mystery garden

Wednesday, 4 June 2008
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Spent the afternoon tidying up the shed while Yvonne planted some stuff in the garden. Hopefully it wasn't too early; I'm concerned that we haven't prepared the soil well enough yet.

Thursday, 5 June 2008		Images for 5 June 2008
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More work in the garden, transplanting more stuff. On investigation, the “black lilies” appear to be a kind of Dracunculus vulgaris. They grow from a large tuber. Replanted a few to see how they'd deal with it; it's not clear how much sun they like.

Friday, 6 June 2008
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While looking for a cookbook, ended up buying “The foodies' guide to Melbourne” and a book on pruning shrubs and trees; together they came to considerably more than I had planned to spend on the cook book, but both fill a real need. The former, hopefully, will lead us to better food supplies.

At Midland Irrigation finally found a sprinkler solenoid valve without difficulty, and not significantly more expensive than Celsius would have asked.

More garden work. It's looking more like winter now, though the cannas are still blooming, and the first daffodils are coming.

Saturday, 7 June 2008		Images for 7 June 2008
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Leonne, surname unknown, has taken a look at my mystery plants page and has a number of comments. She writes:

The grub is commomly called a Bardi grub. They are the larval stage of a moth. Good for fishing bait but not much else. It eats the feeder roots of plant and often leaves dead patches in lawns. There is a spray you can get from most gardening places to get rid of them.

The plants you have as asters are very hardy drought tolerant plants. The two yellow ones are different types of Gazinias and come in all shades from red to white. You often see them on the sides of roads and suburban nature strips. The middle variety self seeds and can take over a neglected patch of ground.

It seems that Leonne didn't follow the link here. Also, I believe I'm correct in guessing that all the flowers belong to the genus Asteraceae.

Mystery 1 is a common english country garden plant whose name escapes me at the moment. A nursery man should be instantly able to name it for you.

Mystery 2 is a type of Arum Lily. Does it smell really bad like rotting meat? Lilies of that colour often do.

Again, it seems that Leonne didn't follow the link here.

Mystery 3 is Sparixia (not sure on spelling) very old fashioned hardy bulb that self seeds. very similar to Ixias (again not sure on spelling) My Grandmother had acres of them when I was a child and they never got watered and were mown off when they finished flowering.

Mystery 5 looks like a Pandora creeping vine.

I subtitled this one “creeper”, which is incorrect. This might have misled Leonne. In fact, they're rather like the Sparaxis.

Mystery 7 is a native oxalis non invasive like the yellow one. Best kept neglected. Phosphorus intolerant.

The Salvia looks like Pineapple sage. Do the leaves smell like pineapple when crushed? If so great in summer salads and cooking.

Once again, it seems that Leonne didn't follow the link here. I state there that the leaves smell like mint.

weed 1 looks like Pig weed. Australian native supposedly edible Indigenous food with medical properties.

In the afternoon, spent some time taking some extreme close-up photos:

Sunday, 8 June 2008		Images for 8 June 2008
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I'm quite happy with the book I bought a couple of days ago, RHS Pruning & Training, by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. It's the first book I've seen that makes the distinction between pruning (normal maintenance of a bush) and renovation (making good previous neglect). It's the latter that I want, and the book addresses it almost directly:

In a newly acquired garden, neglected roses, particularly bush roses, often look as if they are hardly worth keeping. ...

Today decided to apply the techniques—of which there are two: cut down 50% to 70%, and cut down to the ground—to a couple of rose bushes in the north bed. These photos are more obvious when enlarged (click on one of the photos):

We'll see how they fare. The second one is in the shade most of the time, so it's never going to be really happy.

Winter is here, sort of: we have autumn plants that only now are coming into bloom, such as the Strelitzia reginae, and also spring plants, such as a rather sleepy daffodil:

It was supposed to rain today, but the weather bureau changed their minds again, so Yvonne decided it was the day to finally burn off the pile of wood we have accumulated over the last 9 months:

Somehow didn't get much else done.

Monday, 9 June 2008
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The fire's still going! Most of the wood burnt out in the first hour yesterday midday, but some of the larger trunks were still going this morning. It continued all day, and in the evening there were still some remainders.

We've been trying to second-guess the Bureau of Meteorology for some time now, and today we decided that despite the forecast of rain, we could probably go riding. Set off, and within about 500 metres it started to rain, so back again after one of our shortest rides ever. And, of course, the few drops that came down were all for the next several hours.

More work on the sprinklers, and finally installed the longest stretch yet, 73 metres at the north of the house. Now I just have the south side to think about.

Tuesday, 10 June 2008
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The fire's finally out! And, to my surprise, there was almost nothing left—just a couple of charred pieces about 50 g in weight. That'll change, of course; we have more radical pruning to do.

Saturday, 14 June 2008	Dereel –> Melbourne	Images for 14 June 2008
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Up early this morning to head to Melbourne. Just out of the shower, heard the tell-tale beeping of the UPSs. On further investigation, found that a circuit breaker had tripped on the circuit that supplies all the computers—and it kept tripping. Spent a lot of time turning off individual components, without finding anything, and then turned them all back on again, even (accidentally) a 2 kW heater, and it carried on working.

Was just scratching my head about that when Yvonne came in and told me that the dam water pump had stopped working, and that she had left it off. This is the pump that I have been using to pump water from the tank into the horse trough, and which I had been meaning to use for my new brewery. Confirmed that yes, indeed, it was that pump. Damn, especially since we were due to leave for Melbourne, and Chris still needed to give the horses enough to drink. Connected up another hose to the sprinkler system, which is (currently) supplied only by the submersed pump in the bore.

In Melbourne, went to the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens. It's been over 11 years since I was last in the Botanical Gardens, and in those days I wasn't overly interested in gardening. This time I was left a little disappointed: the place is clearly in need of more funding. In particular, the signs are insufficient. It's difficult to find your way around, and many plants are not identified.

That was particularly interesting and irritating for us. We found at least four plants that we had been trying to identify. Here the comparisons of the ones that we identified:

We knew that this one is a salvia, but only now do we know that it's a Salvia microphylla It looks quite like another variety, Salvia elegans (“ pineapple sage”), but that bush has longer and more pronounced flowers with black stems:

There seems to be a fair amount of difference of opinion on Salvia microphylla. Some call it watermelon sage, others blackberry sage, and nothing I've found on the web mentions the mint-like smell of the leaves, which the sample in the Botanical Gardnes also had. But then, Salvia elegans is supposed to smell like pineapple, and I didn't smell that on the sample I saw yesterday. There's also a variety of opinion on the size of the plant, though all agree that it flowers almost continuously. There also seem to be different cultivars, one of which has red and white flowers. None of the links on the web look quite like ours.

This plant has not flowered since we moved in; last year there were no buds at all. We had thought it was a kind of magnolia, but clearly it's some kind of Camellia. We'll know more when it flowers.

This is Aloysia triphylla, or “Lemon Verbena”. Yvonne was sure from the start that this was some kind of Verbena, but I hadn't been too sure: all the Verbena photos I had seen looked very different. That's probably because this plant belongs to the relatively small genus Aloysia. The leaves do smell of lemon.

This one is everywhere in the gardens (though, like at home, not in bloom right now), but I couldn't find a name for it.

Monday, 16 June 2008		Images for 16 June 2008
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Spent some time putting together a toy greenhouse that I bought at ALDI yesterday.

Wednesday, 18 June 2008		Images for 18 June 2008
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Did a bit of work in the garden and finished the toy greenhouse, which is covered in a clear PVC foil. I suspect it won't last long.

Thursday, 19 June 2008
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Winter is making itself felt, at least in mood. Still no frost, but there was a surprising amount of mist (called “fog” in Australia) which lifted only slowly, and the whole atmosphere was as dreary as Germany in November. Perversely, spent a bit of time in the garden, but not too much.

Saturday, 21 June 2008		Images for 21 June 2008
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We have yet more mushrooms:

Monday, 23 June 2008		Images for 23 June 2008
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More work in the garden. Our Olearias have been flowering almost non-stop since they got water:

There was also a second one of a different kind, which bloomed yellow, but which looked old and not very happy, so we pulled it out. That didn't stop it, of course, and recently a number of shoots have been coming out of the bed, so today we transplanted them:

There's another photo of where we planted them, but it really needs to be enlarged significantly to show the stakes. The two stakes at the left and the one at the right are the yellow ones; the other one is a white one which we transplanted a week or two ago.

Also put some plants in our toy greenhouse:

Toy or not, it was noticeably warmer inside, even though the sun hadn't been shining. We'll have to keep an eye on things when the weather gets warmer.

The kangaroos are back:

This was only one of five, apparently sent by the others (who remained about 50 m away) to case the joint. He wandered off when I came closer. I wonder if this presages more damage in the garden.

Friday, 27 June 2008		Images for 27 June 2008
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The kangaroos are more and more evident. These ones are more timid than usual and bounced off when I came closer:

They'd be OK if they stayed on that side of the fence; hopefully they will.

Saturday, 28 June 2008		Images for 28 June 2008
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A little work in the garden, connecting the bore pump directly to the horse trough with a 1 inch pipe. To my surprise, the flow was so strong that it stalled the pump; we'll have to avoid opening the valve fully until we have proper fittings at the end.

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