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Grass gardens
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. |
#2
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Grass gardens
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 |
#3
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Grass gardens
"ant" wrote in message
... 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. The winter Iris seem to grow anywhere and I've seen them in moist spots too. I have some that grow in path and some that grow beside the drive and have not been watered in probalby the 3 years (or more??) since I put them there. I grow tall bearded up here (tempo two mainly), they are wonderful. Yes - always good doers. I still have some sitting a a styrofoam box from where my daughter dug them up and dumped them here after she moved out of a scumbag rental place - she wasn't going to leave anything to the slum landlord that she'd planted - they must have been there now for about 14 months and although they have no soil other than what is cinging to the roots they still live - I must plant them when I can find the time. 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. I had to go to Cooma today and as I was driving along I noticed the Verbasums along the side of the road. Ask your mother if she can get you some. Tough as old boots and give good height and tough - Michael McCoy the dry garden bloke uses them well. I love them. I should also have mentioned Russian sage Yes those sodding winds! I put my veggie garden facing westward on a slope - those blasted winds!!!!!. Dumb but the only place for it to go. I then had to put up a fence with shade cltoh and a whole lot of wattles on the windward side - it's now a lovely place to work. |
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