Mazy Days

If you are going to take a couple of boys on "another boring garden visit", it's always a good idea to have something you know they'll like planned for afterwards. So after our Heronswood visit, we drove ten minutes up into the hills behind Dromana to The Enchanted Maze Garden (except I didn't mention the word "garden"!).

The owners must be nuts about topiary, which is far too exacting for me. They have put in an application to the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest relief topiary, on their front hedge (I couldn't manage a good photo of it). I had never heard of relief topiary before, but here is an example from within the garden:

The first maze was the classic hedge maze, made even more interesting by the need to find five Buddhas and two Japanese gardens. The second was a labyrinth.

But what was that in the middle?

I think Nessie is wonderful! And I loved the dolphins and waves across the dam.

There are a number of other mazes I haven't mentioned or photographed, as well as some outdoor puzzles and display gardens, even a small kiddy farm. We must have spent about four hours there, but we had already had lunch and didn't see the animals or follow the whole Sculpture Walk. A great place to go if you are concerned about your children being inside too much.

Heronswood

I'm a member of the Diggers Club, have wanted to see their two gardens for years, and finally I had the chance to see Heronswood. It is a pleasant drive down the Mornington Peninsula. My sons were not overly keen to see a garden, but I knew they'd enjoy it once they were there. The afternoon was to be given over to a place they were definitely interested in, but I'll cover that in a separate post.

Heronswood is a lovely Gothic Revival house, built of the attractive bluestone-and-limestone combination that distinguishes fine old houses in this part of Victoria.


This would have been an imposing entrance in its day, but now, you enter higher up the slope and at the back of the house, where the nursery and shop are. You can barely see the house from the road, due to a luxuriant mixed border and shrubbery.

Further along the new driveway are the children's sandpit and the cafe. My boys loved the sandpit! The structure at right is the framework for a creeper: eventually, there will be a wonderful green tunnel to crawl through. It's fun already, of course.


When I was able to drag the boys away, our first view of the house proper was this appropriately gothic one:


Again, this is the back of the house. The north-easterly aspect would have given the owners an expansive view down the slope of the main garden.


Was there a fashion for Chinoiserie when the house was built, I wonder?


But on to the garden. From the Diggers Club's point of view, the centrepiece of the garden is the formal vegetable garden. It consists of six sectors, here planted with brassicas, lettuces and yellow calendulas (or pot marigolds, as they were once called -- the leaves and flowers are edible). The beds are edged with steel, I think, to help provide that razor-sharp line. I'm surprised they didn't terrace the area first; the slope makes the geometry look wonky, as well as complicating watering.


I liked these sturdy trellises, which partially enclose it.


A nice spot from which to contemplate the fruits of your labour on the upper side of the vegetable patch.


Of course the Diggers Club is not just about vegetables, and the rest of the garden is filled with examples of the stock. The garden drops away into a steep valley, and it cannot have been easy to design, nor indeed to redesign after more than 100 years of gardening on the site. There are a number of ancient trees,including this huge deodar:


Perhaps because of the long history and the commercial requirements of the nursery show garden, I felt that the garden was somewhat diffuse in conception. Some areas were satisfying, but somehow I felt the absence of a unifying idea, or possibly a unifying hand. The symmetrical sections seemed unrelated to the rest of the garden, which rambles informally. Nonetheless, my favourite areas are shown below.

The garden has a couple of overgrown arbours -- well, I think arbours look better overgrown, anyway. So do my boys.


Here's a study in lines and curves; I was rather proud to have noticed them!


And the purple and greyed tones against that Prussian blue:


I thought the iris and wormwood produced a nice example of varied texture with the Berberis(?) adding contrast.


The placement of the arch on the curve of the path seems a certain technique to achieve wanderability.


A final note: the Fork to Fork Cafe at Heronswood bases its menu on what is available in the kitchen garden on the premises,with the meat tending to the regional and organic. I had one of the best meals there that I have ever eaten: with great respect shown for the produce, the result had a lightness and freshness not commonly encountered. My set two courses were well worth the $49 they cost (three courses is $59). The children's menu is made up of simple but carefully cooked dishes: the Twig enjoyed grilled chicken breast with baby carrots and the Sprig gobbled down his pasta with tomato sauce. Highly recommended. I was, however, very lucky to get a meal at all. It isn't mentioned on the website, but bookings are required for the meals. If I had come with a party, the staff would not have been able to fit us in. I am planning to notify Diggers of this omission. The staff were quite aware of it!

In all, a very enjoyable day, lifted by the sublime food at Fork to Fork.

Melbourne Zoo

This isn't a very garden-oriented post, but everyone likes animals, don't they?

Here is Melbourne Zoo's newest arrival. He's famous, but unnamed as yet.


It's funny to see a tiny elephant zooming around and generally acting rather like a human toddler. Here is Mali, a four month old elephant calf. She is rather more sedate than the little boy.


There are public toilets, and there are very public toilets. This is one of a group scattered around the premises, asking who had the most unusual poo at the zoo. The boys, of course, thought this was the height of wit.


The orangutan play compound is a nice example of an adventure playground. I am sure there are similar playgrounds for human children!


I didn't find the Japanese garden very satisfying. It seems very busy, with many different plants; the gardens I saw in Japan had a more restricted palette. And the deer-scarer wasn't working!


This was the best shot I could get of the dryland garden at the entrance to the Australian animals exhibit. I have not done it justice. I have not been able to identify the yellow-flowering plant at right. The big grey one in the foreground is an Eremophila with lavender-blue flowers, most likely E. nivea. I am not sure how these plants will survive in the damp Melbourne climate! The grass-trees along the fence will be all right.


This sculpture includes lines from our best-known patriotic poem, "Core of my Heart", by Dorothea Mackellar.


One of our better-known animals, doing what he does best. I must admit I felt like doing the same by the time I encountered him at the end of the day. You can see the size of his claws, which is one of the reasons we don't tend to cuddle koalas very often. That said, at least he isn't carnivorous or aggressive like his cousin the drop-bear.

Back From Holidays

We have been away for a little while on a family trip to Victoria, so what's happening in our garden now?

Before we left, I madly planted out all the vegetable seedlings I had in our damp soil. It doesn't seem to have rained while we were away, but most seedlings survived. I also committed an act of vandalism, cutting off every flower on my 'Purple Podded Dutch' peas. Peas take about a week to reach picking size from flowers, and mine had just started flowering. If I had left the flowers, the plants would have gone to seed before we returned. It paid off -- I returned home to this:


There are plenty of other flowers around too. My quince, which was only in bud when we left, is now in full bloom:


And so is the chervil (Pity! I will plant more):


The Melaleuca nodosa is covered in creamy fluff-balls:


And I was able to pick this lovely 'Forellenschuss' lettuce:


A quick wander down the back showed me that the Cheese Tree was producing. The fruits aren't edible, but they are fun to look at.



And on our first evening home my husband discovered this handsome fellow in the laundry. He is standing at the back of the laundry tub, and the metal splashback is 55mm high, so this huntsman could fit comfortably on a man's palm. I love them -- unless I'm surprised by them! The most dangerous thing about huntsmen is the way people react to their imposing size.


We are also being entertained by the local magpie family. Their two chicks have fledged and are following their parents around the neighbourhood, squawking for food all the while. I managed to catch an overworked parent about to apply the grub to the gullet.


Stay tuned for my travel photos!

Pea-Tunnel

Colleen Vanderlinden posted last year about a cucumber trellis she saw at the Michigan State Fair. She has a great photo of it, and I've been wondering how to do something similar here.

Then, as it happened, I ended up with two rows of peas planted next to each other.

I think they'll meet at the top eventually, so I'll keep you posted (they've doubled in height since I took this photo last month). In the meantime, we've had platefuls of fresh peas gracing the dinner-table several times, an experience that only gardening can buy.


Even better -- those peas in the front are 'Purple-Podded Dutch'-- with pink flowers. I can't wait!

How to Prune a Quince Tree and How to Treat Scale

The quince, like many fruit trees, puts out lots of branches that shoot skyward. It also likes shooting from the base -- its natural form is more a thicket than a tree. While quite picturesque, a tall thicket isn't easy to collect fruit from, so growers tend to prune to a vase shape. The vase shape allows air circulation through the middle of the tree, which reduces some diseases, and makes it easier to deal with the fruit. Quince trees should be pruned in autumn or winter, when they are dormant. I decided to wait until most of the leaves were gone from my tree before I started, last weekend.

I grew up with plum trees and feel confident to prune them, but quinces, being pome fruit like apples and pears, are a little trickier. They fruit on year-old spurs, which you have to be careful not to cut off. Fortunately, these spurs are quite distinctive. They are 10-15 cm long, somewhat flattened, and the tip is broader than the rest of the twig. You can see one in the photo of scale below, pointing to the right. Branches, of course, taper to the tip.

For the last few years, I have been (roughly) following pruning instructions from the Gardening Australia article about quinces. Here is my version of that pruning method:

Year One

1. Plant your sapling. We'd do this in autumn to allow the tree to develop a good root system ahead of the summer heat. I'd prune it fairly hard, but not so hard that I can't tell whether it's survived!
2. In late winter, prune to a single short trunk. While the orchardist in the article gives his trees a very short trunk, 60cm, he probably isn't picking up footballs, chickens or anything else from under his trees. I think 1m or more is a better trunk height for a tree in a home garden, but it depends a bit on your height and what you expect to be seeking under your tree, as well as how high you can reach to pick the fruit.

Year Two

There should be 3-5 healthy branches growing near the top of the trunk. Prune off all the rest, then shorten these framework branches to 50cm, with an outward-facing bud at the top of each. This should give the plant a Y-shape when you look at it from the side, and this is your vase shape.

Subsequent Years

1. Don't cut off the stubby little fruiting spurs!
2. Remove any diseased or dead wood.
3. Remove all of the upright branches inside the vase at their base.
4. Prune any side branches that have developed on the trunk or base of the tree.
5. Remove any branches that cross others.
6. Shorten the remaining branches to 50 cm.

That looks better, doesn't it? Though I feel I can take a bit more off, now I've had a good look at this picture -- I think the tree is starting to look splayed. Quinces are heavy fruit and a good crop (which is still unlikely on my tree, I fear) could cause branches to break.

This year, I've found I could remove an older framework branch as a new branch had grown in the exact spot I wanted. The older branch had zigzagged.

My tree has had another problem this year: scale, caught from the next door neighbour's fig tree. Scale are sap-sucking insects that live on the branches, and for protection cover themselves with a hard shell, which makes them look like limpets. They are farmed by ants for the honeydew they secrete, which also has the side-effect of feeding sooty mould. Neither the scale nor the mould have really affected the tree's production or health, as far as I can tell, but over time they would.

The commercial treatment for scale is White Oil, which is a petrochemical you use diluted. Mum tells me that her Dad used the washing water from the washing machine on his fruit trees. Probably any oil or soap will work, but here is my recipe, cut down from this one:

In a 500ml spray bottle, put 8ml vegetable oil and 2ml dish-washing liquid. Pour in 500ml water and shake to mix. Spray liberally on scale. The oil and detergent apparently smother the scale insect's breathing apparatus, and it's a useful recipe to try on any sap-sucking insect.

Chook Dome Maintenance

After its five years of service, it was time to have a really good look at the chook dome. The UV-stabilised plastic twine I had used for bracing (following the original instructions in Linda Woodrow's book) had not worked well, as the chooks often tripped on it, and now it was starting to shred. When I untied it, I found that a couple of the joints had lost their wiring, so that was my first job. An intact joint is shown below.


The cross-bracing didn't seem to me to be necessary with my small-diameter dome, so I decided to just strengthen the upper joints with the good sections of twine.


I couldn't cover the lower joints without removing the netting, which seemed a bit much, as I wanted to move the girls in to their dome the same day.

What was the rush? I'd seen Annie sitting on wet ground. They only do this when they are afflicted with mites, to cool down their itchy undersides. While the girls had been mite-free for months, I think the butcher-bird I saw stealing their scraps a fortnight ago might have left them a return gift. After I had caught each girl and subjected her to the indignity of the spray-on parasite treatment, she was popped into the restored dome and set to work in my garden.


For more information on the structure and purpose of my chook dome, see this earlier post.

However, I am not the only creator of structures in the back yard. I suspect this is an artillery bunker, but the information is Classified.