Lower Hermitage Fruit Trees (Popular)
Lower Hermitage Fruit Trees and the most popular plants Australians buy for mail order. With fruit trees you should consider climate suitability.
Special
Sheoak - River
$2.75 ($2.75-$14.90 choose a size)
Riparian species, tall, elegant and a good choice for windbreaks and compacted soils with the added advantage of being nitrogen fixing. It is a conical evergreen tree with pendulous needle-like foliage.
Buy 8+ @$2.75ea usually:$4.90ea
Sheoak - Forest
$4.90
Ornamental, slender, upright, medium sized tree with thick, corky bark and large flat topped seed pods. Handsome weeping tree for home gardens and parks. Important feed tree for the threatened Glossy Black Cockatoo which feeds on seeds. Foliage is gleaned for insects by small insectivorous birds. Suitable to most soils and situations. Fast growing and tolerant of moderate frosts. The timber is reddish pink to brown. It is prized by woodworkers and woodturners as a rare and exotic timber, often used in wood turnings, knife handles and other specialist items. Casuarina are nitrogen fixing plants
Yacon - Apple of the Earth
$19.75 ($3.95-$19.75 choose a size)
Also known as the 'Earth Apple' this is one of the ancient crops of the Inca's. This relative of the sunflower is popular to the people of Columbia, Ecuador and Argentina. The plant produces large tubers similar in appearance to sweet potatoes, but they have a much sweeter taste and crunchy flesh. The tubers can be eaten raw as a refreshing treat on their own, finely sliced and mixed into salads,boiled or baked, fried as chips or prepared as a pickle. There is also commercial interest as a flavouring for yoghurt. They are sweet, juicy and almost calorie free. The main stem can also be used like celery. The texture and flavour have been described as a cross between a fresh apple and watermelon. The plants are vigorous, herbaceous, perennial and extremely hardy tolerating hot summers, drought and poor soils. The foliage of the plant dies back in the winter after flowering at which time the tubers are harvested carefully to avoid damage to the tubers. They tend to continue sweetening if left in a cool dry and dark place for a week or two before consumption. The reddish rhizomes are then replanted for the next season.
