"Trish Brown" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:

snip

nobody has ever asked me where i got anything, ever. perhaps i am doing
soemthing wrong :-)

Maybe I was just lucky? Most of my sewing has been to dress a late-in-life
daughter who happened to do dance as well. I pulled out all the stops for
her, while the early-in-life son only got practical stuff.

aha. dancing daughter. aha. (i haven't got one of those!)

Yeh! My fantasy is to get locked in there over a long weekend. Three
things I love to shop for: haberdashery, stationery supplies and hardware
(in that order).

gasp me too!
in fact, i clearly remember when hardware warehouses were invented & we went
on our first trip to home hardware in ashfield. it was a wonderland! i
couldn't get enough of it!!!!!!!! then bunnings came along & ruined
everything for me.

I've got an Australian botanicals quilt
rolling around in my mind for this year. I'd like to work a whole lot of
lesser-known native plants (not your basic waratahs and grevilleas etc)
into a very large appliqué and embroidery project. Only thing is, if I
think too hard, I convince myself I'm not clever enough to do it right.

Can you picture an appliqué jobbie that has a large spotted gum tree up
one side with embroidered blossoms and highly textured bark? The leaves
would be a challenge, but done correctly I think it'd be really
spectacular. OR (light bulb moment) a Red-Flowering Ironbark!!! Ooo! I'm
loikin' what I'm thinkin'...

that would be very spectacular! although i must admit i like quilts & things
heavily traditional. so maybe ask someone else :-)

We've thought about it for fourteen years and *this* year, we're going to
bite the bullet and plant serious trees - probably casuarinas for the
grass repelling and the parrot-feeding cones and the gorgeous sound they
make in a breeze. I thought if we used River Oaks, then they'd be able to
cope with the seasonally boggy soil. D'you reckon?

ah, yes!

although - and not to be provoking aus.gardens to rise as one in an angry
mob or anything like that - but i love willows. i'm pretty sure that's what
_i'd_ be planting. you could make "rooms" out of pleached willows!!! it
would be so beautiful!!!!

I'd have loved to
put in some Buckinghamia and Hymenosporum for the blossoms, but I don't
think either would last five minutes through the winter. Ah well. And
then, of course, some raised beds for the veggie garden of my dreams.

you could also make raised beds along a suitable edge for dwarfed,
espaliered fruit-trees too, because then the beds would not have to be big.
regardless of teh blithe j. french, "mounds" are troublesome because they
eventually are not big enough & then you can't water the tree properly when
you need to (which is bound to happen eventually) - it just runs off & away.
this i know because we have some fruit trees on "mounds". pah.

you could also raise a few areas up (in an aesthetic manner) for smaller
plants which don't like bogs, too. and of course grow celery & mint to your
heart's content elsewhere :-)

Do you have any good ideas for protecting Blue Tongues? Our dog has found
out she can kill them and despite some pretty hairy bellowing at her,
continues to do it. I thought, maybe some pipe of some description... But
how to keep it clear of soil and teach the blueys to use it?

no idea. my dog kills them too (he thinks lizards & snakes are the same
thing, unfortunately). at the end of the day, the few blue-tongues which are
foolish enough to hang around our yard have to protect themselves. my
reasoning is that they have a great deal of room away from the yard (47
hectares). clearly that is where most of them live out long & alarm-free
lives. i just go out & try to rescue whatever it is that he's bailed up when
he does his "snake bark" (does not happen much any more). the blue-tongues
just don't come around so much any more. they seem to be fast learners ime,
so perhaps you could train them into pipes with fruit or meat - you just
don't want to be encouraging a difficult situation though where you're just
luring them to their deaths. ;-)

The other battle is with the #)%*%^^&#^ veldt grass that's taken over the
place. It looks fabulous left to its own devices, but it's nearly two foot
tall now! The frogs and blueys are loving it, but it gives me a pain in
the face: when you mow, the cables just rise up like spikes and refuse to
be squashed!

Ah, the problems of the flustered gardener! :-D

it never ends!!
i'm a fan of letting things work for themselves though - fighting it
constantly is just never going to work. when you decide how to work with
what you have & what you want within those limitations, it will go really
well, i am sure. for e.g. i spent some time frustrated beyond belief with
all the rocks we have. then i decided the rocks are a resource, not a
"problem". the soil is still full of rocks, but it no longer bothers me. :-)

otoh, it breaks my heart we can't have a peppercorn tree, because it gets
too cold here. i love peppercorn trees insanely. but there you have it!
kylie