Australia has many strange and wonderful plants, but if you had to pick one tree that says “Australia” that might be the bottle tree. Bottle trees are survivors. They store up water in their uniquely…
Tahitian limes are a hybrid of the Mexican lime and lemons. That is somewhat of an over-simplification…
Avocados, sometimes called alligator pears because of their bumpy skins, are a favorite snack time fruit. Many school children, apartment dwellers and others know the trick of sticking three toothpicks into an avocado seed and…
Too often, landscapes just happen without much planning. “Just Because” landscapes often wind up with not only visual problems, such as large plants hiding or overwhelming smaller ones, but serious challenges such as large plants…
Avocados are not native to Australia. But they are now grown in nearly every part. These versatile trees can be grown in just about any tropical or semi-tropical region, and in a few other areas…
Xanthorrhoea Glauca Grass Tree, as noted a few weeks ago, is native to Australia. It grows very well here at Designer Trees, where we are harvest and cultivate it. This is an important point, because…
Olives and olive oil have been a part of human diet for a very long time. Olives can be eaten green or ripe. They can be pickled, or the oil can be expressed from them…
What looks like a bottle, stores up liquid and has an edible inner bark? The Queensland bottle tree. Shaped like a sturdy wine bottle, these trees are often left standing when undergrowth is cleared away…
February is the beginning of autumn for the “land down-under.” That is, no doubt, common knowledge to the people who live in Australia. It can be somewhat mind-bending for people who live in the northern…
Olives, pickled olives, and olive oil all come from olive trees. Although these wonderful trees are available in several varieties, the differences between olive products is primarily derived from when they are picked and how…
Limes are delicious, nutritious, and even good for cleaning things. There are several types of lime, but the one that is the most hardy and easy to grow is the Tahitian lime. It is sometimes…
The glauca grass tree, or Xanthorrhoea glauca is another one of those plant types unique to Australia. Although there are similar plants growing in other places, the Grass Tree is distinctive. Xanthorrhoea Xanthorrhoea plants grow…
Olives are an ancient type of tree. There is fossil evidence of olive trees as long ago as 20,000 or even 40,000 years ago, during the Oligocene Era, a transition time between the Eocene and…