the seeds. Yeah. Yeah. If anything, you'd cut the tops off because that seeds like powder. Yeah. And it just goes everywhere. Yeah. Is it poisonous to livestock? It can be. Yeah, it can be. But she was like, I wouldn't worry about the middle part of your land, but I think you have to protect your neighbours. That's exactly right. So the idea for weeding, even in a nursery situation, is go from the outside in. So then it's not spreading as you're weeding here trying to get to there. Yeah, so she said, that's why I was kind of going around the side. What did you spray it with? I haven't sprayed it yet. No, because it's one of those ones that they'll do it. Really? Yeah. Because it's a broadleaf plant. And you know what the sad thing is? So there's loads of beautiful paper daisies all around it. What do you do? Quite close to it. Because I don't want to kill them. I know. I get that. They're amazing. What you could do maybe is another experience I had as I went to a hill one time and all these lovely paper daisies and I picked them all. Oh, that's not going to work if it's an annual, is it? I know. Oh, you picked them all. Oh, there wasn't like there wasn't Kofi some mouse. It was like I've got two bunches. That's what I do. So beautiful. And yes, and of course they didn't come back. So that was that was I was very young. So our paper daisies aren't perennial. They're some are and some are some are. But I would pick the seeds, the flowers. Are they the lovely lilac ones that we get around here? They're not. I get lilac ones here, I get them all around the community garden. I don't know if someone's planted them once and they've gone to see. I think they might be planted. So they're like an orangey yellow colour. Oh yes. Yeah. You see them a lot around Goongong Dam. Yeah, they sound like they'd be native to the area. Yeah, yeah. And they're they're all predominantly under this amazing gum tree. They must be happy underneath there. Semi shade woodland. Yes, they love that. And it's a dry. It's a massive. It's a massive tree. And this tree is in is in bloom at the moment. And it's like a perfect little. um yellowy creamy you know like the gums that I I showed you down the coast remember all the bees around them what are they they have it's like a little sunflower gum flower like it's hard to I don't know you know that cartoon characters um snuggle pot snuggle pot yeah is there many of the trees that tree there's just seems to be one at the moment um it's a gum tree I was just beautiful seed pods on it as well. You'll have to post a picture. I will I will post a picture yeah it's very very pretty but all those paper daisies are underneath but this is going back to the St. John's ward. What do you use St. John's ward for in herbal medicine? It's generally if you read about it says depression. So people that have depression can't use it because they're usually on something already and it's one of the one of the main herbs is contradicting I think that's what use it. But it's not just for depression. That's the one thing that's good about it is that it's actually very useful for so many things. How do you prepare it? I make a tincture. What's a tincture? I love a tincture. So a tincture is you can, I collected the flowers, just the flowers, yes, cut them all off, shoved them into a jar, not not super, super tight, filled it up with 70% alcohol, which would be vodka, a and you leave it for like six to eight weeks and then you strain it. Like a vinegar? Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. And then it goes this lovely pink. And then you pour it into just little jars and you use it like, it depends what the problem is. Under your tongue? Like a little drop under your tongue? No, you actually, I had to, cause I have to test it, cause I have to do a plant a month. So I had to test it. You say sorry, Ray. I'm shit as today, I've been testing the teakature all day. Sorry, darling. You can use it for sleep and anxiety and all those relaxing sort of things. You don't, I didn't feel any effect other than I have to admit, one squirt, one, you know, what's that a mil or two mils or something. I don't know whether it was the alcohol, but you know, we're not at that first sip of a drink. You can feel that relaxing. I felt that, but it was only one squirt or I wouldn't have thought I'd feel it from that. But anyway, I did. And I did sleep well the night that I had it. Because I have to get the flavor. Is it pungent? Is it a sick? Is it sweet? Is it blah, blah, blah? All those things, because those things mean something when it comes to plants. Well, I'm emotionally up and down like a rollercoaster and not on anything. So maybe I need to keep that a go. Well, I should have bought some. Yeah, it's very interesting. So the St. John's War in Ireland, I remember years ago. So I worked in pharmacy. I worked with a beautiful lady called Antoinette. So she used to make these tonics and people would come into her for like a convalescing tonic. an energizing tonic, the study tonic. Oh, really? And I suppose you see it a lot now. You know, these little kind of shots that you can buy, like, like in the soft drink department or in the fridge of the supermarket. I always think of her like she was way ahead of her time. And I bought one for us for Saturday because we've done a market and it was like a brain power one. I didn't end up bringing it, but it had like, you know, Ginkgo biloba in there and ginger. bit of Grana and I thought that would set us up for the day but she was way ahead of her time but she um people used to come into her for all these tinkerts so she had this amazing shelf set up and one of them that was pulled from the market was St John's Water I always remember it because there was a lot of people that used it and it was very popular yeah and what did those people use it for you don't know I'm I'm not too sure at the time Antoinette um I remember her vividly saying. We've got to remember that sometimes people do self-diagnose themselves and they may not be taking it for the right reason. Because she was obviously standing by the company, their decision. It was a big herbal company. I can see the packaging in front of me. You mean it was pulled, meaning they took it off the shelf? Yeah, it was. And that would be because of the reaction with other drugs. Yes, that's right. Yes, yes, yes. It's quite severe. It's one of the biggest. So this would have been in the 90s. Yeah, it would have been in the early 90s. And... Because that's, yeah, of course, like a doctor has to, well, it's supposed to check all of those drugs and how they interfere with each other. But if you're self-diagnosing and taking it, you're not doing that check. You're not, no, no, no. So she was quite passionate saying, you know, these people, even though they come in and talk to us, sometimes they just come in, take it off the shelf. We don't ask questions and they're able to buy it. But I remember that exact... product been taken the St. John's War, it'd been taken off the market and her explaining it because I was quite young, I was quite young at the time. We also have to remember that a lot of people often poo poo herbal medicine as well but they forget that the top five drugs in the world are plant-based. Or were, they're probably synthesized now but using the same molecules or whatever they do. But you know like digitalis which is a heart, a heart one then there's the morphine. Well digitalis that's foxglove. I did one! I love Fox Club. The heart medications. I didn't know that. Of course poppies. Dispirin is from Willows. Aspirin, Dispirin. And sure look, this isn't flowers but penicillin is. Oranges from Moult. Yeah, it's very interesting. It is isn't it? rotting bread, the green, you know how it can go green? Oh yeah. And they put that on wounds in the war Of course, yeah. Because they didn't have penicillin, but they knew that It did something. It did something. And because penicillin, I think only England had penicillin in the war. So that was a big game changer. Wow. I think it's easy to poo poo something that maybe you don't understand. But if you've looked at alternatives or if you've got something where there is no, no alternative, isn't it nice to have hope and have something and have a look at something, I think, you know, everything's got an application and also people, some of these more, um, artificially produced things people are happy to take, but wouldn't you think about maybe starting with something that's a bit less? People don't. They, they've fearful of the herbs which is so weird to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with coughs and all that, I tried lemon verbena. Oh. It's not lemon balm but lemon verbena. It's a shrub. It is. Yes. Yeah. Censored. Scratchy leaves again and I was told to pack a cup a tea or you know coffee cup with the leaves. Pour think the boiling water wasn't to be boiling it was to be you had to wait five minutes and then pour it on because you like to be scalded yeah which is true for tea. Yes my kettle has a little tea setting that boils it to 80 degrees. Yeah I mean even coffee as well I mean you can burn if you put boiling water in on your beans it's terrible. Yeah, Leathered Babina was fantastic for that cough. Like if you got a dry tickly cough you probably wouldn't use it but it was a productive I needed to cough it up and up and down and it was absolutely fantastic. So I've got a lemon verbena tree there and I don't get coughs anymore. It's important I always drink a lot of herbal tea. Yeah. And in my herbal tea like my favourite is licorice and I don't like to eat licorice. Oh right. I don't like licorice. I don't like aniseed. Real licorice is very different to what Australians have as licorice. We've got that sweet stuff but real licorice is that German stuff. The double salted licorice. But I was brought up with Herbaceous Borders. Oh, beautiful. Which really remind me of, I've never really heard a lot of people talk about Herbaceous Borders in Australia. No, because we're not so, the idea. think to me, a herbaceous border is that it dies down, it gets covered in snow, you don't have to look at the ugliness. Yeah. Then it melts and it comes back beautiful in spring. That's right, yes. We're in Australia, we don't really have that. That's why I've, yeah. Except for government houses. I never really knew. Is that the definition? Government houses have beautiful perennial borders. Is that the definition of a perennial, that it dies back over winter? No, that's a herbaceous perennial. Okay. So, or everything's sort of perennial. real, no other than annuals. Yeah. Yeah, herbaceous perennial. So they'll die up fruit or flower fruit, do their thing, die off and then you cut them back. They're still alive. You know, there's so many shasta daisies, solid agos, wind flowers. I mean, I could, there's millions. Yeah, what about mint? Is mint a perennial? Mint is a, you would call it a perennial, but it doesn't really die down. I would call it mint a weed. It is quite really. It does. Someone, I was getting, I got my hair done yesterday and the lady sitting beside me, I was like. She was into gardening and I was like, do you have any perennial questions? And she was like, oh no, but she said that she loves Pennyroyal. Oh, I love Pennyroyal. And she can't find it anywhere. No, half these perennials you can't find anymore. She'd have to go online and get it. Yeah, well, that's all I could think. I threw it out to a gardening group that I'm like a homesteader group that I'm part of. And I thought someone will have it somewhere, but no one has got back to me. Yeah, no one has got back to me. But I did see seeds. I think diggers have seeds. or maybe a seed collection. And it can be a weed as well Penny. Yes but she um was quite nostalgic with the smell of it. She said it smells quite dear and I because I didn't know what it was and I went in and I googled it and it just have a beautiful flower when it goes to kind of flower and seed and I didn't realise it was a mint. So just going back to the mint thing being weeding. It's called the Labbiati family. Yes. It's an enormous family which includes anything pretty much scented you know your sage your rosemary your mints. Yeah. sort of things and they've always got square stems that's the way you can tell. Oh interesting. Square stems and they're bird. bee and butterfly attracting, you often cut them back to keep them bushy because they can get a bit messy. Yeah, that sort of thing. It's a wonderful family. Yeah. And where are you using perennials in your yard? So I guess where I've struggled a little bit is first of all, I didn't realize how much easier perennials were at the beginning. I wish I knew that because it's sort of that one time effort and then they're there and then you're getting, they're producing so much more for you. But it's committing to a spot for for that long I find hard as well. For me I think when I was your age and gardening and at home it was a bit different for gardening because you could spend the day out with your children in the garden and for me gardening was planting something, watching it grow for you know 10 months, pulling it out, putting it somewhere else because it didn't suit. To me that's gardening. Now I've got older, my shoulders are shitty, my knee's shitty, I can't really dig a hole with a spade anymore unless it's soft, I can't use a mat because of my shoulders, it's just really turning to shit in that because I've worked those parts so much. So when it comes to gardening now, like I had a beautiful perennial garden. and then the drought hit. Perennials seem to like a lot more water than what we can give them in a drought when we're on restrictions. So nearly all of that died, which was a shame, but I had to accept that. And then the house burnt anyway. So now we're in the new garden. Well, it's not new, it's 15 years old. I think I've lived there as long as I lived up at the other place, but I'm slowly getting the perennials. I've got spots ready to go for perennials, but. I don't really have, I suppose I have lots of perennials. I can't think of if I have a particular area. They're sort of scattered throughout. I've done, yeah, what have you got, Averill? You've got, what do you call those, the Society of Garlick would be a perennial, wouldn't it? Yes, you'd call it that. I do have a lot of, so I live in a bit of a wind tunnel. Ah. And yeah, so there's a valley and the wind hurls up, like we overlook Canberra Airport. Ah, yep. And we've got Jeroboamber Creek that runs the whole way up the back. our property and then our property is quite slanted so the wind hurls up there so I inherited a lot of weeds, a lot of Agapanthus, which I, they're fine, the bees love them, they go wild around them. They just love that purple blue colour. The purple colour, you see in New South Wales it's a weed, it's a gorgeous weed. Yeah, yeah. Because of the waterway issue. Yeah and I, where they are they're fine. they perform, I have always wanted to remove them and replace them with something. It's going to be a lot of work because the root system is shocking. So I will get to it eventually. They're actually not too bad to remove. Have you removed any? Yeah, I have. Yeah. Didn't you find them nice and easy to chop out? Like because they're so... Well, they kind of have that bulbous kind of bottom, don't they? Yeah, which is succulent so you can chop at it really easily. Their roots tend to, because there's a lot, I've got hundreds upon hundreds like that run the whole way along. I just sort of got to cut the roots. Yeah, cut it out and refill with soil or something. Yeah, I mean, I'll work it. I've removed some around our back area. Well, actually we did remove hundreds around our back area and you know, they literally survived out of the ground. Yes, I know they do. Yeah, they're pretty amazing. Anyway, they're part of a little bit of a landscape garden but I'd love to replace them. And my dad's herbaceous border, like I'd love to kind of get that feel of different heights. He had loads of daisies and these beautiful fox gloves. It's so different to what I... When you say herbaceous border, I'm imagining sage. or rosemary. Oh, like a herb, like a herbaceous. I'm going very literal now. And the colours, the colours will be spectacular. Gorgeous. Like amazing. Like a cottage-y feel. Yeah, and different layers. So obviously it would be lower at the front and then would tear and build up to the middle. And these, like some of his flowers will be really substantial, like massive. You know those, they're like, that's what the foxglove is, isn't it? It goes the whole way up. Yes, that's a biennial. so that will die, but it will self sow. Yes, it's handy. Yes. Yeah. And he just have loads of little grand cover at the front and beautiful daisies and grasses growing through there as well. And so that's what I envision. Like I can see when I remove the agapanthus, but mine are a lot of my herbs. They kind of keep coming back. I suppose the likes of mint. I do have society garlic. Thanks for watching. Bye. keep kind of coming back as well. I don't know, a geranium isn't a perennial, is it? It is considered a perennial. Yeah, like I've got a good few geraniums. It's one of those ones that don't really die off. They get hit with the frost. Yes, and they're not flower. But there's lots of other geraniums too. Yes, I've got like a lot of native geraniums. Oh nice. Like a beautiful little native one. And that grows. Rodnearnum. It's like a little tiny little pink flower. Yeah, it's more of a ground cover. Some of the leaves go crimson underneath. Yeah, so that grows native on my land. And I bought some from a native, we've got a native nursery at the back of Gugong here towards Borough called Glen Bog nursery, have you ever been out there? Anyway I went out to buy some annual bedding. And obviously they don't do anything like that. Like they're literally they propagate everything themselves. But the lady gave me the best advice. She's like, everyone should have these native geraniums. She goes like when you think of your bedding, you're constantly replacing it. But this will give to you all the time. And I have them in my pots out the front. I have them with succulents and with some kind of grasses. But they do. They die back and they keep them back. was if you were like I wonder where the gardener lives and then you'd pull up and you go yep I'm at the right house. Really? Yeah. I love that. It's all a bit mixy-matchy and I pull things out and if it doesn't work there then I just move it and put it somewhere else. See I don't really do that. I don't do that enough. Yeah okay okay. And you see your garden's still pretty new, brooded out as well. I reckon... I don't have... Heaps of room, I guess, to move. I think you do really well with the room you've got. Yeah, and you're starting it because you've put some bulbs out the front there yesterday. I'm always reclaiming land every day. Yeah. What's this, darling? Yeah, so I think with your seeds, like over here, you'll replant. Oh, yes. Yeah. So you kind of are starting to do it. I just have a lot of... I started because we're on a bit of land, we get snakes. So I never wanted anything in the ground at all, it had to be up high. Oh, right, okay. So I've done a lot of pots. And now I've kind of settled in, I'm there nearly eight years and snakes come and snakes go and they don't bother me as much now. Not that I make friends with them. I don't name them. But you can accept them. But I can accept them and we're open, it's an open area. So I've accepted that they'll just slither away. Are they black or brown? Both. Oh, right. Well, they say that if you've got black snakes, the brown snakes aren't living there. Yeah, well. Because the black snakes are territorial. Yes, hopefully that we've got one right at our driveway at the moment, hopefully that is the case. But then I've also heard if you've got blue tongue lizards, you don't have snakes, but. Oh no, that's not true because I know many people that have blue tongues. Yeah, that, no, I definitely know. that's not true. I've been told a few things and I'm like no that's definitely because a blue tongue lizard will live there and then I know my snake is over there in that hole and I'm thinking oh that's a bit strange and then they'll say you know if you they'll slither away I had a red belly black at my laundry door which is fully glass and I thought well there's a fly screen so if I open the door and just kind of make a bit of noise it'll go away but he raised and it came out the fly screen Yeah, I knew I was safe but... Yeah, but still... And I had only moved into the place as well. I'd only moved in. I was like... Screaming down the phone. Go, let's go! You're accepting them, isn't it? It's taken me a while. I've had a lot of encounters. We haven't seen him. I think the weather is changing, you see, and his patterns are becoming a little bit... Yeah. I'm hoping it's a he. and that it's not a female that's gonna give me loads of babies. It's like I was sitting there because we sell plants in Canberra Facebook nursery. Canberra Facebook nursery, talk to us about that. What kind of plants? I grow things myself, but not everything. We're like plant brokers really. So we purchase plants cheaply and resell them cheaply because my idea is to have people buying plants. We like to be as cheap as Bunnings or cheaper. Yeah. That's not always the case. But yes, I've slowed down a little bit because we like to go away as well. Yes, of course you'd like to live. Like to have a life because I do still work believe it or not in health of all things. And yeah so Canberra Facebook Nursery. I bet I like are you selling mainly perennials? No, no we sell anything. Anything? Anything that I think is pop is going to be popular. I don't sell. Diozmas and yeah, you know, for 10 years. I do sell for 10 years, but generally they're not popular. But things that I think people like, which seems to be the older plants. The plants- How interesting that they can't get anymore, do you think? No, not these plants that I'm selling that are older plants, but they are plants that were growing in the 60s and 70s that are not as popular, but a lot of people my age particularly love them because they grew up with them. You know, the snowball tree? Yeah. For instance, that. sterile form. It doesn't get the berries. Really popular because it brings back all these memories. The memories and nostalgic. Yeah. And everyone that buys one comes and tells me a story about you know how how dad we picked all the flowers off and sprinkled them all over dad's manicured lawn and he made us pick them all up. I'll never forget that. This this paint now reminds me of my dad or you know, so, but a lot of people in small blocks can't grow them because they're quite, they get quite big, but we've got a dwarf one coming on this year. So we'll have a miniature or a dwarf, not miniature. And you must see a lot of trends coming in and out of gardening. What sort of on trend at the moment? Oh, it's still succulents. I don't do succulents. Yeah, okay. Other people do them really well. Succulents are trendy, indoor plants. Oh, yes. We'll do the odd fern. Pagolas and ferns are very popular. Pond plants. We had a fern growing up, can you believe it, in the 80s? Yeah, right. Yeah, they were very popular. Yeah. Yeah. So yes, we sell a few of those things. We sell some trees, crepe myrtles. Okay, crepe myrtles, yes. I'm in the market for a crepe myrtle. Oh, you are. We've got black leaf crepe myrtles or green leaves. Oh, they're beautiful. Sorry, I was trying to find it on here. What's it called again? Canberra Facebook nursery. Yes. Facebook. Is that it? Yes, that's it. Oh, that's it. Magnolia Stellata, that's our seller at the moment. That's beautiful. Are you a member? I'm already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a member. I didn't realize it. Oh, you were already a member. I was already. That's why you couldn't find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because with indoor plants, you can have them a long time. I remember talking to a lady in a plant store and she had this plant and she had it for like 32 years. Similar to your Christmas cactus. I suppose it depends what it is because sometimes... you know, we, most people will have their indoor plant and it'll look beautiful. And then six weeks will go by and go, Oh, that's right. The indoor plant I've got to, I've got to water it because our design for low water generally, so they'll go and water it. And then they'll water it the next week and the next week and the next week, the next thing is dying because they've been loving it too much. When they're overwatered, they can look like they're under water. And then you're like, Oh gosh, I've got to give it more water. Yeah. And then they'll get tricky. Yeah. Then they'll get the. Fungus net. Yes, that little black thing. Oh, yeah. You know, and then... They'll contact me saying, how do I cure this? You can't. So don't overwater it. Well, you put sand. There's a whole lot of things you can do. We have the gnat sand. Yeah, the gnat sand. Something that you just reminded me of that we do ask all of our guests on the show is, what's your first gardening memory? I don't think gardening as much as potted culture, which would be the indoor plants. Yeah. In my bedroom. Oh, in your bedroom. Yeah, in my bedroom. Yes, I had, I saw a Hoya. We went on a holiday down to Lake's entrance we went into a nursery and it was just a home backyard nursery and I fell in love with Hoyas and dad bought it for me it was $15 which would have been equivalent to $60 I think back then wow and it was quite big but it was covered in flowers and it had these drips you know these and I tasted it because I'm thinking I'm going to get poisoned you know like I'm just going to taste it it was like sugar these little droplets of liquid and so every year when it flowered in my I'd have to make sure I put something under it because they drip onto your bed or you know and it was sticky like sugar so it was just a way of what it did I think and so I had hundreds of plants from in glass jars to in pots to all these shelving I had in my bedroom. Isn't that beautiful? Yeah. So that would have to be my memory, my fondest memory. That's a beautiful memory. Good on you dad. Yeah. God rest his soul. Even though he didn't want you to become a horticulturist. No he didn't. But it's like, here's a mortgage payment. plant. I just wanted to ask with perennials is there like a particular soil that they prefer like is there? Not really. No. Look everyone will ask me that question. Yeah. Is there something that they prefer? Well in Canberra we've got that heavy clay soil and probably Queenbein's not much different and you just got to fix the soil up to a degree but perennials are quite forgiving. Yeah okay. You know if they're not going to work they're not going to work. Yeah. Usually they're things like asters that you know get flowers up to this tall spreading. They're things that you have to dig out because they do, some of them do spread a bit too much. Yeah. And you think why the hell did I plant that? Yeah right. But equally there's other things that you know like Jerusalem artichoke they're beautiful in a perennial garden. Is that what you've got? No I have the globe. Jerusalem artichoke. No Jerusalem's a yellow flower. Yes they were in that bed. We thought they were sunflowers. I know and they're beautiful. But I know what we dug all those bulbs out this is terrible. when I first joined the gun because I didn't know what they were and we just chopped them all. But that's okay because they're called farta chokes as well. Most people fart really badly, you know, they're silent, deadly but they're not you know, like I've never tasted dead ants but they can smell a bit like that. Yeah, I could tell you different ones, green ants in Queensland, my brother-in-law made me taste them, they taste like They've got a sting to them, but then a normal ant is a bit more, I don't know, can you smell a dead ant? Yeah, she can smell it. Some people say it's like coriander. It's like the smell. Oh my lord, no. I've never tasted an ant, I've never smelled an ant. At Coco Black you can buy green ant chocolates and in fact I've got a green ant gin that I'll share with you. No way. I'll show you after this. Yeah. It's a bush tucker. It's a thing. Yeah, right. Okay. Tell you what the best bush tucker is that finger lime. Oh my god. We'd love to grow some. I've got three in the yard. I've got one down at the Nelligan. Do they fly? Do they get hit with the frost? Mine never flowers. Is that because of the frost? No, it probably takes seven years. Were yours grafted? I'll show you. I don't know. Like is one pink, one yellow, one, are they coloured? I've never had a lime. No, but you did a bit of a lame. Or a flower. Oh no, it came from a guy's backyard. Yeah, so a dodgy lime. Mine's the dodgy lime too. So they take about seven years and they are the nastiest friggin plants. Oh, aren't the thorns bigger than the leaves? I know. But the grafted ones apparently flower earlier. Yeah, thorns and really fine ones. You go near it and they'll prick you. You know, terrible. And they grow very haphazardly too. So they're quite hard to control. That wouldn't do you, Brenna Dash. Oh, I know. But I think it'd be all right to prune them. I'm thinking my one at Nelligan, it's like six foot tall. Mine have been fine with the frost, but I've sort of, I'll show you. My whole fence, I've got wire. and I spill all the fruit trees and they're sort of right against the fence. So maybe they get a protection. It's like a little micro. There's little ecosystems everywhere. A little microclimate. Yeah, beautiful. They flowered this year for the first time, but nothing came of it. Oh, you got flowers. I got flowers to see. Well, that's a sign. OK. I was so close to moving them. I was like, do I should I be bringing them in the greenhouse? Well, if you've got three, why not move one? You know, just to, you know. see what happens. It'll be interesting to see if you pump it in the greenhouse. What was that anti-anxiety medication? I might need to take that first. I put one in your greenhouse. Yeah. Yes definitely. That's what I was, the smallest one. Oh that's a choice. I think I'd do one of the... I might do the one that's easiest to get to. Maybe we start there. Yeah, or the one if you've got two tall ones and one small, I'd take one of the tall ones. I'll show you. Yeah, because I've got a little cafe of lime there too and that's doing really well. Oh, that's good. Yeah, they seem to be. I just chucked them. That was another... We just, I had to put them in the ground because they were dying in the pot and then now I'm like, why have I put them there? But they seem okay. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting with the finger limes. a chat with us and coming in here today and thank you from our city chums for all your knowledge and if you don't hear from me I've made my own herbal tinkerture and it's not gone well. I know you're always worried about me eating everything I'm going through the garden I'm like she tastes everything. Chew chew chew. No that's good. It'll be Bernadette next with her tinkertures because she'll be mixing it with vodka and she'll be. Oh yeah you can't drink it. But you do take it three times a day, they say. Yeah. So, you know, and it depends how many squirts. I don't, it's not gonna hurt you, that's for sure. I remember taking a tinkertre to clear my liver. I can't remember what it was, but I used to take it three or four times a day. Yeah, did it work? Did it work? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was when I was quite young and I had, I went to a herbalist, I had really bad reaction to, it was probably alcohol, which sounds a bit bad. It turned out that I was allergic to alcohol. Oh, there was a few things I was allergic to alcohol, red meat, whites of eggs and cheese. Oh, sad, they were my favourite things. I've seen you eat all of those things. Yeah, no, I do. I kind of had to do a full elimination from my body. and then reintroduce back in. To set you up with a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm not a big drinker. Back then, at the time I was having like my legs waxed and they were using pure ethanol on me too. You know the way they kind of clean you down. And then my mum and dad are great, you know, meat and three veg people. So there was a lot of red meat, which you diagnosed earlier, in my diet. My dad... loves pavlovas, that probably would have been whites of eggs and then I just like cheese. Yeah, who doesn't? So yeah, I was, so my body was overdosed but there was, yeah, there was a tinkerture that I took for clearing out my liver and I just done a whole kind of, I eliminated it all and then introduced it slowly so I do eat them all. I guess we should do a very quick disclaimer for everyone that these things need to be properly researched. That's right. Made by somebody who knows what they're doing and is qualified and not just Bernadette in the backyard. St. John's more. Most definitely. And that our chat is about a bit of edutainment, we call it. Maybe a little bit of education, you might learn something from it, you may not. But we've really enjoyed our chat with you. Yeah, it was fantastic. If you were to whip something out of your garden, like if you had to leave, we were prepping and we had to leave. I wanna be my Coralus Avelana Contorta. Ooh, what would you do? We just called it Twisted Hazelnut. and that would be the thing I'd take out. So it's a hazelnut tree, but it's not enormous. Can you eat the hazelnuts? It doesn't get hazelnuts because you need to produce hazelnuts. It does get the odd one. And I do have a hazelnut tree down the back because we've got quite an extensive yard. But I think every now and then the wind might blow that direction or that direction because you do get one or two that are fertilized. And I didn't realize that now I don't have enough room for another hazelnut to fertilize the big, the true hazelnut. but I'd take that one because it takes a long time to grow. It does this, it literally grows like that. Really? Wow squiggly. Yeah squiggly and every year when it gets because it's deciduous when it gets at catkins I'll cut a piece and put it in a bonsai. plant pot or whatever you call it with a bit of oasis, glue pebbles on the top and it looks like this bonsai. Oh my gosh. And they sesh. What's that art called? You know the way people- Ikebana. Oh my Lord, I'm so into that at the moment. Are you? Yeah. I reckon that that's gonna make a comeback very soon. I think it's starting. I think it's starting. Yes, yes, yes, it's starting. Well my late grandmother used to do a lot of Ikebana in the horticultural shows. That was a lot bigger of a category back then. Yeah. you're on your show. I'm such a supporter of the Canberra show that I don't go any year now. But you did support it. Yes I've entered it many times when I was probably your age. This is a very productive time of your life. Yeah. And it's wonderful the 30s sort of thing. It's nice. you know, with young children to be home-born. You can pop it out in the garden. Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. And I used to always support, but I remember my first time going to the show, I had three tomatoes, small, medium and large. Well, of course that's not what you do. You've got to have three of the same, exactly the same size. I presume it's the same. It's the same. What everyone doesn't realize with these ribbons, I've had a lot of disqualifications. Oh really? I'd put stuff in and they'd be like, they'd be like a miniature rose. And I'd just put it in there like, it's a minimum five cuts and they all have to be identical. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm such, I'm an embarrassment. That's exactly what happened to me. But that's how I learned. Yeah. And I'd get the judges, I'd go, excuse me, can you please tell me why I was just caught off guard? You know, it's so true. It's true, you always hear about the wins, but you never hear about the losers, but they're just as important, because that's how you learn. Yeah. And was there a lot of entries because that was dwindling? Oh, it's getting, it's a lot better. Oh good. So mum and I started in COVID, and I didn't realise. I think we're a bit lucky because there wasn't as much competition and it was a bit easier. This year everyone's come back after COVID it was it was out at EPIC it was 10 times as big as what we'd been used to. Well it's not normally big it hasn't been big. It was the problem so I'm really pleased. It was fantastic and there was a lot of people there. I'm so going to enter next year. You have to. I've got to remember I've got to try and remember. Because everyone walks around and goes I could have won that well you could have but you need to enter. That's exactly right. But that's me now. crazy person before the show with my ruler out in the back yard and I'm like my husband's like what are you doing I'm like I need three zucchini under 20 centimeters and it's really hard to do it's really hard to get because you gotta time them and you don't usually get three at the same time. And then those people that make the I've got a friend who enters this one every year it preserves and you've got to have a selection like this this this there's about five or six different things she Oh my god, she's just, the stuff she makes is just beautiful. I might need to get in contact with her, get some tips. Mentor. Look up the rules because I'm sure they're really strict, those ones. Oh, that's fantastic. Well that was wonderful, thank you for having me. Thank you. How did you find that chat with Cheryl? Wasn't Cheryl fantastic? I am honored to have Sutton had that chat with her. I am so impressed at how she knows all the botanical names of everything and can just rattle them off. It's like Latin, you know? She's got all the Latin names. She's a walking psychopath. But it really legitimizes, like when she talks about things, you can really just tell that she just knows all things horticulture inside and out. Like she's just so confident. Yeah, she's talking about having all those skills to her kids but also so nice of her to share those with us and our listeners today. That's right it was it was a great little sharing section and we love learning and that's what the journey's about that we can learn with everyone out there. Are you gonna make a tinkerture? Tinkerture, yes, maybe calendula. I'll probably make one just for the alcohol. I know yeah and she tries it all. I'll be the tester. I will definitely have St John's Award for her. Next year? Next year. make sure you get in on our socials. Follow us on Instagram, CDchats. If you've got Facebook, please follow us on Facebook too. We're getting that up and running. And subscribe, and if you've got time, please do leave us some positive feedback because it really helps us to keep making the content that you like to hear. And don't be afraid to slide into our DMs. We love hearing from you. Yes, we do.