Strawberry delight!

Yumyumyum. My little $3 strawberry shrub has been producing perfect strawberries that look like this:


And smell and taste divine! I just have to get out there before the blackbirds do...

Amusing nursery find

Found at the nursery, side by side. Clearly I have a very primitive sense of humour...

Progress report

The PhD is going through another hectic but very exciting stage as I start recruiting my first participants, set up some Brand Spanking New Test Equipment and get my experiment protocols in order.

Karate is also busy, but is keeping me sane. I've come to realise that I'm not really built for entirely office based work, so by the end of a long day in the office, I am busting to get to the dojo. Now that it's not so cold outside I have been running more, and going for a run really helps clear my head and approach problems with a fresh perspective.

But in amongst all that, Gib and I have been going for a few walks and tidying up the garden a bit.

Here's a picture of the backyard now. The bare-looking patch on the bottom right is what we cleared from the noxious, blue periwinkle. It has taken 2-3 rounds of weeding and I think it is finally gone in that area. It's horribly tenacious stuff, so I hope we've finally got rid of it. It has now been planted out with a Christmas bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum), Darwinia citriodora and a Kangaroo Island spyridium (Spyridium coactilifolium), which should take up most of the space where the periwinkle was. I look forward to seeing how they over spring. Apparently we're not the only ones who hate weeding out blue periwinkle. It was mentioned on Gardening Australia on Saturday night that Greening Australia are clearing it from near the Maribyrnong River and "five and a half thousand were put in a couple of years ago to replace the weedy Blue Periwinkle".

We've found a patch in the front yard which kangaroo paws seem to love. So we're now trying our hand with a conostylis, a somewhat fussier relative of the kangaroo paw. The two conostylis that I got last year for my birthday are still going very well in pots at my parents' place, so we thought we'd try planting one.

My indestructible ptilotus spathulatus. We have two of them now, and I decided to move them from the pot to the ground. It was a smart move: they love it! I think we have a baby one popping up in the pot which the other one was in originally. We're letting it grow to see if it's a weed or the real thing.

So finally, here's the progression of our garden over the past 9 months. There's been some pretty radical changes. It's gone from being almost entirely mint, to not much at all thanks to the drought, and then finally having happy little ptilotus, asterolasia and kangaroo paws. The bare and scraggly looking area behind the kangaroo paws has been planted out with some correas, which will grow to about 1-1.5 m high and wide (they're about 10-15 cm tall at the moment). We're not trying to get rid of the mint altogether, but just keep it in a semi-controlled area.

Front yard: November 2008

Front yard: March 2009 (see the two tiny little kangaroo paws in front of the stump?)

Front yard: August 2009 (now look at the size of 'em!)

Veg about... in the hot weather

Last year I shared with you my flourishing herb garden as a part of Bellgirl's Veg About. I'd just thought I'd like to update you on how my herbs are going during all of this crazy hot weather...

I had started pushing the native mint back a wee bit to make way for some kangaroo paws and correas, but then it just died right back all by itself in the heat. It has almost all died, in fact. Even though it looks really feral, cutting it back will prompt it to start growing again, and then die again in the next heat wave.

Native mint before...

...native mint after

We lost our oregano, but the parsley and thyme survived, although is looking a little spindly. Our regular mint pot is looking fine though, although a bit burnt at the bottom.

Herb pot before...

...and after! Uh oh! Oh well, it'll grow back.

Regular mint, looking happy as ever.

However, there are two plants that didn't bat an eyelid during this weather (although not veggies):

The ptilotus spathulatus, a perennial shrub native to Melbourne's western planes, and the asterolasia phebalioides, a rare native found in highly exposed, rocky/swampy areas of the Grampians. I bought another one and decided to see how it would go in the ground rather than potted. In fact, these plants thrived in the 40+ weather. I bought a second ptilotus (my first one is in a pot, see below) and royally cocked up planting it: I completely mashed the roots and it didn't get much watering, and two days after planting it was when the real heat wave hit. It dropped a few leaves, but then bounced right back within days. In a pot or in the ground, this plant is indestructible.

My two awesome indestructible plants!

Eye spy something in my garden

Yes folks, I'm back from my brief blogging hiatus. My diary is full with Christmas catch ups and parties and shopping and sewing for Christmas... oh, and there's a PhD in amongst that too. I'm a little late on my Eye Spy post (I loved this week's topic, picked by the wonderful Ms Curly Pops), but Gib found this gorgeous beetle our front garden this afternoon. Just amazing to see one of these beetles in action. It's a shame my little point-and-shoot couldn't quite capture the brilliance of the green on his elytra.

A gardening confession...

This is going to sound incredibly lame, but I hate getting my hands dirty. I hate getting dirt under my nails. I hate my hands feeling dry and dusty (my skin is actually prickling at the thought). Worse, I also hate the feeling of those cheap, nasty $2 leather gardening gloves too, because they also leave my hands feeling dry and dusty. It's gotta be the super dooper soft cloth inndards with the super tough plastic coating ones for me - ultimate for ripping out that freaking periwinkle.


A person who loves gardening but hates dirt. And nasty gardening gloves. Crazy, hey?

Curse of the periwinkle

This is a bit of a work in progress in the garden at the moment. We're trying to clear the backyard of blue periwinkle. Blue periwinkle, like the innocent looking and very popular arum lily, is a noxious weed in these parts and notorious for seriously choking up the local waterways. It just sort of arrived in the backyard and proceeded to take over. Probably about 1/4 of the whole garden is covered with the stuff - and it's not a big backyard.

From the top

From the bottom

I really should have taken a before photo, but I got so into ripping it out that it totally slipped my mind, so just imagine that all of that dirt area was covered with blue periwinkle. It's a pain to clear because it grows in tight nodes and you have to rip out the roots or the fragments just grow back.

"Spreads locally mainly by stems that root at nodes. Seed is apparently rarely produced in Australia. Long distance dispersal occurs via stem fragments and crowns dispersed as garden waste or by water."

But we're slowly getting there. It's all down the side of the house as well. Our very ambitious Grand Ultimate Plan is for the plants in our garden to be indigenous, or at least native. It's amazing how quickly extra birds and pretty butterflies come through the backyard just by adding a few more local plants. There are a few remnant patches nearby and there are local parks and waterways, maintained by local environmental groups, that we're getting some inspiration from.

We have a few ferns leading down to the backyard (the property is on a hill) and we thought it would be totally awesome to have bracken (Pteridium esculentum) growing in the more dry parts of the backyard, to keep the continuity in the backyard and because it's indigenous. Although I have no idea where to get bracken - you can't just buy it because it grows from spores and doesn't take so well to transplantation. And strangely enough, many people think it's a weed (mostly stemming from farmers' dislike of it because it makes their cattle ill) so there are many websites on the struggles on how to remove it (once the spores are settled, it's hard to remove), but not how to get actually some in your backyard.

Failing on the bracken idea, we might just trawl the list of indigenous plants supplied at Kuranga and see what we can buy.

My herb garden

So I've got on board with the Veg About being hosted by Bellgirl! I think this is a terrific idea (mostly because I had a few gardening posts I hadn't bothered posting yet, and this made me get my act together!). The spring whether has made gardening so exciting!

Here are some onions that started sprouting in the bottom of the cupboard that we decided to plant. It's ok, we didn't have that many onions sprouting in our cupboard, but we have been stockpiling a few sprouting ones on our back veranda for planting for a month or so now. Actually, a couple of these onions were from onions that sprouted in our cupboard last year which we planted. After a few months those onions grew into four new onions, and then we forgot to eat them after they dried out. They've been sprouting for a while, so we decided to plant them again. We have also tried growing sprouting garlic before, but the garlic always gets fungal problems and I haven't bothered to work out how to prevent that yet.

Yes, the tub is a little overcrowded. It'll do for now!

We've potted up a few new herbs and things in the garden recently, partly in preparation for Christmas presents and partly for ourselves.

A slightly overexposed photo of the oregano, sick parsley and thriving thyme. The oregano and thyme are growing fantastically in the spring sunshine.

Mint - this thing growing madly. I'm glad it is in a pot. Unlike the native mint...

This is our native mint. It has taken over the front yard. It's rather overpowering to use in cooking, and tastes more spearminty than pepperminty. It makes an excellent tea though. I think our native mint bush is a bit excessive if we're only using it in tea every now and again.

The story of the mint...

You can see one the left of the photo there is a little clump of native grass. Gib tells me that before the mint, the front yard was mostly native grasses (this was a few years before we were going out). Apparently the grass got a bit long. Gib and his big brother, who both have strong interests in Australian native plants and ecosystems, of course knew that native grasses regenerate well after bushfire. So they thought that it would be a great idea to clip back the native grass while at the same time encouraging future regeneration by... simulating a small bushfire in the front yard. Apparently it was all going quite well, smouldering away while they stood by with a few hoses, until they noticed that the fire was going in a suspiciously straight line across the middle of the garden. It was a plastic underground water pipe system that they had going through the front yard. At which point Gib's dad came home and did his nut, the simulated bushfire was extinguished and native mint planted instead.

Christmas present production line... student style!

Gib and I have just finished updating our budget and we've realised that Christmas is going to have to be a little more organised. It's so easy to get excited and buy buy buy - not that we've gone to excess in previous years, but we took a good look and realised just how much Christmas costs. It's quite shocking really. Moreso now that my income has been halved. So this year I'm taking full advantage of the fact that my relatives think that it's cute and endearing that I make handmade gifts for them and also means I use up some of my stash which doesn't quite fit in its allotted location right now.

Getting organised for Christmas sewing

It does take a little more organisation and planning. I have to block out sections of my diary and make "meetings" with myself in the evenings and weekends so I can tell people that I'm busy and can't make it -- so I can sew. (I should probably do that for the gym as well...!)

You can see on the right my list of things I intend to get done. The part I really hate about sewing is the cutting out all of the bits: Cutting out the pattern, pinning the pattern, cutting out the fabric... it's a drainer. So I've decided to get all of the cutting done at once. It means I only need to get out my fabrics once, and then I just pop all of the fabric bits into separate project bags to sew them at my leisure. It also makes me more motivated to finish them if they're all ready to go. I like quick, easy projects that are functional and look good (hopefully) such as:

• Tissue box covers (cheesy but cute)
• Pot holders (again, cheesy option but functional)
• Aprons
• Heat packs (for my arthritic relatives)
• Tote bags
  
• Kids clothes
• Bibs and booties

My slowly growing pile of cut-out bits and pieces

How to propagate your own herbs:

Everyone loves herbs. In the words of Gib's mother: "Herbs are great. You give them to people, they use them and then they kill them and then they love it when you give them more". I've started this now little project now so they are nicely established by Christmas time.

Herb propagation is really very easy. The word "herb" is just another word for "useful weed" in my books, and as such they sprout and grow easily. I take cuttings, about 7-10 cm long from the side branches of herbs. I'm using rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage. Pull off the leaves till about half of the bottom of the stem is bare. Pop them into a little glass of water on the windowsill and wait til roots start to strike, which takes a week or so. I put them into water as I've found they are more likely to get fungal problems and die if they are put straight into soil*. I'm also less likely to forget to water them if they are on the kitchen window sill. The only thing to make sure of is that there is water in the glasses at all times: even a few hours without water can be dire. After the roots have struck, put them into soil and remember to water them regularly. If you decide to put the cuttings straight into soil, remember to keep them well watered. Don't get fussed if some of them die - it's OK. I've come to realise a success rate of about 60-70% is quite good.

We bought a pot of oregano and thyme for $3 each at Bunnings, and will have about 10 cuttings from each. The sage and rosemary were already in my parents' herb garden. This makes for super cheaps presents that will be well received, if your Christmas budget is a little tight this year...

Sage and rosemary growing on the kitchen window sill, in ex-vegemite jars/glasses

* Having said that, I've also noticed that rosemary, thyme and mint tend not to be so vulnerable to fungal infections and can be put straight into soil. It seems to be the less-woody herbs, like basil or sage, that are more susceptible.

This is: Show off time!

What an exciting topic for this week! I had been looking out my parents' kitchen window, admiring our garden in all of its spring glory and thought, how can I not boast about this?! A few years ago my parents gave Gib and I full reign over the garden, so I'm pretty stoked with the results. Although some of them, as you'll see below, are the result of the lady who owned the house many decades ago. I've only included some photos - there were many more plants looking very pretty, but I've decided to hold out for just a few more weeks so they are looking even more impressive -- and so I don't use up all of my useful post material (not that I have much trouble with that, it's more a matter of finding time, of late!). I should mention that this garden is not a high maintenance garden and only has plants that can look after themselves with very minimal watering (we have water tanks, but it's more a case of remembering to water!)

We have some lovely kangaroo paws that are growing in some sandy soil, westward facing. The yellow and red ones are absolutely thriving, so much so that they are almost falling over from the weight of the flowers. We also a planted a black kangaroo paw species, Macropidia fuliginosa, which hasn't taken off as well as the others (it's a fussy one) however the photo of that one didn't come out so well.


I've blogged before about the plight of my poor Downy Star Bush (it's still alive!), however we've had much more success with another Asterolasia cousin, however I can't remember exactly which species this one is. The flowers, leaves and way the plant grows are virtually the same, except that the leaves aren't quite as furry. I love the cute little pale yellow flowers, so sweet.


This is a bulb that randomly popped up in our front yard. I don't know what it is. The woman who owned our house back in the 70s used to have a magnificent garden full of bulbs. So occasionally we'll have stuff like this just come up. Sucha pretty purple.


Here are some gorgeous fresias. I love their bright pink colour! So happy. About 10 years ago they came up, randomly, like the one above, and they have been flowering annually ever since. We have trained my dad not to mow over them now.


Many times Gib has planted boronias and they have died. This is the first one we've managed to keep alive... and have flower! It's in partial shade, eastward facing, in poor quality soil and is regularly leaned on by Monty the Cat.


This Monty. In a pot. A rare species. Prefers full sun and does not like to be watered.


Thanks to Katie at May the Cloth Be With You for choosing this week's theme, and to Handmaiden who is doing a lovely job filling in for Three Buttons while she's a way.

My Downy Starbush (Asterolasia phebalioides)

About a year ago I was visiting Kuranga Nursery when I found this curious shrub going out for cheaps. It stood about 30cm high, had small, green furry leaves (I love anything with furry leaves) and it had a little handwritten tag saying: Asterolasia phebalioides. Kuranga have a great information centre, so I went and ask the attendant there. They pulled out a big, thick book, and it had just one small entry which read:

"Not easy to maintain. Needs perfect drainage. May be best grown in a rockery"

That's all.

It sounded like a handful, but I was so taken with its little furry leaves I decided to take it home... for just $3.

I asked a native plant forum for tips, but they only had as much information as Kuranga. Google didn't have much either, but I found out that it is listed as "vulnerable" and "rare" and is found in just a handful of places: the Grampians National Park, Little Dessert National Park and Kangaroo Island (where it is listed as endangered), and is under threat from salinity. In this document I found out slightly more information:

Species Characteristics: Small slender shrub to 1.5 m high; branchlets densely grey-tomentose with silvery and ferruginous hairs. Leaves densely crowded, lacking obvious petioles, broadly cuneate, less than 1 cm long, densely stellate-tomentose. Inflorescence terminal with subsessile solitary flowers; calyx minute; petals 8-10 mm long, golden yellow. (Armstrong & Telford, 1986).

Habitat: The species grows on sandy, acidic soils derived from sandstone. In the Grampians the species occurs as part of dense heathy shrub layers between 1 and 1.5 m high, with sparse canopies of trees such as Oyster Bay Cypress-pine (Callitris rhomboidea) and Brown Stringybark (E. baxteri) (Overton et al., 1990).

Life History: The species appears to be long-lived, and is an early coloniser following fire and soil disturbance by humans and native mammals (Overton et al., 1990). Sexual reproduction, and subsequent establishment from seeds. The species is an obligate seed regenerator; nearly all plants are killed by fire, and regeneration is solely from seed stored in the canopy or in the soil for a short time pre-fire. It tolerates occasional major disturbance and requires such disturbance for the rare opportunity to establish and spread (VRFAF).

How I currently keep it:

Perhaps not the most beautiful specimen ever. This poor thing does struggle!

I have it currently growing in a pot, with some coarse rocks in the bottom, then some smaller rocks, and finally filled in with a combination of sand and potting mix. I occasionally water it, but try to ignore it as much as possible as I am conscious of root rot. The pot is in part shade and gets mostly afternoon sun. It hasn't grown much since we got it, and the leaves go a very (alarmingly?) dark green colour in summer, but it seems to be starting to put a few new shoots at the moment. It seems to be a bit of a slow grower. After my cat, Monty, sat on it (what on earth is it with cats and pots?!), it has a bit of a lean and now has a stake to keep all cats off. It has flowered regularly in the past year, which is a good sign I think. It produces these adorable little bright yellow star shaped flowers, so I am pleased.

I am scared though. Looking after this plant is, for me, is like looking after a fragile alien. There isn't much information out there, and less about how to look after one in your backyard. I would love to find someone else who has one because I really have no idea what to do with it and I am scared to death of killing it!

I would love to learn how to propagate this thing because I think it is one of the coolest looking plants ever. I would love to have more of them!


List of resources:

• Department of Primary Industries statement
• Distribution of Asterolasia phebalioides
• Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's report
• South Australia's Department of Environment and Heritage fact sheet
• Australian Native Plants

Update (22/7/08):

I have just received an email from Kuranga. Looks like we'll need to relocate it. Here is there advice:

I have sourced some information from Elliot and Jones Australia plant encyclopedia and they recommend that Asterolasia phebalioides is grown in a very well drained light-medium soil. Growing plants in pots creates a very different root environment and it is recommended with most plants in pots that you use a good quality potting mix. If you are using soil or sand and rocks/pebbles in the base in a pot you often find that rather than draining better it actually compacts the root zone more. This may be causing the plant to be a little slow to establish. Elliot and Jones also recommend that you grow this plant in dappled shade or partial sun so definitely protection from afternoon sun. They mention that it should be alright in full sun as long as the root system is well protected, which in a pot it may not be best. I hope this is of some help to you in growing you Asterolasia.

New additions to the carnivorous collection

Meet our new purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) and Albany pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis, a Western Australian native) which were so kindly given to us by the Victorian Carnivorous Plant Society. The S. purpurea is currently living on the back verandah and we are ignoring it for a while. Apparently that's the thing to do with them in winter.


The C. follicularis is sitting in a north facing windowsill. There was another one growing on the same windowsill, and it grew very successfully (until it was moved to Gib's brother's greenhouse, where it was supposed to help it grow, but instead it died). I think these ones are quite cute, in their own little way! They're tiny at the moment, maybe 1cm big at most, but they grow to about 2-5 cm.


And meet my cat, Zoe. She is definitely not a "bright" cat (she is strange and stupid to a level you just will not believe unless you meet her), but she is beatiful nonetheless and I love her to bits and my most favourite cat we have ever had (probably because she is impossible to understand. Even the most aloof cats you can predict and understand eventually). Anyway, here she is sitting outside our kitchen window, wearing a wonderful garland of cobwebs, dead leaves and dead beauganvillia flowers. In the front of the photo you can see our sundews and venus fly traps too! We've had those for a while though.

It's that time of year - Prune your roses!

Peter Cundall is an absolute champ. His passion for gardening is just so inspirational and he's definitely been a great guide in my gardening endeavours. What I love about Peter Cundall is how he encourages people to not get caught up on the exacts of gardening and just to get out there, enjoy the plants, enjoy the relationship you have with your garden, and just do it. If you make a few mistakes, it doesn't matter, so long as you're getting out there and enjoying and learning. The other day I read another gem from him, on pruning roses:

"Now here's a little tip. If ever you're feeling depressed and a bit frustrated on a cold winter day, get out into the garden and start pruning the roses. Honestly, you'll feel so much better."

and then there was:

"Just imagine a wandering cow has got in and is munching away quite happily. It’s brutal, and yet they love it."

It is indeed that time of year again. Winter is settling in and it's time to get fierce the roses. Gib got stuck into ours yesterday (he was feeling a bit vexed and took Peter's advice!) and reshaped our climbing rose, cut of branches that were growing the wrong way. He cut back another rose that was originally planted in the garden when the house was built back in the 60's. The poor thing hasn't much shape and produces only 5 - 8 flowers - very large, beautiful apricot coloured flowers - each year, and it definitely needs more light. It's also the time to transplant roses as well. My parents have been a bit scared of roses, much like their herb garden, and haven't yet realised the joy that butchering these plants brings to both you and them (I think they need to listen to Peter Cundall more).

Don't be afraid! Get out there and prune back your rose and it will love you and reward you for it.

Here are some great links to help you get inspired:

• Peter Cundall's advice and inspiration on how to prune roses
  
• Pruning roses: The right cut
• Burke's Backyard's very helpful hints on the how and when of pruning
• Preparing your roses for winter

'Living the Country Life Radio Program' getting brutal

Sticky plant questions answered!

A while back I made mention of our little carnivorous garden living on our kitchen window sill. One in particular, the Drosera scorpioides, has been struggling ever since we got it. It has been attacked by aphids several times, it's been slow to grow and it has lost its little sticky growths to catch bugs that it had back in March. So last night we decided to visit the monthly Victorian Carnivorous Plant Society meeting to see if they could tell us what we were doing wrong.

Drosera scorpioides - not enough light

From what we learned last night, it seems that all of our plants simply need more sun, especially the D. scorpiodes and also all of our plants need surprisingly less water than we realised, especially during winter. In fact, overwatering is probably the reason why our Cobra lily (Darlingtonia californica) died practically overnight just a few weeks back. What fascinated me was the extensive root system all of these plants have. For such small plants, their roots are massive! Everyone at the meeting was very friendly and helpful and weren't total nutters, so it was a very enjoyable night. We met one guy from Hobart who was visiting for the evening, so when we got to Tasmania in October, he has offered to give us a tour of the carnivous plants in the area. Apparently the better time to see canivorous plants in Tasmania is in late February, but we should still be able to see a few things.

Our cobra lily - RIP. Sorry for overwatering you!

Some very cool plants

One of the members generously donated this little one to us! Not sure what it is exactly, it's from South Africa though. Hopefully we will have more luck with this one than the scorioides...

Walnuts

The walnuts have been falling from our walnut tree and I'm still very excited! Walnuts are definitely one of my favourite foods and I generally just eat them as is. I'd love to cook more with them, but as a young boy Gib ate so many he made himself ill on them and doesn't really like eating them now...


I love roasting nuts though. I get a bag of mixed nuts (about 250 g) and put them in a bowl. I mix in 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp brown sugar or honey and then select some spices to add depending on whether I want to go more sweet or savoury or both: Cinnamon, mixed spice, cumin, chili, paprika, tumeric or some other generic spice blend that I have in the pantry at the time (Moroccan, Mexican, Indian... they all taste good). You can't really fail with this: no matter what combination of spices you put in it's going to taste great. Quantities are approximate, but I tend to use 1/2 tsp of each spice (or 1/4 tsp chili), or if I'm using a spice blend, 2-3 tbsp. Roast on a tray at 180C for 15 mins, giving them a bit of a shake/turn over with a spatular half way through.

Reds and oranges

Yesterday I participated in the Run for the Kids (see sidebar) and what an exciting event it was! So many people were wearing red event tshirts! It was such a wonderful day. So many people out there supporting the Royal Children's Hospital and the terrific work that they do. It was just amazing to run with so many people around me! ~27,000 other people in fact! They raised AU$750,000 for the hospital.


And then afterwards I popped by the Oakleigh Market and found a chili plant for only $4! What a bargain. Gib has been totally hooked on chilis of late so this was a great find. A fig tree was also purchased at the same time, so hopefully I will have some delicious fresh figs to eat soon enough! I'm not really sure where I'm going to plant that one though...

I have new red shoes! They're kind of clog like, kind of elf shoe like, and a little bit Wizard of Oz. I love them to bits. They're just so cute! I got them from this place in Glen Waverley called "On a shoestring". I love their shoes - so many interesting designs that you don't see anywhere else... and they're cheap (hence the name).

I picked up this little padded orange thingy for the kitchen in an op shop. I don't actually know what you do with it because it isn't heat resistant and it's quite small but it's cute as!

And finally I have made a very small start on my doona cover that I'm going to make out of the fabrics I picked up from the vintage Japanese fabric warehouse. I just like looking at the colours, really. Reds, oranges, yellows and green. I think I need some indigo in there too. I'll pick that up on my next trip there!