This page was started in 2008, and it seems that I never continued with it. Most of
the information is now in my online diary, just not as easy to find.
We're now into the second month of winter, which hasn't stopped things from flowering.
There's an unhappy Acacia
baileyana in the shade of the conifers in the driveway. Despite its unfortunate
situation, it's chosen now to bloom, though few other acacias are in bloom:
It seems that it was successful. There was no growth under the cardboard, though it had
been there since 23 April 2008, and we had sprayed and dug up the garden
to the right since then. The best choice appears to be to put down cardboard or newspaper
and then cover with lots of mulch.
Back into the office, pondering where we could get some mulch,
when Yvonne came in and said that there were some people trimming and
mulching trees down Rokewood Junction Road. Down there to talk to Mick, who promised me a
couple of truckloads (about 20 m²) for $80 in the next couple of days. Just what we need.
Also did some pruning, notably salvias. After all the trouble I
had to identify the Salvia microphylla that we have in several places in the garden,
it's amusing to find
that RHS Pruning
& Training, by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce, describes exactly two
salvias: Salvia
officinalis (normal sage) and Salvia microphylla. Of the latter, they make
statements that don't at all match my experience; in particular, that they don't live long,
and that they're a bush with a single trunk, and they flower on the previous season's
growth. What I see with mine, at any rate, is that there are dozens of individual stems:
“Pruning & Training” recommend pruning, if at all, in spring. But then, it
also states that they only start flowering in late summer. In fact, they seem
to flower almost all the time, at least here in Australia, and the earliest photos that I
have taken of the garden, on 30 September 2007, show the bush already
blooming. Nine months later, they're still blooming. So the best time to prune seems to be
before they start flowering again, like now. Even then, they're still doing their best, as
this stem shows:
It comes from way inside the clump of bushes, where it was protected from wind and cold.
The things above and to the right of the flower are new buds which presumably would have
bloomed if I hadn't cut them off.
Decided that now would be about the only time to do it, so set to, removing a climbing rose
in the process. These bushes offer wonderful protection to clumps of grass, and though I
ripped out a lot, it's clear that it will come back, and I can't find any way to address the
issue except by continual weeding. The alternatives would require removing the salvias.
More work spreading mulch today. One thing that I hadn't expected was that the mulch would
start to decompose; it got quite warm, and if we're not careful we'll end up with compost
instead of mulch:
In view of the biological activity in our pile of mulch, set to today spreading mulch in the
garden, not overly helped by the wind. Got about 20% done before giving up for the while.
It's amazing how much difference even a little mulch makes, as a comparison of the area in
the middle right of last week's and today's exterior photos shows:
Back home, and Yvonne wanted to continue mulching, while I tried out
the new backpack spray unit that I bought last week. The instructions were typical: a
single piece of paper, normally enough for this kind of unit. But the means of attachment
of the back straps was completely non-intuitive, and the instructions barely mentioned them
(“place container on back securely using belt system”). It probably wouldn't
have helped anyway: the low-resolution drawing that accompanied it appears to show a
different kind of hook. The photographer who took the photo on the box must have been
confused too, because he left them off altogether. Clipped them together as best I could,
put the thing on my back—not the easiest thing at the best of times—and made it
about 10 metres before both straps came apart, dumping the thing on the ground:
Fortunately no damage was done, but I still couldn't work out how to attach the things, so I
ended up tying the ends together, which worked.
On the other hand, the unit works well, and it came with a whole lot of undocumented
accessories, including a number of O rings (always good), three alternative spray heads (one
of them double) and some other accessories of dubious purpose:
Some more mulch spreading in the garden. We're putting newspaper underneath in the
hope that it'll have the same weed-suppressing action as the cardboard I put down earlier.
It's surprising how much paper it uses.
We had 11 mm of rain yesterday, enough to cause minor flooding round the horse
trough. Yvonne and I spent some time digging drainage trenches. We
need to think of something better.
The weather's cold and wet, but still did a little work in the garden, and made a token
attempt to tidy up the shed, which is becoming the critical point in getting other things
done.
More mulch spreading in the garden. I think we have the worst over and done with, where we
spread mulch between existing plants. The rest is mainly unplanted surface, and should be
much easier to mulch.
Cliff later told me that it was an old petrol pump, and that there was a petrol tank below.
He hadn't removed it because of the potential danger of explosion, and had instead tried to
train roses around it. That had obviously failed, and we've since removed the rose, so
there are only Salvia microphylla around
it, currently pruned and waiting for spring. Today I finally went at the remaining open
pipes with an angle grinder, but despite the fact that the tank hasn't been used in over 10
years, I was concerned about just removing the last pipe that way. Tried taking off the top
part by grinding off the heads of the bolts, but that just gave me access to the inside of
the pump:
The pump still seemed to be sealing, and there was a vague smell of petrol about it, so
there's a real danger that there's a considerable amount of petrol below. With visions of a
tank of several thousand litres exploding and blowing myself and the house high into the
air, set to with a hacksaw instead. Didn't get far before the brand new blade broke. There
must be an easier way.
Another day with overnight frost—hopefully my chile pasillo will survive. I
grew it from the seeds in a dried chile a couple of years ago, and so far it hasn't
flowered, though it's looking relatively happy. But all chiles are frost-tender, so I've
been covering it with a sack at night:
Laurel Gordon from Tasmania is one of the participants in the clinic, and she's staying with
us. She brought some hellebores with her, which we planted in the garden. Gradually we're
running out of space.
In the evening through the garden with Laurel, who is an experienced gardener, and managed to
identify most of the remaining mystery plants. She
has a few ideas on the rest, and has promised to send me info when she gets back home.
A frost was forecast for tonight, and it came, so I covered up my chile plant
again—only Laurel tells me it's not a chile at all: it's an Agonis flexuosa,
native to Western Australia. No wonder it hasn't borne any chiles. But it's frost tender too,
at least when small, so I covered it over anyway. Later we'll have to move it—it can
get to be 10 m tall.
Our Agonis flexuosa seems to
have survived alright, and there's no evidence yet of anything that hasn't, though the
leaves of some of the Cannas look less than happy.
