Can you cultivate truffles at home?!

Growing your own truffles is a long-term project, but a tantalising one if you love these expensive nuggets of fungi. Let us tell you how.

Foraging for truffles. Picture: Andrea Cairone/Unsplash

Growing your own truffles is a long-term project, but a tantalising one if you love these expensive nuggets of fungi. They grow in a symbiotic association with the roots of certain trees, which are sold already inoculated with the truffle spores: English oak (Quercus robur) and pecan nut (Corylus avellana) are both large deciduous trees, while hazelnuts are small deciduous trees or large shrubs. Evergreen tree options are stone pine (Pinus pinea) and holm or holly oak (Quercus ilex), both tough trees that take dry and coastal exposure.

Stone pine is a source of pine nuts so they, hazelnuts and pecans offer the potential of dual crops. Trees are inoculated with either the French black truffle or Bianchetti white truffle. It takes about five years for the first small truffles to be produced, and then yields increase each year. They’re harvested in winter, traditionally using a trained truffle pig or dog to detect them underground, but some people can sniff out the sweet, earthy fragrance.

Truffles need warm to hot summers and cold winters, with well-drained, alkaline soil (pH 7.5-8). Add lime or dolomite if your soil is acidic. Suppliers include diggers.com.au and trufficulture.com.au.

Magnolias

Magnolias are the stars of late winter into early spring, when their large blooms stud the bare branches of these lovely trees.

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’

Magnolia ‘Honey Tulip’

Give them protection from hot sun and wind, with enriched, loamy soil – and keep the shallow roots mulched.

Magnolia ‘Burgundy Star’

Magnolia ‘Felix’

Q&A

Is there a rule of thumb for pruning shrubs? When is the best time?

Lynette Justice, by email

The general guide is to prune straight after flowering. The major exception is fruiting plants, as you’d get no fruit if you removed the spent flowers. Deciduous plants are often pruned in winter, but don’t prune any that bear spring flowers (or they won’t). Weather is a factor – plants from warm climates often resent being pruned in the cold months; avoid pruning in extreme heat or wet. Frost will burn tender new growth, so delay pruning in frosty areas while there’s risk. Some plants tolerate hard pruning and others just don’t
– the main ones that don’t are conifers, palms, and sick/old plants. Some native plants don’t like hard pruning, so research these first. If in doubt, research first and cut second.

We have several sheoak seedlings popping up on the nature strip from a large, beautiful casuarina tree nearby. Should I remove them? If so, how – and would that harm the parent tree?

Gerard Holmes, Blairgowrie, Victoria

They could be seedlings, which you can simply pull out when the soil is moist. But it’s likely they are suckers from the roots, as some casuarina species sucker aggressively, forming dense thickets. To remove these, tear rather than cut them off in order to remove more of the dormant basal buds and thus inhibit regrowth. You could just mow the nature strip regularly. Using herbicides on suckers can harm the parent tree.

What evergreen shrubs and trees for our north and east facing courtyard will survive our fierce salt winds and rain? Indian hawthorn just
handles it.

Rowena Penberthy, Yamba, NSW

Try silverberry (Elaeagnus), coastal banksia (B. integrifolia), coastal tea tree (Leptospermum laevigatum), bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus), coastal rosemary (Westringia), weeping myrtle (Agonis flexuosa), New Zealand Christmas bush (Metrosideros), white correa (C. alba), and oleanders.

Send your questions to: [e-mail]. The best question for July will win the top-of-the-line Felco 250-63 hedging shears worth $140.