October Garden

The Echium looks wonderful, but I need to find out how to care for it after flowering.  There seem to be two schools: prune it hard, and prune it lightly.  Oh dear.

Thought it would be fun to try to grow a pineapple.

My passionfruit has started to grow.

Ghastly Moments in Gardening V: Red in Beak and Claw

Yesterday, the boys came rushing in to tell me that there was a mouse in the chook food bucket.  The bucket was nearly empty and the poor mouse, not a very large one, was unable to jump out.  I roused on the boys for leaving the lid off overnight and took the bucket outside.

There we were as I tipped the bucket slowly sideways to let the mouse out: the Geek, the Twig, the Sprig and the chooks wandering near us.  The mouse finally leapt out and bolted between my husband's feet, looking for safety in the grass nearby.

But too late!  One of our chooks saw the movement and tore after it.  To my surprise, she was able to snatch the mouse up in her beak -- it shrieked! -- and then all the chooks were after her.  The poor mouse was dropped and snatched up several times before one of the girls triumphantly carried off the now-lifeless body to a corner of the back yard.

I had no idea chickens would attack an animal as big as a mouse!

Gardening Weather at Last!

Down the side of my driveway is a gap to the fence of no more than 15cm, as deep as the slab.  The gap had nothing in it at all except weeds, and I thought I had no soil to put in it until I remembered the unused planter box mix sitting in a heap near my Hill's hoist.  We weeded, then I barrowed the planter box mix to the driveway and the kids swept it into the gap.  When we were uncovering the mix, we found a nest of blue ants with their eggs.

At every fence-post, the Sprig planted Dietes grandiflora, which I had divided from a clump in the front garden.  The clumps are shallow-rooted in my clay soil but were very hard to dig out because the clump was a good half-metre across.  Dividing the clump took a while too as I hadn't tried it before.  Dietes is a great plant for Sydney, growing in a slow-spreading clump of strappy leaves to 60cm and requiring no attention whatever.  The flowers are of the iris type, with a purple 'cup' over a wide white 'saucer'.  Unfortunately, these wilt quickly when cut.

At the shady end of the long bed, the Sprig strewed forget-me-not seeds.  I popped in a Pelargonium where we will see it from our family-room window, then planted rooted segments of Coleus amboinicus up at the sunny end.  Near our pond garden, I found a baby Erigeron karvinskianus growing, and I've transplanted this to the driveway bed too.

The native violets I bought the other day (with the sweet peas and bugle flower) has gone under the little bracelet honey-myrtle by the pond.  The sweet peas are planted around two tetrapods in the herb bed.  I've also planted the blugle flower there.  I have a feeling it is Ajuga reptans 'Cavalier' rather than the Ajuga reptans purpurea on the label: the cultivars were mixed in together and mine has large purple leaves rather than small ones.  I thought the Ajuga would look good next to the Echium because of the contrast in foliage, and I do hope the bloom periods overlap:  the bugle flowers are the same shape and colour as the Echium's, just much smaller.

Ixia viridiflora are a turquoise colour with a purple-black central eye, so I thought they'd go well with my mallard-green pergola.  I've planted them around the bugle flower.  There are now half a dozen Allium 'Drumstick' bulbs at the back of the herb bed too. 

The peacock flower, Moarea aristata, has snow-white petals with a navy-blue stain at the base.  I thought they'd look nice near my rosemary (which has a deep blue flower) and marjoram.  At the other end of the bed, I have planted deep velvety purple Sparaxis so one day they will flower near a pineapple sage (not yet purchased).

Then I've started a row of 'Greenfeast' peas near my washing line and am soaking some snow peas for planting on one of my tetrapods in the herb bed.  The other tetrapods have sweet peas around them. The only harvest in prospect is of small tomatoes, but they are delicious!

After the Rain

I popped into Bunnings the other day and grabbed a few little things to add to my garden:


Then it started to rain, which stopped me from planting them. By this morning we had an ankle-deep pond in the back yard, but the rain is still pouring down. I'm thinking about an ark.


There were a few moments of sunshine, however, so out I went to see what I could see.










Mysteriously, the tomatoes are starting to flower. In April!


I hope I get better results than I did with this Brandywine. Ugh!

March Garden Update

It hasn't been a good summer for a gardener, and I'm a bit disheartened at the dreadful state of my garden (not helped by a number of family crises which reduced my gardening and blogging time considerably!). Here's a quick tour.

These are some of the few tomato flowers I've seen, on a "Broad Ripple Yellow Currant" that I planted in January. In November I planted "Brandywine" tomatoes and now there are two large but green fruits on one plant. That is all.


I've had a few cucumbers, but not anywhere near the number I expected. Hoping there are some still to come.


The frequent rain has kept my banana suckers happy, though!


The chicky-babes have grown up a lot. This was how they looked in mid-March, at a month old.


Ages ago I planted some Swamp Foxtail grass down the back of my garden, but it was overshadowed by a grevillea. Now the grevillea is senescent, we can finally see the grass which marks the end of the bed.

The Chickies Have Landed

We took a trip out to the western edge of Sydney today and came back with some new friends for our remaining chook, Lizzie. Annie, our White Leghorn, had been in declining health for some time and finally died two weeks ago.


These chicks are about five days old, and you can see their feathers are already growing in. Three are Rhode Island Reds; the others are Australorps. The latter are a distinct breed descended from the Black Orpington and other breeds, sturdy backyard birds known as great layers (250 eggs per year). The Rhode Island Red lays about 200 eggs per year and is also a hardy bird.


A the moment, they like to spend a fair bit of time in the feed bowl. One of the Rhodies seems very dominant, pecking all the others.

The Sprig is thrilled about the chicks and has taken charge of them. The Twig is on crutches after a soccer injury and can't do much at the moment.

Now for a moan abut the weather. This has been the Year Without a Summer as far as we are concerned, with only one beach trip taken during the entire summer holidays. We have had rain, rain, and more rain, including a thunderstorm today. Even though the kids are back at school, normally a precise sign of sunny days, only one day could be called swimming weather, and gardening has been near impossible on my waterlogged clay soil. Corn and bean seeds have just rotted, and I haven't had a single tomato! Woe is me!

Month	Mean Rainfall	Actual Rainfall	Mean Rain Days	Actual Rain Days
December 2011	68.2	133.2	7.2	12
January 2012	90.8	159.2	8.2	12
February 2012	106.4	83.4 (so far)	8.1	7 (so far)

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When You Have Chooks...

When you have chooks, they come to see what you're doing with the camera. And if you are holding a trowel, they will come and "help" you with your digging. Lizzie here was helping the Geek dig up weeds in the garden today. She was so comfortable working with him that she wiped her beak clean on his shorts.


When you have chooks, they leave some of their food behind, so you get surprise plants.


When you have chooks, they poo all over your patio.


When you have chooks, they hide their eggs in places that they think are secluded.


They are often wrong.

Bog Garden Planted

Below are some typical bog plants for this part of the world.

Dianella longifolia, the Pale Flax-Lily, which has beautiful blue berries:

Isolepsis nodosa, the Knobby Club-Rush, for the margins:

Mazus pumilio, Swamp Mazus, is a ground-cover with pretty blue flowers a bit like snapdragons:
And then there's the Bracelet Honey-Myrtle, Melalauca armillaris. It's not from my area, really, but the endemic Melalaucas are unsuitable for this position. I need something small, which will take on a tree-shape rather than a shrub-shape, and not scratch people. I'm hoping the position is not too wet as M. armillaris tends to be found in heathlands in high rainfall areas, not bogs. I've built it up a bit but am hoping it will tend to soak up water like other Melaleucas do.
I put a Dianella at each corner and the Melaleuca is on the hillock in the foreground.

The rushes are planted notionally around the edges of my pond, but it had been raining so they are actually in the water at the moment.

I have recycled some concrete edging in the hope that the lower Dianellas won't be washed away.
Another view, with long shadows cast across the pond.

I love the shadows cast on the wall by my Shasta daisies too.

Bog Garden Construction Started

There has been more rain since my last post and of course many more activities, so I only managed to pop out to start on the bog garden today.


I dug out a shallow circle in the middle of the triangle today, but there is still so much standing water that only the top edge is visible. I removed some more concrete from it and perhaps the drainage will improve now it's gone.


My plan is to plant each corner with sedge to provide a marker, so nobody walks into it by mistake, and a small shrub in the uphill corner (species undecided as yet). The Sprig has requested edible plants so I'm considering water chestnuts and mint in addition to native plants.


I am also considering building a small wall on the far side so that less driveway runoff enters the area. This bed has been waterlogged for two months, after all. Didn't smell the best when I was digging it up.

I've been digging elsewhere in the garden as well.


This grille is one of the entry points to our vast retention pit, where runoff from our driveway, patio and garage roof collects. Note that the water is very high and the soil is not level with the top of the grille, so we've had overflow around the shaft. This isn't much fun to step in by mistake, and the unevenness of the ground is rather dangerous. I've now made the area surrounding the grille level. There are plenty of uneven areas in the back yard for me to dig up for fill. At the moment the soil is soft enough and the weather cool enough for it not to be a great chore. I had not expected to do this work until autumn.