Gardens and Growing Stuff

[stylofone]

I now have four wattle trees. The one on the left is barely more than a twig with a few leaves and roots. If they can all survive and thrive I hope it will be a nice informal screen for the edge of my property. I am half expecting some or all of them to die, but if they live I will always value them.

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[stylofone]

The wattle tree experiment is not going so well. I think two of them are dead, but I'm going to wait and see if they can revive themselves. Another big failure was my replanting of some very jolly daisies I found in the bush, which I thought might be the native brachycome. I have now discovered they are African daisies and one of the nastiest introduced species choking natives in this area. They will have to die. I have some actual brachycome seeds which I will sow in their place.

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Another experiment is to attempt propagation of this impressive plant I saw growing on sand dunes at Tuross Head. It appears to be coast wattle. I took some cuttings and I'm trying to follow precise instructions for getting them to take root.

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I'm pleased that the easiest plant to propagate - pigface - is already flowering just days after I transplanted it from a different beach where it is thriving. I also bought three different coloured varieties ($4 each), one of which is also flowering. This is the beach one, it's about a metre long.

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[stylofone]

My grass tree seeds have sprouted. This could be a challenge, they are very slow growers and lots can go wrong, but if they end up looking like the picture on the seed pack I'll be happy and so will the birds and the bees. They'll probably all die but it will be fun trying.

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[stylofone]

My back yard project, seen this week and in September. It is all Australian native plants except for kikuyu lawn, a few geraniums in the corner, and some star jasmine. The latter might yet be crowded out by the native creepers I'm also trialling: hardenbergia, snake vine, hibertia.

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[stevebrooks]

I....dislike gardening, sorry, but I only bring it up to recount an interesting anecdote.

I have a friend, always rented houses when he was younger, moving from suburb to suburb as you do sometimes as rents increase and/or room mates decide to move on. And it happened one day that he had finally saved up enough money to purchase his own property, and having been raised on a diet of saccharine sweet sitcoms where the protagonists usually spend quiet afternoons pottering around in the garden doing stuff like, well re-potting and digging weeds and all, seemingly with great enjoyment and satisfaction before settling down for a quiet evening repast in slippers and dinner jacket, he decided on a house with a nice big garden, ah bliss.

Around a month after moving in he came to me with a confession, he had discovered, after a rather fitful start, that he absolutely hated gardening, not just simple hate but with a passion you reserve for objects in front of your flamethrower. So now he has a nice house with a big garden area, and a backyard jungle that houses stray cats, and possibly other critters, but no-one dares go out there to check. Fortunately the neighbours are big on gardening so now he has a nice vegetable patch and a few guardian gnomes in his front garden that he can sit on the porch and admire and more importantly, never, ever touch.

Thus ends my story.

[stylofone]

I....dislike gardening, sorry, but I only bring it up to recount an interesting anecdote.

I have a friend, always rented houses when he was younger, moving from suburb to suburb as you do sometimes as rents increase and/or room mates decide to move on. And it happened one day that he had finally saved up enough money to purchase his own property, and having been raised on a diet of saccharine sweet sitcoms where the protagonists usually spend quiet afternoons pottering around in the garden doing stuff like, well re-potting and digging weeds and all, seemingly with great enjoyment and satisfaction before settling down for a quiet evening repast in slippers and dinner jacket, he decided on a house with a nice big garden, ah bliss.

Around a month after moving in he came to me with a confession, he had discovered, after a rather fitful start, that he absolutely hated gardening, not just simple hate but with a passion you reserve for objects in front of your flamethrower. So now he has a nice house with a big garden area, and a backyard jungle that houses stray cats, and possibly other critters, but no-one dares go out there to check. Fortunately the neighbours are big on gardening so now he has a nice vegetable patch and a few guardian gnomes in his front garden that he can sit on the porch and admire and more importantly, never, ever touch.

Thus ends my story.

I was prejudiced against gardening because of my Homer Simpson attitude, that it was for old people. But now I'm over 60 I have advanced to the level of Grandpa: "I used to be with it, until they changed what it was. Now what I am with isn't it and what is it seems weird and scary to me."

Also, owning a house and having financial security has been an urgent project for me, and establishing a garden on the weed-infested messy former building site is the final major part of the project. A wanky landscape professional said it might cost $35,000 for him to do it. Doing it (mostly) myself has saved me tens of thousands of dollars, and that's also contributed to the change in attitude.