Holy crap! That is impressive. It is a tough environment and yes, down in
canberra is quite a different kettle of fish nowadays. The soil here really
isn't that bad, and it's carpeted with roo poo. It was a sheep farm, the
bloody farmers knocked down the trees which have hardened into iron where
they lie. It's just that the soil is a few inches deep. then you get that
yellow stuff you mentioned, and often big slabs of rock so that the water
runs down it, under the soil! the weirdest thing.

The varieties you've listed are interesting, I have some of them. I'm an
iris freak, and used to love those winter iris at home, always associated
them with damp though. I grow tall bearded up here (tempo two mainly), they
are wonderful. Must dig out a few winter iris from down in Canberra and try
them here, even without the flowers the plant clumps are lovely. Mother
planted those japonica things (the red flowers), and they do their thing.

I'm just reading all the rest of what you wrote... the wind is the biggie.


Farm1 wrote:
ant

I've been thinking about your situation and since I've been there and
have the T-shirt I thought you might have some interest in my
experiences or some advice. Ignore if it doesn't interest you.

My first piece of advice is the old military adage: "time spent in
reconaissance is never wasted". By that I mean that you should visit
as many Open Gardens in the
Monaro/Cooma/Taralga/Goulburn/Yass/Gundaroo (Dick Smith's garden at
Gundaroo is well worth a visit if/when it's open again) etc districts
as you can.

Don't bother with Canberra as it is no longer the old hard and hungry
Limestone Plains. 30 years ago it was impossible to grow normal
azaleas in Canberra. If one wanted azaleas it was the deciduous
Mollis Azaleas or nothing. Now normal azaleas are common as the
climate has changed. Those other places I mention are still hard and
hungry and good gardens in those places (and there are a surpring
number of them) will teach you heaps. Take lots of photos if you do
go and refer to them later as you will see new things each time and
take a notebook as well and note what is growing well. If you can't
get to open gardens when they are open then take the family/yourself
for a drive to any of those places and squizz over fences. Even a
shopping trip to Cooma can be used as a learning experience by doing
that (I'm a great fence-over-squizzer and so often as I'm doing it
I've been invited in by the owners for a look [once they know I'm not
up to no good] gardeners love to show off their gardens).

Advice 2 - use your Mum. She may not yet understand the requirements
of your garden but she should be a great source for you for finding
plants - the tough ones that are often not available in local
nurseries but which do well in our hard and hungry conditions. For
example, she should know about places like Lambley Nursery etc that
specialises in dry plants. Once you increase your knowledge of what
will grow she may also be able to help you inboth identifying and
sourcing such things.

Some books I love. The old (and I mean really old) editions of "The
Canberra Gardener". The new one is shit IMHO but the old ones from
the early 60s etc are great (even though they are a bit anal in the
neatness, orderliness way). Another local book which I would not lend
to anyone is "The Indolent Kitchen Gardener" by Libby Smith. It has
advice and information in it that I have never seen elsewhere and it's
applicable beyond the kitchen garden.

Now some 'doing' advice. I've had soil that was the colour of the
sort of shit a calf does when it has the scours (pale yellow) and set
like concrete. It was so bad that I'd spend an hour with a pick
putting 2.5 cm dents in the soil and would then water for 2 hours and
go back the next day and do another hour putting the same sized dents
in the soil etc ad nauseum. This same soil is now full of worms and
dark brown and friable till I reach what I now call the 'real' sub
soil (it's still all really subsoil but its now good enough to be
considered topsoil). It could still do with improvement but it gets
better each year.

So, after the chip, water, chip, water etc routine, what I did was
just keep working at it till I could break it into huge clods (about
the size of a big fork head). I'd then fertilize it with anything I
had ranging from chook poo straight from under the roosts to Dynamic
Lifter, cow plops etc. I'd then loosely cover it with straw and water
it regualry and leave it for a while and the go back a few weeks later
and pull off the mulch and rework it etc. (Mind you this was in a
"Rose Bed" where the sodding garden designer who did the garden for
the previous owner had put 70 roses under weed mat - the only worms I
found were above the weed mat in the pine bark mulch - it took me
years about 10 years to get through this whole bed and the worst thing
was getting rid of the mulch and the weed mat - God knows how any of
the poor roses survived but they did.). Now that I have access to
huge quantities of horse poo, I use that straight as I get it -
sometimes it's almost steaming but I've found that the plants don't
seem to mind that and the worms seem to love it. All the epxerts say
to "age" it - I dont' have the time or the energy. By the time I've
loaded it into the ute, I'm so stuffed that I just want to dump it a
squcikly and as easily as possible. It does mean more weeding but the
soil is improved by it so much that the weeds aren't a problem to
remove.

Contrary to the accepted advice given by the "experts" in our area, be
very wary of mulching heavily. Unless you can deliver copious and
regualr quantities of water in the summer then you'll find that you
are constantly having to pull off the mulch and water deeply and then
put it all back. I've found that only a thin layer of mulch used as a
shading and wind desiccation protection device works best. In winter
when the rains are good I mulch more heavily and by spring the worms
have got it to about the right level for summer.

Worms. Concentrate on feeding them and breeding them up and forget
about the plants or soil fertility or anything else. What the worms
love will be THE best way to build the soil, but let the worms do your
work for you. They love lucerne - it's expensive in both the bale
form or as the horse food chaff version but worth every penny of the
money spent on it. I buy bales of lucerne and then "spoil" them.
(also a good technique for plain old straw which makes great temporay
beds - just plant straight into a spoiled bale) . I buy lucerne bales
as I have spare money (seldom) and then leave then lying around the
garden in contact with the soil where I know there are worms. I water
then and turn them over onto a new side regualrly. Whent he outside
is a nice brown colour they are great for then breaking up into
biscuits and then fluffinf out as mulch. Sometimes they go to the
almost rotting back into the soil stage because I';ve forgotten them
and at that time they are almost good enough to eat. When you get to
this stage you'll find whole colonies of worms infesting them. I buy
the lucerne chaff (horse feed) when I want a muclh aroudn small
existing plants and the lucerne hay is to big and bulky.

If you have to, use temporary wind shelters of shade cloth strung off
star pickets - not elegant but it sure works while the pioneer plants
are establishing - wattles are great pioneer plants especially Acacia
floribunda which does well even in windy spots. I also use violets as
pioneer plants. They are surprisingly tough and I just rip them out
by the bucket load when I then want to use an area where they are.

Some plant's I'd recommend (but bear in mind htat I too love the
English cottage garden look, [hate camellias but have some as I'm not
the only one involved in this garden] but I've learned that I have to
use tough plants to get it. Lambs ears (stachys byzantica or perhaps
it's now named something else maybe stachys lanata, but it's certainly
stachys). Tough as old boots as many grey leaved plants are - has
survived here without watering through all our years of drought.
Cistus - good tough shrub - pink or whit flowers. Chaenomeles
(spelling?) "Flowering Quince" is it's common name red or white
flowered shrub. Wallflowers. The Winter Iris - has blue flowers that
grow to about ankle height although the leaves grow to about 30 cm -
will grow in a dry packed path - flowering now. "Bears
Breeches"/"Oyster Plant" (Acnathus Mollis) - tall and architectural
doesn't need muchh care or water but does even better with both.
Agapanthus. Many more but the brain has gone dry. Just tremembered.
African Daisy - I think it is called something like osteospernum?????
Spreda and flowers and can be totally ignored. Photinia robusta are
also good but will sulk for about 4 yrears from planting but will then
suddenly take off like rockets. Sedums "Autumn Joy" - your Mum will
know it. Succulents - I have a gorgeous one which spreads by
creeping - has amall red flowers which the bees love and it completly
carpets the soil and excludes all weeds - I just rip it up when I want
to plant where it's spread.

A few ideas - hope some of it is of assistance.



--
ant