Garden Wreckage

Builders, even nice builders like ours, inevitably damage a garden. Machinery and goods have to be moved in and out, new drainage lines have to be dug (Oh! Farewell, Salvia 'Black Prince'! sob). We also had a huge new pit drain installed, which ran further under my vegetable patch than I realised. I knew its length; I hadn't realised the width! In the left foreground is a mound of reasonable soil from the vegetable patch, taken from the drain area. The bare earth on the right-hand side is mostly clay.


And the only thing coming through the clay is onion weed.


Apart from the occasional nasturtium and borage.


My damaged and unmaintained vegetable patch, however, still has a few surprises. The leeks and red silverbeet are still going, along with the sorrel and a Tuscan kale. I wasn't surprised to find volunteer parsnip everywhere, because that's what parsnip does. What did surprise me was the chervil on the far side of the garden, and feral Florence fennel everywhere!


The other surprise is our sneaky Banskia spinulosa. This plant has been sitting there for years, refusing to flower, growing nicely but not a "candle" in sight. But now we aren't looking at it, what has it decided to do? Hmph!