Topiary in Canberra: Jackie French's top tips are a snip

Back to the pot plants. They were topiaried bay trees, the tops dark green spheres, which is one of the easiest shapes to topiary and trim. But it was their trunks that Bryan loved, all wriggly and twisted.

Which are also easy to achieve. Take a young plant, so young its stem is still supple, not the rigid trunk it will become. Twist wire of a similar size into the desired shape; attach gently (old stockings are good for this); and tie often and, as it grows, add more twisty bits of wire to guide its growth.

Actually the whole caboodle also comes in convenient kits at garden centres or even online. You can buy the wire circle to put on the top too, to guide your trimming till the plant reaches its desired round shape, then keeps it. Or turn your plant into a triangle or topiary horse, though for more imaginative topiary like dinosaurs you may need to make your own guiding shapes. (I wouldn't mind a pair of dinosaurs guarding our front door. An Aussie one, of course, like the one named for the small girl (who is probably a young woman by now) who found a bit of it on a dig.

You gently place the frame over the plant and snip off any bits that appear outside it, which will take a few years or even decades, depending on the growth habits of the plant and size of the frame – large topiary dinosaurs will take longer than a small bay tree ball. Faster-growing shrubs or trees will give you the desired shape sooner, but on the other hand, they'll need more snipping, more often and for longer (i.e. the rest of their lives).

You may even need a plant sitter, if you intend taking long-service leave. One friend left his beloved bonsai with his mum for six months, knowing she was a plant lover and gardener extraordinaire. He came back to find she had repotted it for him and it was now over two metres high … "and just ready for the garden" which was where it ended up. I expect it might be closer to 10 metres now.

Anyhow, next time you are watching a BBC murder whodunnit and are swayed by seeing a bit of topiary, you know know how to do it, the topiary I mean, not the murder. And, by the way, forget about all those useful botanic murder weapons in movies and TV series too: either they show you plants that don't exist, to stop anyone who wants to bump off Aunt Ethel from finding the tool to do it; or they show you the wrong part of the plant to use. This latter happened in an Agatha Christie adaptation and I still wonder if they did it deliberately, to stop the possible culling of Aunt Ethels, or the director had never realised that different parts of a plant can have different properties, which is why we eat potatoes but not their leaves. But even if the movies/TV shows do negligently tell you what plant to use and how, the toxic properties of plants vary enormously. You may just make her nauseous and cross.

Take up topiary instead, to keep healthily occupied. And never think that a twisted stem may be a metaphor for its creator. If Bryan liked them, they must be good.

Which plant?

Plants to topiary need to have attractive leaves. The smaller the leaf, the neater the plant. Classic topiary species include bay, camellia, photinia (very, very fast), box (very, very slow, but neat, species like the Japanese box,Buxus microphylla var japonica, which grows much faster than the traditional English box, Buxus sempervirens), Thuja occidentalis or T. plicata, yew (Taxus baccatta or some of the small leafed pittosporums and miniature lillipillies, which put out stunning new pink leaves, especially if you trim them often and remember to water them.

This week I'm:

* planting seeds for winter veg;

* not planting seeds for winter annuals, which normally I'd be doing now but, realistically, this winter I won't have time to feed, water and prune annuals much less give them their due ration of admiration but if you do think you'll have the time on all counts, plant now;

* mowing, just to let the resident snakes know that humans live here too;

* working out how much of this season's growth needs to be turned into next summer's compost and mulch; and

* rejoicing that the rufous fantail family have flown away! Yes, we'll miss them and celebrate when they return next spring. But the parents laid and raised a second clutch this year, so we were afraid that the fledglings weren't going to be flying by the time the parents had to leave. Bryan checked each day, in case the instinct to leave was stronger than the one to nurture. No worries. The birds have flown.

Mega Sale from the Australian Native Plant Society

The next mega -sale of the Australian Native Plant Society will be held once again at the Australian National Botanic Gardens on March 21, from 8.30 am to 1.30pm (or earlier if sold out – which usually happens!). This is the autumn sale and autumn is a great time to plant, while the soil is still warm and the frosts haven't started yet. There are likely to be about 10,000 plants available at this sale, with more than 600 different species, forms and cultivars. Many of these plants are not available commercially and many are genuinely local in origin (marked LOCAL on their plant label). Plant lists are also available from http://nativeplants-canberra.asn.au so people can plan in advance what they would like to buy.

The Australian Native Plant Society is also very excited that the 5th edition of Australian Plants for Canberra Region Gardens and Other Cool Climate Areas will be available for purchase at the plant sale. It's been extensively revised and now has illustrations for the 934 described plants with many more forms and cultivars listed. More than 80 per cent of plants on the plant list for the plant sale can be found in the new book, which has sections highlighting groundcovers, herbaceous plants, grasses and clumping plants, ferns, climbers, shrubs (small, medium and large) as well as trees and those that are best grown in containers.

Vegetable thingummies

Vegetable thingummies happen when you have too many vegies in the garden, and so do your friends, and the weather is cooling and you want something vegetable-y for lunch. Or dinner. Or as a 3pm snack which is increasingly what I eat instead of dinner.

Like "bottom of the garden" soup which is a staple in winter, the ingredients in vegetable bakes can be varied enormously. But this is what we ate this week.

4 large potatoes, peeled and grated
2 carrots, peeled and grated
½ cup grated sweet potato
2 large onions, grated
10 cloves garlic, chopped (I mean LOTS)
10 tbsp chives or three bunches, chopped
some parsley, finely chopped (sorry, 'some' is as accurate as it gets- depends how much you like parsley)
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (not the pre-grated stuff – it must have oomph)
3 eggs
6 tbsp self-raising flour
salt and pepper – I almost never use salt, but this does taste better if you add some

Mix with your hands. Spread a thin layer, about as thick as your thumb, in a greased baking tray. Bake at 200C for about 40 minutes till set. Serves 4 people or two greedy/hungry ones.

These are usually made as triangles or parcels, but a single large is faster, and easier for those with nil manual dexterity, like me.

6 cups cooked spinach or silver beet (or one packet frozen) well squeezed and dry
2 onions, peeled and chopped
10 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
250g low-fat feta cheese
125g cheddar cheese (both cheese can be low fat versions)
5 eggs
6 sheets filo pastry
3 tbsp butter, melted (olive oils works but not as well – or you can mix half and half)

Place a sheet of pastry in a greased baking tray, wipe over some of the butter, as little as possible. Use your fingers if you don't have a pastry brush.

Repeat with two other sheets. Mix everything else but the butter and pastry. Lay in the tray, cover with a sheet of pastry, butter, repeat with the others.

At once place in an oven at 200C so it doesn't get soggy, bake 45 minutes till browned on top. The middle should now be set, but if it isn't, cover with another tray so it doesn't get too brown, and bake again for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot. Can be reheated.