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!