JULY 2011 – DEFINITELY MID-WINTER!

So I guess the drought has broken?

The rain continued to fall, the ground became soggier and soggier and I think spring will be VERY welcome this year. It's hard not to complain just a little bit about the rain and the freezing cold, but it's also great to see all the dams full and everything green and growing. It's certainly been a change to the climate of our first few years here and quite a number of the Australian natives are suffering from wet feet and may not survive. It just means we have to be flexible and keep learning, I guess. It will be interesting to see what the next few seasons bring us.

A couple of victims of the rain

Since 2003, I’ve already lost two Illyarrie Redcaps (Eucalyptus erithrocorys) through wet feet and it looks like the third one is going the same way. I’ve tried to save it by lifting and potting it but I’m not too optimistic. Well, it IS from West Australia so I don’t think I’ll try again. Unless …. maybe I’ll try just once more but START it in a pot.

I hardly disturbed the roots but ... I think it was looking unwell
by the next day.

The second casualty is the beautiful Grevillea “Superb”. I’ve been watching it look sicker and sicker for a couple of months and have now pruned it right back to see what will happen.

This is how it looked when I decided I had to do something about it.



Kill or cure! I really cut it back quite viciously and I'll be watching the many tiny shoots
deep inside the bush that were smothered with dead leaves to
see if there's any new growth.

 School holidays.
It was a month with a couple of family visits - and very welcome they were, too! Parents and children all gave much appreciated assistance in the garden. Early in the month we had all the Acacias along the drive cut back to stop branches falling onto the neighbour’s fence so there was quite a bit of mulching to occupy an energetic daughter and partner. Their small daughter just enjoyed getting to know about mud.

Trying to save the small trees
Another son helped with digging more of the drain from the small waterlogged Eucalypts and Olive (3) and Marley (6) thoroughly enjoyed assisting. They found the mud and the cold weather totally to their liking and loved getting outside to use up all their excess energy.

Ghost MothsThere were also plenty of the Ghost Moth cases left in the Bush Garden (see June’s Blog entry) for Marley to collect and take back for show-and-tell at school, and that kept him very busy and happy.

Moth hatchings
Just after the family had left, I discovered that my caterpillars had hatched. I had put them in a box way back in March and they had formed cocoons about three weeks later. And there they were, two lovely moths looking just like dried gum leaves.

Of course, I took lots of photos and have now printed them up and sent all the info down to the family – with one (very crumbly) cocoon. So sorry they missed it.

Gardening Australia – fame at last!
Around October last year I sent a proposition to a number of magazines, periodicals, newspapers, etc. suggesting that they might be interested in a regular gardening column based on my experiences here in the south-west of Victoria establishing an Australian Native garden. A few were vaguely interested but couldn’t provide anything definite. However, "Gardening Australia" suggested that I should put something into their ‘Your Say’ section and they would print the links to this Blog and to the Picasa Album. After replying and sending them a contribution, I heard absolutely nothing more – until nine months later - last week, in fact!
In the post I received a letter congratulating me on winning the “Letter of the Month” and enclosing an order for $100 on an internet nursery site. Now that’s a prize I really appreciate.
I have rung the online supplier and they are going to send me a spring catalogue and I can order from that or from my online browsing. I’ll probably wait for another month, till the weather warms up a bit, and then I can make my selections. Meanwhile, I can make up my wish-list. Great fun!

Buff Banded Rail
Sadly, we haven't seen our Rail since June 16th - reported in last month's blog. We carefully stayed away from anywhere he/they might be hiding in case we frightened them but there has been no sign all this month. That's about six weeks since our last sighting so I guess he's moved on. We're sad to lose him but feel very honoured that we had him for as long as we did - all of May and half of June. Maybe he'll return one day. Who knows?

Fruit trees and Asparagus
About a week before the end of July, the Nectarine needed spraying for leaf-curl. It’s now had itssecond spray – just before the buds begin opening. It’s all in the timing – I hope I’ve got it right.
The Apricot buds are beginning to open and the Plum is not far behind.
I covered the asparagus bed with compost, on top of the pony-poo, and just in the last week of July, I found two very healthy-looking shoots appearing. Could be a good year!

Spring – at least for one day!
The 31st July and we have a blue sky, slightly warmer wind and wattles. Now THAT lifts my spirits!

More pics and comments at the Picasa site here.

POST SCRIPT to JUNE POSTING

Ghost Moths
I found a heap of empty ‘cases’ in the bush garden in late June so on 22nd June, I sent off an enquiry to an entomology site I found online: 'kmebert@uqconnect.net'.  I was very impressed to receive a very comprehensive reply on 2nd July with all the information I could want.
I sent these photos:

You can see that all around them are holes
in the ground, so I assumed that's where they
came out.

It seems that the ones coming out of the ground are “Ghost Moths” of the family: Hepialidae and there are lots of species. “They have larvae that feed on the roots of trees below the ground. They make a burrow up to the ground surface. They pupate down under the ground but the pupa has circles of prickles on it and it can wriggle up the burrow with these gaining purchase on the wall of the burrow. So when it is ready to emerge to the adult (often in the winter time) the pupa comes up to the surface and projects almost all its length above ground before the adult hatches out and flies away. They are big brown or purplish moths, often with a few silver markings on the forewing. The adults don’t feed, but mate and die in a few days. The females are much bigger than the males and don’t come to lights as readily as the boys. If you have so many hatching in your garden then you should have had a few fluttering at your house lights.”
I have certainly heard bangings and flutterings at the windows at night but it’s usually when I’m already in bed and it’s been so cold I haven’t investigated. I’ll check next time I hear them.

This one was sticking out of the tree and when we touched it, it spilt rain water
all over my son - much to the entertainment of his wife!

The one coming out of the Acacia is similar and is called a Wattle Goat Moth. The larvae burrow into the tree and can live there for up to four years before emerging. This explains some of the big holes I've found in other Acacias.

I was so pleased to find all this out so quickly that I didn't want to wait till next month to post it on the blog.

SO THIS IS WHAT THE SOUTH-WEST IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE!

Wet and windy - yet again!
June has been cold, wet and windy and, with the amount of rain in the previous twelve months, our whole block has become soggy very quickly. It seems our first seven years here were un-typical. THIS weather, we are told by the locals, is the norm! But so many Australian natives bloom in the winter that the garden still manages to look bright and flowery; and before much longer, we'll be surrounded by the golden light of the wattles. No complaints about that!

These poor little Eucalypts - they've hardly had a week without wet feet.
A small drain MIGHT help but I fear for their future! 

“Our” Buff Banded Rail
He (or she) is still with us – that’s nearly two months, now. There was a while during this month when we didn’t see him for nine days and we had both decided he’d moved on. However, on the tenth day her turned up again and, for the first time, sampled his new, and deeper, bird-bath. He definitely approved, ducking his head under time and time again and splashing water in all directions.

We still don’t know where he’s living but there are a number of very dense bushy areas that would hide him (or possibly two of them) completely. We don’t go searching though in case we frighten him away. Our dream is to some day see two adults and some babies come marching out.

Spraying and Pruning.
With the three fruit trees – plum, nectarine and apricot – I had to do a bit of maintenance. The Nectarine had to be sprayed for Curly Leaf. According to the local experts, it’s all around Camperdown and if we don’t spray there’s no escaping it. Then they all had to be pruned. The plum was getting much too tall so I checked up on the internet as to how much I could prune it back. “Cut it down to as short as you want it” was the advice I found, so away I went. It’s only in it’s third year here and we haven’t had any fruit yet. Let’s hope I haven’t killed it!

I was pretty ruthless with the pruning.
Time will tell whether it will survive and produce fruit.

New plantings called for.
Sadly, a really windy night around the 21st June ended the life of a Grevillea outside the lounge-room window where we sit and watch all the birds.

There’s also a Grevillea “Superb” in the same area that has looked very unwell for over twelve months. I think too much rain has had a bad effect on it. There’s also the possibility that the Dichondra and Pratia, which have grown totally out of control since the rain, are strangling its roots. I’ve tried to keep a clear space under the shrub but it’s looking extremely sick and I think I’ll have to replace it. I may invest in a large pot for a new Grevillea “Superb” and surrender the fight to the creepers.
STOP PRESS:
I've bought a replacement for the Grevillea Superb and put it into a big pot. I’ll wait and see whether the original one recovers – which would be nice. If not, I can put the pot in its place and meanwhile, its getting established and growing a bit bigger - and it's covering up the remains of the broken one behind it.

This pic was taken in the last week in June when we suddenly had
a burst of sunshine. A very pleasant change!

Mostly a time for staying indoors
Fortunately the grass has stopped growing at last and everything else is taking a bit of rest from its mad growth over summer and autumn. And that gives us gardeners a chance to rest too. It’s good to stay inside keeping warm and watch all that wild weather outside.

A burst of sunshine
The last week of June turned on some glorious blue skies and sunshine – still very cold, though. It encouraged me to plant out a few of the everlastings I’d grown from seed and strikes – not into the garden yet but into a couple of bigger pots so I can still keep them warm and out of the wind until spring.

“Ralph” the Rail.
We haven’t seen him now for about twelve days so fear that he may have moved on. After we bought him a beautiful new bath and all! How ungrateful.

Winter flowers

Thryptromene

Correa - "Pee Wee Pete"

Cheering up the garden with bright flowers at present are: Thryptomene, Correas, some Grevilleas, three Hakeas, Epacris, Goodenia and the never-stopping purple Alyogyne.



I'm looking forward to next month when we are again surrounded by our golden wattles.

More pics available:  
More pictures can be seen at: https://picasaweb.google.com/Gillian.Gardener/TreechangeAnAustralianNativeGardenJune2011#

MAY 2011 – LOTS OF COLD AND WINTRY DAYS

The month began with a very exciting visitor!
When Geoff picked me up from the train after a trip to Melbourne on Friday, 6th May, he said: “We have a new bird.” He showed me a couple of photos he’d managed to take through the lounge room window and I was VERY excited. Here he is:

It didn’t take long to identify him from the bird-books – he’s a Buff Banded Rail, very beautiful and, although reasonably common around most of Australia, very shy and not often seen. What is so very pleasing is that we’ve now seen him almost every day since that first sighting. He appears morning and evening for a bath in the (very small) bird-bath and then disappears into the undergrowth. We’re not quite sure whether we have one or two and, until we seen them together (if there are two) just won’t know. There are definitely two personalities: one is very relaxed and stands around preening for about ten minutes after his bath and the other scuttles off very quickly as soon as he/she is finished.

Here’s a four minute video taken from a total of about 12 ½ minutes.

Mushrooms
May is usually the time when we pick heaps of mushrooms in our paddock but this year they’ve been very scarce. Lots of moisture for them but just not enough warm sunshine. We gave away a total of about one bucket full and have only had about three meals. I think the time has passed now and we won’t see any more till next year.



The mushrooms are few and far between - and hardly any big ones.

Different year – a different season. I had a look at my photos and blog entry for May 2010 and discovered that most of the Australian shrubs were already flowering by now. This year, although buds are forming and there are a few flowers, they will be much later than last May.

Fruit and vegies.
The asparagus has been cut down and its roots put to bed for the winter. A generous dressing of pony-poo, a few handfuls of chook fertiliser and, when I get it, a blanket of pea-straw should keep them warm and well-fed ready for new, juicy shoots in the spring.

Silver Beet’s a staple in my garden and even if the snails and bugs attack it, there’s always enough for a meal. It’s delicious, nourishing and grows without much effort from me.
The fruit trees – Apricot, Nectarine and Plum – are only young and haven’t produced any fruit yet. Now that they almost finished shedding their leaves, I’ll prune them soon and hope that next season they’ll do the right thing.

What’s happening to my Silver Princess?!!!
That was my cry when I noticed quite a number of dead leaves and branches hanging down amongst the healthy ones. The weather has been so cold and wet that I wasn’t doing my usual wander around the garden every day. Normally, I regularly spend an odd fifteen minutes or so in the garden just for enjoyment, as well as keeping an eye on how things are growing. Sadly, proper examination of the tree (E. caesia) revealed a bad infestation of scale. And I mean BAD!

Every branch I looked at had a thick covering of the rotten little animals and each leaf was being attacked as well. Some of the branches would have to be radically pruned and the rest thoroughly sprayed – probably for a couple of weeks, if the tree is to be saved.

I found some EcoPest oil at the local garden shop and armed with that and a new supply of Pyrethrum with Garlic, I began my assault on the tree. Oh dear! The more I cut off the more and more I found badly infested. After consultation with husband, Geoff, we decided that most of the main trunk – which was leaning at quite an acute angle – would have to go and we’d try to save the smaller branches that had grown up vertically from it. Here’s what it looks like now.

It has certainly been cut back within an inch of its life but I’m afraid there was no alternative. There was no other way of stopping the spread of such a virulent attack.
The rest has now been heavily sprayed and I’ll do it again next week. Fingers and eyes are all crossed, hoping it will survive.

Update on birds
After we’d been attacking the Silver Princess, we discovered that the Buff Banded Rail seems to be hiding under the Hakea – right next door to the tree where Geoff was using the chain-saw. We haven’t seen a nest and don’t want to disturb it, but that’s where he disappears to after his bath. We were a bit concerned that we might have frightened him but the next day he was out again at the bird-bath looking very relaxed. He’s even started to get a bit pushy; he jumped out of the bath and attacked a couple of Goldfinches which were getting too close for his comfort, so we feel he’s becoming very much at home.
A small flock of Silvereyes appeared in the garden in the last week of May and I found a couple of them going all over the Indigofera Australis, picking off any small bug or caterpillar that was attacking it. We could have done with about a thousand more of them to rescue the Silver Princess!
A baby Fantail has been introduced to the bird-bath by its parents; a family of New Holland Honeyeaters - parents and noisy children – come and go regularly; and we still have the Shrike Thrush hopping about and serenading us. We also hear and occasionally see, a Golden Whistler – only the female though. We’ve only ever seen the male once in the last seven years.

STOP PRESS ON THE RAIL
The first day of June – and as I was about to put the Blog up on the internet, I found our Rail up on the veranda. He walked right around the house and then appeared fossicking around in the garden outside my office. Definitely feeling much more at home. AND, almost certainly a different bird from the one which is so nervous and runs away after bathing. Do we have a pair? We’re very hopeful.

For more photos of the Rail and the garden in general, you can click here.

APRIL 2011 – PRACTICALLY PERFECT AUTUMN WEATHER.

Mid autumn – and a wonderful time for sitting in the garden.

At last, a brief respite from all the lush growth that’s been happening during the wet summer and beginning of autumn. There’s been no need for constant work in the garden so we’ve been able to sit in the sun, and relax with friends and family - in between mowing the grass, that is. Geoff, has still had to get on that ride-on mower every week because, unlike most summers, there’s been no time when it’s even looked like browning off. It just keeps on glowing wonderfully green and growing wonderfully high!



Evening shadows after a perfect autumn day.

Pony Poo - $1 a bag! A distinct advantage of living in the country is the availability of good, cheap fertiliser. I find a couple of bags of horse or pony manure are quite enough to help nourish my garden over the winter. Having bought two big bags for $1 each, the contents is now sitting in a couple of plastic bins, soaking in water, all ready to decant onto the asparagus bed and any other vegetable beds as they become vacant.

The asparagus ferns need to brown off and die down before I’ll cut them, then I’ll cover the whole bed with pony poo, compost and then a layer of pea or sugar cane straw. It’s a voracious feeder and it produces such a heap of luscious spears every September to December, that I don’t mind the little bit of work it takes at the end of autumn.

A new Seed-bed set-up.
Last year I managed to germinate lots of different Australian native seeds in a very makeshift and ad hoc way. This year I’m getting organised with trays of seed pots and giving each tray its own little hot house. I’ve set them up an old BBQ trolley from which Geoff has removed all the heavy bits like burners, etc. Now, with a minimum of effort, I can place the whole table of seeds in any sheltered, sunny or shady spot I want to.

The centre tray was $7 and came with its own cover. I bought the others for $4 for four
at a 'Cheap Shop' and made a cover with wire frame and plastic. It's all working very well so far.

Very convenient and I’ve already been astonished at the results of planting seeds from the X. bracteatum in my home-made hothouse. They germinated in 6 days and haven’t stopped growing.

This is the home-made hot-house cover.

And this is what happened in ten days!

Perhaps they’re a bit early. If so, it’s a pretty safe bet that I can get another lot up and on their way if I need to.
I’ve also put in seeds from the Running Postman and am striking bits from X. viscosum (Sticky everlastings) and Chrysocephelum apiculatum.(Common everlastings). There are also four pieces of cardboard impregnated with seeds of the Swan River Daisy (Brachyscome ibiridifolia) which I put in at the same time. They came attached to some wine from Banrock Estate Winery; it’ll be interesting to see if they do actually grow. No sign of any germination yet.

Self-sown plants.
In various parts of my garden which are covered in mulch and left virtually alone, it’s very encouraging to find various plants popping up that have self-sown. In the biggest Bush Garden area there are a couple of Tea Trees, a Kunzea, and a couple of different wattles. Down in the Bog Garden at the end of the block, there is a very healthy Melaleuca (from the three bushes nearby) and I’ve just discovered three tiny Tea Trees of a kind I don’t yet recognise. There’s also a Blackwood Wattle and a Dogtooth Wattle growing very happily, both of which appeared a couple of years ago.

This is a very healthy Kunzea self-sown from a bush nearby.

The end of the Sunflower Circle
By the middle of April, the sunflowers had grown to their full height, had flowered beautifully for the bees and butterflies, and were beginning to drop their petals. Two small grandsons – Jack 6 ½ and Marley nearly 6 – came up to visit and enjoy the country for a couple of days. They marvelled at the circle, played inside it, admired the height of the plants, and had a good time shaking the tiny dying flowers all over themselves and each other. Then (with our blessing) they spent a very happy couple of hours demolishing the lot! They dragged the plants towards themselves and, as the stem cracked, went crashing to the ground covered in sunflower leaves and laughing hysterically. Luckily the ground was soft so they didn’t damage themselves too much. Then they broke the stems up (if they were thin enough) and dragged them to the green-waste bin. The thick ones they dragged to a pile ready for the tip. It certainly kept them entertained and saved their grandparents a lot of hard work.

Jack and Marley inside the circle.

By the second day they were getting so much enjoyment out of the garden, they decided to cart mulch down in the wheelbarrow and spread it over the centre of the circle – ready for next year.

You'd harldy know it had been there! But I'll keep the spot free of grass
for next year's Sunflower Circle.

Next jobs?
I’ve taken most of my last year’s pots and put the plants out into the garden: a couple of Kangaroo Apples, a Viminaria that I thought was dying but recovered enough to plant out, and a couple of Goodenias that also looked a bit sick and seem to be surviving, so now I’m ready to start again. There’s a cluster of self-sown Pussy Tails that I intend to try to thin out a bit and I hope I’ll be able to get them growing in another couple of spots around the garden. I’ve collected seeds from anything that I think will grow and am going to put my new seed pots to good use – that will happen in the next month or so. I’ll be transplanting some of the X. bracteatum from the seed pots before too long and, of course, there’s the ongoing problem of the too-healthy Dichondra. Any spare time and energy I have will probably be spent removing some of that – firstly away from smothering my good plants and eventually, trying to eliminate it from various areas.


I really didn't think the Dichondra would be such a vigorous grower.
It will have to be VERY firmly treated to stop it killing everything!

 Picasa album: There are lots of pictures of this month’s activities here, so feel free to browse all my pictures and make a comment on any. I'd be happy to hear from you.
Next month I'll be able to report on how (or if) my new seed beds are working.

AUTUMN – SEASON OF MISTS AND MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

Autumn
How could I not start with Keats when he describes this autumn of 2011 so well?

Mists we have certainly had in the mornings, with hundreds of spider webs outlined and sparkling with droplets of water; and mellow fruitfulness in abundance. In typical country style, friends and neighbours have been bringing peaches and pears, zucchini and various other marrows, and we have been able to send them back with tomatoes and silver beet. Not much more from our meagre food garden but enough to feel part of the sharing.

A curtain of droplet-outlined webs are all over the garden.

Apart from the occasional rainy night, the March days have been sunny, warm, and still, making it very difficult to leave the garden and come inside to work on the computer.

Constant pruning neededAbsolutely everything has been growing apace and therefore has needed pruning. Native shrubs, like the Hibbertias and one particular Hakea, that I have carefully nursed over the past few years, suddenly decided to grow so fast that they nearly strangled each other and smothered a poor little Correa nestled between them. I needn’t have worried for the Correa – as I pruned and pruned to uncover it, it had grown just as fiercely and was thriving underneath.

The Hibbertia (H. aspera) on the left, Burrundong Beauty (H. luarina cross) on the right
 almost killed the Correa in the middle.

Timboon Rail Trail

Easy walking and pleasant company - makes for a great day.

 A walk with a group of friends for about 8-10 kilometres on a local Rail Trail was a wonderful way to spend a cool autumn day. Cars were used to provide transport to the start and three were parked at the end to drive us to lunch at Timboon and then back to the start again. It’s a labour of love by a number of hardy volunteers who have worked hard to establish the track and keep it clear of weeds and overgrowth. Most of the old trestle bridges are falling down and unusable which means that the track has to take walkers down into the gully and up again – a definite bonus. Down in the gully, as small bridges cross the streams, there are ferns, fallen logs, mossy banks and all the delights of Victoria’s temperate rain forest. Quite a lot of invasive weeds too, unfortunately, such as the ubiquitous blackberry, Ivy, a St John’s Wort variety and quite a lot of exotic grasses.

We walked through about six to eight beautiful gullies.

I discovered a wonderful site for identifying weeds. You can go to this site: http://www.weeds.gov.au/identification/index.html, click on Weed identification tool and just by a short description of your unknown weed, you are offered a list that you can check in detail. That’s how I found the variation of St. John’s Wort. Very useful.

Paul Jennings and a re-forestation project.
On Sunday 20th March Paul Jennings and his neighbour opened their properties to the public to enjoy and Geoff and I drove the 45 minutes to be a part of it. It’s of great interest to us in particular because he started his project eight years ago, which is when we moved to Camperdown and began our own small contribution to native revegetation. Admittedly, Paul has 50 acres and we have one – just a bit of a difference! So it was just lovely to park the car out the front of a small forest and follow the arrow to a winding dirt path that took us through all the native trees that we’ve been planting and nurturing in our own place. There were various Eucalypts, Acacias and Casuarinas as well as numbers of ground covers and grasses.
Paul and his neighbour have had heaps of assistance from the Hopkins Point Landcare Group and a couple of other private and semi-government bodies – both with money and advice, whereas we have struggled to spend very little and learn as we go. This has meant quite a few failures and set-backs – particularly with the changing weather conditions we’ve had in the past eight years but, fortunately, Paul had many experts there and available for us to talk to about what we’re trying to do, and we received lots of help and advice about direct seeding, sources for native plants and places to go for further advice and assistance. It was lovely to be amongst a group of people all with the same aims and enthusiasms.
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I’ve had to use a picture from Paul’s brochure and I hope and trust I’ll be forgiven if I’ve broken copyright. I don’t think he’ll mind though, since we’re both working for the same thing.

You can see the small forest in the background of this picture.
Credit is formally given to the Landowner's Re-vegetation Project Open Day brochure
from which I obtained this picture.

Willing workers welcome!
We’re very lucky to have two large grandsons of 23 and 20 who are happy to visit Camperdown and contribute some strong muscles to the cause. On 26th Stefan and Alex arrived and began work on getting rid of some very large branches of the Dog Tooth Wattle (A. cultriformis) that had grown out and over the Pincushion Hakea (H. laurina) in the Bush Garden. I hadn’t realised how much it was smothering it and the other Sweet Scented Hakea (H. drupacea) next to it until it was all gone.

Don't tell me the young ones don't work hard!
I didn't know Alex (on the left ) was a plumber!

Not only was it smothering it but it seems, it was also hiding it from our beautiful Black Cockatoos. Only on the following day we saw a group of five fly over and, within half an hour, we heard loud cracking sounds as the birds dined happily on the Hakea nuts. That’s when I discovered that the tree was now too low for us to see it (and the birds) over the intervening Wattles and Grevilleas. I can’t bring myself to give the front shrubs a severe pruning, so I’ve now bought yet another Hakea laurina and planted it where we’ll be able to see it from our lounge room window. Only a year or two to wait for the nuts – I hope!

Native wild life
Nothing as exciting as koalas or wallabies I’m afraid, only bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, spiders, butterflies and skinks, but still native and still wild life. And such a wide range of them all, many more than we’ve seen in our garden in all the eight years we’ve been here. We’ve had some really interesting caterpillars, so I’ve reverted to my days as a mother of young children and have made a couple of caterpillar boxes and collected two sorts, with the hope that they’ll make cocoons and we’ll be able to see the moths or butterflies hatch out. Two of the smaller grandsons (5 and 6 years old) are going to visit us through the school holidays so with a bit of luck, there’ll be something interesting happening for them.

I'll be interested to find out what these turn into.



A shoe box, a piece of plastic and a jar of water
all make a great 'caterpillar box'.

A lot of photos from March with explanatory captions can be seen on my Picasa Album here.

FEBRUARY 2011 – IF THAT WAS SUMMER, I GUESS WE’VE HAD IT.

Brrrr!
I’m writing this a day late. It’s the 1st March, it’s the beginning of autumn and, in South Western Victoria, the weather has suddenly turned to winter! The morning temperature was about twelve degrees, the heater was turned on and we shivered over breakfast. So I guess that was summer. Perhaps autumn will be a little more traditional, with cool mornings but warm, still days. Hmm, I can but hope!


Vegetables: Tomatoes and Silver Beet – very little variety but plenty of food.

There wasn’t a lot of gardening activity on my part and the garden seemed to survive very well without it. We started picking tomatoes at the beginning of the month and for the last two weeks of February, have been picking 5 or 6 almost every day. These are mostly from the one grafted plant, “Health Kick”, which I planted late November. I haven’t staked it and the plant has spread far and wide all over the garden. This doesn’t seem to matter to the fruit – I simply hook them up over the stems as they begin to ripen and pick them when they are quite deeply red all over. They look – and taste – like a Roma and I like to leave them on the plant as long as possible to develop their full flavour.




The couple of big ones on top are the first from a couple of Heritage Italian plants given to me by a friend.

I’ve given quite a lot away and have also cooked up a big saucepan to freeze for soups and casseroles.
I also remembered an old recipe I used to do regularly and had totally forgotten about. Just cut the small tomatoes in half, place on a baking tray with a sprinkle of olive oil, celery salt and basil, and cook in a slow oven for about 30-40 minutes till they are almost dried out. This concentrates the flavour beautifully. When they've cooled, add a few drops of balsamic vinegar - absolute heaven! Served alone or on toast squares or a biscuit, they go beautifully with a glass of chilled white wine! And don’t we deserve something delicious after all our hard work?

Perhaps they don't LOOK all that attractive but I can vouch for the flavour.

The Silver Beet went to seed pretty quickly in January, so I planted another punnet of the coloured variety, Swiss Chard, and it grew so well, I started picking the odd few leaves a couple of weeks later. It’s now producing quite enough for a couple of meals a week.

An Excuse
One of the reasons for not doing too much gardening was a planned family gathering set for 19th February. This meant more time and energy went into house-cleaning and other preparations than I usually spend! (I’m much happier working in the garden than working in the house!)
We totalled twelve adults and five children for lunch and dinner Saturday, and breakfast and lunch Sunday. Fortunately, everyone brought food and it was a communal cooking and eating fest. They are all enthusiastic cooks – all the daughters and sons, as well as in-laws – so all Geoff and I had to do was sit back and let it all happen. Some of the family were staying at the local caravan park, and four adults and a baby stayed with us.
The visit of the four small grandchildren was the reason for the planting of the Sunflower Circle. I had hoped we could put a piece of carpet inside and they could play in there with books, games, tea-set, etc. However, the weather was NOT particularly kind to us. We managed to cook and eat outside and on the veranda but intermittent rain meant that the ground was wet and it was also very windy. Admittedly, okay for kites, and we flew those with great success. We also managed a big and highly disorganised game of cricket; but it was a bit wet and chilly for a Sunflower House.



Too wet for sitting in but Jack enjoyed peering through the leaves.



They  just love the space to run, play, yell and swing.

Australian Garden This IS supposed to be a blog about a Native Australian garden, and vegetables and sunflowers don’t really belong at all; so a quick report on what’s been happening in this department.
For a start, the Bush Garden, which has plenty of pictures on the Picasa site here, has developed to just where I hoped it would be as the grandchildren grew old enough to enjoy it. The two 3-year-olds and the two 5 & 6 year-olds had great times hiding there, running around, exploring and 'getting lost'! We even had one scary moment when an uncle was hiding up a tree and growled mysteriously. Six-year-old Jack wasn't 'really scared' - but it was a pretty exciting moment.
All the shrubs and plants are growing and they seem to be getting ready for a quite early spring. Lots of buds on the “Burrundong Beauty” (Hakea Laurina-cross), the Cootamundra (Acacia baileyana), the Yellow Mallee Gum (E. preissiana), and the Banksias.

Yellow Mallee Gum (E. preissiana)



Burrundong Beauty



Prostrate Cootamundra (A. baileyana) with plenty of buds.



Banksia spinosa

The everlastings have been flowering all through January and February and hardly look like stopping yet. More and more spiders are appearing and, as I was writing this, I checked on the internet to identify them. I found an excellent site: http://museumvictoria.com.au/spiders/ and have now got all the correct information about our most common spidery visitors. (Fancy spiders having their own "website". Sorry!)
We have heaps and heaps of Leaf Curling Spiders, quite a number of Scorpion Tailed Spiders (which are not as dangerous as their name suggests. It’s just that they have a tail that they curl up over their back) and our colony of Spiny Spider babies from December (which I always used to call Spikey Spiders) has spread far and wide and they can now be found all over the garden.
According to the website, none of them are particularly dangerous. I don’t make a habit of handling them but even if they did manage to bite, they would only produce a localised swelling or itching.
One of the grandsons, 5-year-old Marley, is a very keen bug-man so he had a great time examining them all.

A Menace!
I also have to report that the Dichondra has become far too invasive for comfort. It did seem like a good idea at the time – great coverage and keeps the weeds down beautifully BUT – how do I handle it now? The overabundance of water this season has given it the personality of an agressive invader and it is starting to give me sleepless nights wondering how to control it. Watch this space for further developments!


The Scaveola is still flowering bravely but that Dichondra
will HAVE to be removed from around it.

Picasa Pics Even if there doesn’t seem to be much to report, there’s plenty to see in the garden and it’s best appreciated by the pictures I’ve put on Picasa. Click here to browse through what’s flowering, what’s budding and what’s developing.

EARLIER ENTRIES
For earlier months' Blog entries go to "Previous Posts".
For earlier months' photos, you can click HERE.