Changing seasons

The weeds grass is browning off, the pool is back in use, the white ibis are disappearing as the galahs return and the footy goal posts have made way for cricket stumps.

Jazzing up the cubby

A productive weekend's work!

 

The planting is 'Bush Bonanza' kangaroo paw. A couple of yellow and a couple of red.

 

A pretty bloom

The iceberg roses seems pretty happy in the herb garden.

So far so good with the apples

The makings of a refreshing drink

 Here's the lemon...

And here's the lime...

Anyone got some bitters?

Up, up and away

We certanly hope the three newly planted ornamental grapes will go up, up and away. Quickly. They have a pergola post each, perhaps they could absorb the slightly competetive nature of most (all?) of the occupants of the house and have a race up there. That would be good.

Putting their beak into it

One morning a couple of weeks ago we had a lovely example of the permaculture principle of working with nature. At one stage there were over 60 white and straw-necked ibis busily aerating the grass (weeds) on the oval (rectangle).

Olive oil this time next year

So said the passing neighbour as we planted our long-awaited front-yard trees. It is amazing what a difference 9 small trees can make to a space. A bare front yard becomes an inhabited garden zone. All it took was 5 manzanillo, 2 kalamata and 2 verdale olive trees.

The story of the herbs

First there was bare ground on which a garden bed was made and mulch was laid down.



 

Soon after a (very!) strong wind came and blew all that mulch away, so when the herbs were purchased for planting they went into the bare dirt. A watering system was added within days. It is good to have Grandma & Poppa back for consulting purposes...and weeding...and watering pipe installation...

 

New mulch was added and all is ready to grow!.

Loving Spring

Blue skies, slight breeze, 20 degrees celsius. Excellent weather for drying. Wonderful weather for wandering in the garden and stopping to admire the blossoms, flower buds and new leaves that are
emerging!

Lillie Pillie

Quince

Apricot Divinity

Hardenbergia

Banksia Integrifolia

Nectarine Goldmine

Unknown Pomonal eucalypt

Plum Santa Rosa

One of the pears!

The deck is back

Ahhhh, the deck. First finished 5 months ago. Before Winter. Before it started to Rain. And Rain. And Rain. Until we could have gone swiming in the pool underneath, rather than in front of, the new deck. Up came the decking boards (thankfully screwed down rather than nailed), followed by weeks of water pumping, muddy digging, shaping and aggi drain adding until every last drop of water could drain away. And now the deck is back on. And it is so nice. Just in time for Spring.

Some before shots

Looking towards Spring I am in garden bed preparation mode. It's kind of exciting knowing that on return from a forthcoming holiday I can play with plants a bit more after recent weeks of digging, spreading, mulching and shifting rocks.

 

Here we have future herb, lavendar & rose garden along the house:

 

Ready for star jasmine along the pool fence:

A rock garden awaiting some grasses (dianellas & lomandras) plus a couple of kangaroo paw next to the cubby:

An added bonus is everything looks rather neat, tidy & cared for!

Pommes are planted



Having taken care of the rabbits, the apples and pears have finally got themselves planted in the ground at a 45 degree angle and the central leader bent onto the bottom, K, wire of the KNNN espalier.

 

I have planted three rows of 5 trees according to their fruiting time. Ideally the first row will all fruit first, followed by the middle row and then the last. Theoretically, one bird netting will suffice and can just be moved from one row to the next as they all conveniently fruit when requested(!). Sounds so very attractively organised. We'll see.

1st row: Apples - Gravenstein, Early McIntosh & Pears - Williams, Packham's Triumph, Faccia Rosa
2nd row: Apples - Cox's Orange Pippin, Jonathan, Golden Delicious, Snow & Pear - Corella
3rd row: Apples - Tsugaru, Rome Beauty & Pears - Nashi 20th Century, Buerre Bosc, Doyenne Du Comice.

Fighting back

We're taking on our furry friends. One small section of proper, permanent rabbit-proof orchard fence completed:

This trench needs to be backfilled but it gives the idea of how we have buried the nettin about 15cm down and then folded 15cm out to stop those pesky diggers.

One small section of temporary fence also completed:

Hopefully the rabbits don't discover they can probably frosby-flop over the small white section.

15 apple & pear trees can now be safely planted!

A sign of Spring to come

A bud on the quince tree. The most promising sign of life so far from all those sticks I planted  a month back. The simple pleasures of a garden.

A pile of green waste

Here is our council-provided green waste bin:

And here it is next to one of our two piles of green waste:

Hmmm. I guess we'll take it one week at a time.

Those rascally rabbits

I planted some raspberry canes this week. Here's two of them. Can you spot the difference?

Yes, the one on the left is half the height of the one on the right and this is not due to some tricky perspective/depth influence in the taking of the photo. It is due to rabbits. Nasty, pesky, rascally, introduced rabbits. 2 nights had the canes been in before one was snapped in half. 2 days! I had been hopeful that the lack of green on the cane and the abundance of green in the surrounding grass would stop them from attracting rabbit notice. But then, I did read at the National Wool Museum today that one pair of rabbits (that would be one male and one female) could be responsible for a population of 62 000 rabbits in 3 years. So clearly, there is a metropolis of rabbits gathering out there every night and one of them probably just fell over it.

And ironically we have a fluffy black rabbit for a pet. I have to take care of it. And it is outliving all reasonable predictions of a basically attended to, outdoors living domestic rabbit lifespan.

As a result construction of our very own rabbit-proof fence around the orchard and vegetable garden has leap-frogged up the projects list. I just hope the rest of the raspberries survive until it is finished.

Berry ready for planting

Also nearly ready for the addition of plants are the raspberry and blueberry beds. Readying them included diggingout a total of 27 square metres of turf and bringing in 3 cubic metres of garden soil so the beds would be weed-free, well drained and friable. The raspberries (mmmmm, yummmm) are ready to go in but the blueberry bed still needs some acidifying so I'll leave them for another few weeks.

Blueberry bed

Raspberries are go

Whilst shifting the soil was kind of hard work it was also very satisfying and I did have some great help. And why not wear orange tights and a floral ra-ra skirt for working in the garden?

Straining for apples

It is very useful to have married a farmer's son. Although initially, even he had forgotten he knew how to strain a fence wire. But put together a strainer from his father-in-law and some reminders from his father and the muscle memory kicked in. The bottom wire is in place for the planting and espaliering of the apples & pears. I can go shopping!

Bare-rooted potential

One bag of sticks + one wheelbarrow of gardening gear = the beginning of an orchard.

I planted Moorpark and Divinity Apricots, an Anzac Peach, a Goldmine Nectarine and Satsuma and Santa Rosa Plums. Happy days! And more still to come!

Lemon-scented gums

From little things, big things grow. I planted 3, one for each offspring.

How many years 'til they look like this?



Grevillea olivacea

Our very first planting, back in April, was eight Grevillea olivacea (olive grevilleas). The weekend after the front fence was built we were out there digging, watering, fertilising, adding worm castings and mulching to give these little plants their best chance to become big shrubs (4m x 3m) that will form an informal hedge along the fence. A hedge to offer some privacy from the road and to soften the street impact of our somewhat striking facade!

Planting in early April meant the annual weeds were yet to rear their ugly heads and we blithely mulched directly onto the bare ground we had cleared around each plant. Fast forward a month or two and the grevilleas could not even be seen they were so swamped by oxalis.

 So I scraped mulch back, added layers of newspaper and remulched until all was tidy once more.

Status report: settled in well, new growth visible on all eight plants, newspaper working and rabbits so far leaving them alone. Hooray!