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!

Carnivorous plant developments

The cool thing about having a blog for me is that it's kind of like a lab book. I can detail my methods, make observations and see how things change over time.

Back in May I explained how I took my rather sick scorpioides to a bunch of experts who told me that my poor plant wasn't getting enough light and was growing sparsely. This photo was taken before it got so sick that it lost all of its sticky, bug catching bits. Back then it was sitting in a kitchen window sill in an east facing position. About two months ago we moved it to a warmer, north facing position and despite the fact that its lean is now far worse than before and needs re-potting to correct it (so its new roots are in the ground, not hanging out the side of a pot), it's totally thriving. Look at all of those sticky leaves! And that's a flower sticking out there on the right too.

Scorpioides - May 08


Scorpioides - Nov 08

Then there's the Albany pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis) that we picked up in July. Back then it was absolutely tiny, the little pitchers were about 1cm, if that. Now look at it! The big pitchers are about 3cm long now.

Albany pitcher plant - July 08

Albany pitcher plant - November 08

We have a few tubs of Sarracenias (no idea what exact species) that are flowering too. I think the flowers are pretty crazy - peculiar bright green stars, with a weird shaped bit poking out from the middle.

In other carnivorous plant news, a while ago Gina was kind enough to link me this: A gorgeous carnivorous plant calendar by A Print a Day available for download in pdf. I think her work is absolutely gorgeous. She also did some other carnivorous plant prints too in such great colours.

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.