Grounds: Cafe Gardens & Garden Cafes

Engine Room Cafe

With a long weekend coming up, it’s time to start planning the all-important city exodus. Why not turn your thoughts to a scenic trip through the Lockyer Valley and up over the range to Toowoomba?

Beat the Carnival of Flowers crowds by going at this time of year, and if you do, consider popping in to the Engine Room Café. No matter what you select from the menu it will tide you over for a good week or two – exactly what is required from a day-trip pit stop!

The best place to sit is the courtyard out the back…it’s not obvious at first glance, but well worth backtracking from the counter, through the gift shop, and up the stairs to sit out and enjoy the winter sun.

There’s a simple timber frame structure overhead and the floor is a mix of deck and old concrete. I was most intrigued though, by the walls.

A simple and fairly cost-effective series of ‘green walls’ has been created by wrapping the courtyard in curving panels of reinforcing mesh.

El-cheapo brush fencing panels are secured front and back…

…and a healthy profusion of vegetation bursts through beneath the dappled light.

Amongst the stars are maidenhair ferns, and a host of bromeliads.

Adding colour are a bougainvillea and a native violet that’s hurled itself around the base of the screens and up the front like a rat up a drainpipe.

Being disinclined to deconstruct the courtyard I wasn’t able to see what was going on behind the screens, but I imagine the pots and growing media are all back there, hanging from the reo mesh.

If you’ve read the story on Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory City Garden you’ll know of my fondness for garden structures made from reinforcing bars and mesh.

I reckon the Engine Room Café shows another way to use this readily available and versatile material to good effect.

Now tell me what you think? Do you like the contrast between the rusty reinforcing mesh and the verdant greenery?

Let me know in the comments below.

Happy Long-Weekend-Planning, and see you soon for more from the world of landscape and design.

Note: the Engine Room Cafe is at 1 Railway Street, Toowoomba.

Grounds: Cafe Gardens & Garden Cafes

Wild Canary

There’s something truly magical about seeing a check-trousered chef wander out from his kitchen and come back clutching a few delicate fronds. It’s even better when those same fronds appear only minutes later on the plate that has just been delivered to your table.

Such was my happy fate upon visiting Wild Canary, the brand new café in the grounds of the Brookfield Garden Centre.

The fronds in question were Lemon Verbena, and they made a graceful garnish for the Strawberry Surprise muffin I’d ordered. (I am ever-skeptical of muffins. They can be tricky, don’t you think? A bad one is like a deadweight of unhappy clagginess. So common is this variety though, that the rare appearance of a good ‘un warms the soul and restores faith in the possibility of successful small baked goods).

The delicate pale purple flowers and fine foliage released a zingy lemon aroma when crushed. Mother-of-Landscapology, visiting from out of town, was so impressed she hot-footed into the nursery and bought up the last plant to take home.

The plants the chef had attacked were not in the nursery, but rather in a fantastic kitchen garden, newly established midway between the garden centre and Wild Canary.

Five raised beds have been installed, and planted out with a variety of citrus and fruiting trees, vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers, including olive, lemon, fennel, sage, basil, thyme, mint, rosemary, and of course, lemon verbena.

Little critter enjoying his share of the kitchen garden too...

The varied bed plantings.

Terrace under the bamboo stand.

Brick wall detail at the cafe entry.

Wild Canary is open for breakfast and lunch, and I suspect that, having enjoyed your meal and wandered back past the kitchen garden, you too will find it difficult to leave without picking something up at the nursery.

Resistance is futile.

The nursery has an extensive collection of Australian plants for sale.

Stunning Xanthorrhoea.

Bromeliads in the shade section.

The nursery in its eucalypt setting.

Now it’s over to you.

Have you ever eaten something at a cafe or restaurant and then been inspired to grow it at home? Let us know what it was, and how you went in the comments below.

Of course coffee and food are made to be shared, so if you know someone else who might find this interesting, why not pass it on, and if you liked it ‘heart’ us below.

Note: Wild Canary is at the Brookfield Garden Centre, 2371 Moggill Road, Brookfield. Bookings on 3378 2805 (recommended). The are several dining areas available, including a raised internal room and a covered outdoor deck.

Grounds: Café Gardens & Garden Cafes

Paddock Bakery

For many Brisbanites, Easter is their final beach holiday before the weather turns cool. (I would personally chew my own arms off for a touch of cool weather, but that's another story...)

Each year the precious four days are anticipated and longed for, over weeks of perfect sunshine and blue skies. Invariably the result involves torrential rain or <shudder> flooded campsites.

Whatever hand fate deals you, if you’re heading to the Gold Coast, or even just passing through, it’s worth a detour to enjoy the garden at Paddock Bakery.

Paddock unfolds itself along a big corner block, one street back from the Gold Coast Highway at Burleigh. A white-painted timber house has been converted to become home to the café.

Glass doors at the rear reveal the bakery engine room and kitchen. Tight t-shirts and singlets reveal the arms of tanned, bemuscled patrons.  

There are inviting seating choices inside, all with good views out.

There are more options out in the garden itself. At the front, picnic tables hunker under big shady trees.

To the side, a new edible garden is taking shape. Chunky timber framed raised beds are home to the usual suspects of culinary herbs, as well as flowers, lush vegetables and citrus.

Passionfruit tendrils have laid siege to the elegant arbour; the whole structure will be invisible this time next year.

Little tables and chairs are dotted around, and the ground surface is relaxed – old bricks, slabs of stone, deco…nice.

Have a coffee and a freshly baked pastry, read the papers, get a loaf of chewy sourdough to take away and you’ll be set for another day of boardgames in the caravan.

Note: Paddock Bakery is at 20 Hibiscus Haven, Burleigh. Open 6:00am – 2:00pm. 

Grounds: Cafe Gardens & Garden Cafes

Abode Cafe

Long ago when I was a struggling student, Taringa was a festering cesspit of rickety hovels and grim brick sixpacks, clustered cheek by jowl in the lowlands behind the Chinese restaurant on Moggill Road, untouched by sun in winter, or air in summer.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that was probably just the parts of Taringa that my colleagues and I could afford, a thought that occurred to me as I travelled along graceful Stanley Terrace recently, on my way to visit Abode Café.

Abode is part of the Hillsdon Road shops, the sort of corner enclave that every suburb needs, and sadly, every suburb used to have before shopping centres completely wiped them out.

The Hillsdon Road shops have been recently reinvigorated with a corner store, laundromat, art studio, pet pamperers, and more.

Even man's best friend can bubble bath in a garden setting...

Abode occupies one stretch of the corner site.

Inside there’s a banquette with a clutch of tables, and a not-too-scary communal table. There are flowers on the counter, and plants in jars and pots tucked here and there.

Outside is the garden courtyard.

More tables and chairs gather on the lawn and bricks, under umbrellas, and shaded by trees.

Pooches lie about while their humans read the papers, occasionally nipping off for a drink of their own.

Herbs bask in the sun, within a few steps reach of the kitchen.

It’s all perfectly delightful, and let me tell you, on a glorious autumn morning, the place was heaving. Minutes after these shots were taken, so was every seat in the house.

If you’re into coffee, they use Black Sheep. If you like homemade jams and the like, they’re available too. They do gluten free and dairy free fodder.

The menu is small but delicious - hello savoury mince, my old friend - and the staff, led by owner Bronwyn, are supremely friendly and unflappable. They even offered to turn off the fluoro lights in the kitchen if I preferred that for my photos!

With charms like this, it’s pretty easy to see why so many are making Abode’s courtyard garden their home away from home.

Note: Abode is at 30 Hillsdon Road, Taringa. Open 7:30am-3:00pm.  Check the Hillsdon Road Shops' blog for more info. PT users can catch the 415 bus to the doorstep.

Grounds: Cafe Gardens & Garden Cafes

Secret Garden Cafe at Cottage Garden Nursery

I have the most wonderful studio imaginable. I love it, and swear I can feel my mood, creativity and productivity all improve when I cross the threshold into that calm, dark, cool space.

Despite this insane privilege, I still find it really useful to get out occasionally. The change of setting brings a new perspective to whatever it is I’m pondering.

Now this may get my membership of the design fraternity revoked, but I’m not much of a coffee drinker. The hardest I’ll usually go is a cup of hot soy that’s been waved sort of in the vicinity of the coffee machine. Yes, yes, I know. Lame. Despite this enfeeblement I still like going to cafes, and I’m sure you’ve been to your fair share too.

With that in mind, allow me to introduce Grounds, a new feature where each month I’ll share a different cafe in a garden setting.

To get things started we have The Secret Garden Café, in East Brisbane.

They had me at ‘secret garden’, and on arriving I discovered that the secret was in fact the Cottage Garden Nursery.

The resourceful owners operate the nursery, and lease out space in their corner premises to a florist, three antiques traders, a clothing boutique, and The Secret Garden Café. Unlike some of the big garden centres the scale of Cottage Garden is more intimate. You can flow leisurely from space to space and see it all, or just as easily pop in for a coffee or flowers.

Cottage Garden is just what you need in a local nursery, with a diverse but nicely curated selection of species. Brisbane ratepayers can collect their free native plants; herbs and edibles are well represented; and there’s a whole separate space dedicated to shade-lovers.

Banksia integrifolia and Lomandra confertifolia in the 'free plants' section.

The herbs taking their morning dip.

Pothos 'Goldilocks' and a friendly visitor in the shade-lovers area...naturally the only time the sun came out!

Whether your thing is arid zone plants or potted colour, Cottage Garden Nursery makes it difficult for plant-lovers to leave empty handed.

Syzygium australe 'Resilience' and Metrosideros collina 'Little Dugald'.

Garden accessories include these little timber herb planters and a range of pots. 

For the colour fans: Portulacca and Carnation 'Divine'.

Dipladenia and Lavender.

And what about the café? Well, make sure you leave it till last, because you won’t be up to much after a slice of the home made zucchini, lime and pistachio cake. Served on a dainty plate, with a silver cake fork and an indecently large dollop of vanilla-flecked cream, this beauty made for a very happy Landscapologist. Such are the lengths to which I’ll go to for you, Dear Reader. It's a value for money proposition too, because you won't need to eat for the rest of the day.

The cake was marching out of the display cabinet to tables everywhere, along with passionfruit tart, white choc cheesecake with Turkish delight, and a double Lindt extravaganza that would stop the die-hardist chocolholic in their tracks.

Does this place have designer chairs and a sleek fitout? No.

Will you feel right at home with the relaxed vibe and personal service? I think so.

The Secret Garden Café is not so secret anymore.

Now it’s over to you.

What do you think of Grounds, our new monthly segment on coffee with a garden setting? We have places in mind for the months ahead, but if you have a favourite that you think we should investigate, please drop me a line or leave a note in the comments below.

If you know someone else who might find this interesting, why not share it.

Note: Cottage Garden Nursery is at 999 Stanley Street East (corner of Edgar Street), East Brisbane. Horticulturalist Paul is on hand for friendly advice.