Self care by growing a garden

It took a little over 3 years for my gardening mojo to return after our crisis, feeling a bit in limbo with our house on the market, not wanting to spend but wanting it to look nice @Adge .

Oh so my Gardening enthusiasm (mojo) may return @Former-Member

Yours did, so you're a good role-model.

Yes, that would be hard. Anything nice that you plant, gets left behind (or given to someone else).

Tricky, & a bit sad.

I couldn't lose my garden, that's all I have - more important than the house (sort of).

Adge

I feel more connected to the garden rather than the house @Adge .

Have you a seat in your garden @Adge where you can enjoy the shade of your trees or watch the birds in your grevilleas?

@Adge, we've got a whopper of a gum tree in the yard next to our house. Yellow Gum I think. It's got something like a 10m or more spread, and height to match. It was planted by a previous resident, is really too big for the spot it's in, it takes a big share of the moisture and nutrients in the soil, but I'd have to be desperate before I'd get it cut down because so many birds and insects visit it and live in it.

Since we moved here, I've planted a little band of natives along our back fenceline, at the top of the creek bank. A much better place for big trees. They include a She Oak, a Silky Oak, a couple of different wattles, a struggling bottlebrush and ditto Kurrajong. The latter two get browsed by our local wallabies, which is partially why they're struggling. A second bottlebrush got over-browsed and died. There's been a few others that didn't make it too, but some of the trees are now 6m or so high. It's lovely seeing them grow. They're not quite at the "mature habitat tree" stage yet, but they're getting there.

Spent the afternoon doing a bit of garden prep work before going away to my parents' place for the week.

Yesterday I put some dry bedding (oak and eucy leaves) in the chook pen, and covered the top with a piece of galvo sheeting to help prevent it getting soggy again. It's a portable pen, so moving it to a drier patch would have been ideal, but not happening time-wise. Today I added a feed bag full of pine needles that we collected from beside the road coming home from church. So I can rest easy knowing that the two chookie girls aren't straight on muddy ground... and they'll mix it all up and break it down into fantastic compost.

There's likely frost predicted for the week coming. We've had hardly any so far this year, so I had to make sure my frost tender things were sheltered. The tamarillo has a couple of sheets of fibreglass roofing making a cylinder around it, with shadecloth closing in the top. The young curry tree, young lemon myrtle, leaf cardamon, pineapple sage and some other small plants are in a large clear plastic storage tub with a small piece of poly carb over the top. The cherry guava is a bit tougher, so I think it'll be OK next to the house.

Planted one more packet of seeds. An out of date but still sealed packet of red onions. If they don't grow I'll just put something else in on top of them.

And I picked some fresh herbs and vegs to take with me. Silverbeet, kale, parsley, two small fennel bulbs, some celery, and some ripe tomatoes and yellow sweet chillis that are still growing. Too often the supermarket vegs come in packs or bunches that are more than I'll eat in the time I'm there, and the greens are never all that fresh anyway. I don't think there will be much growing up their end unless the peas and broad beans I planted last winter have self seeded. The summer was too hot and dry for everything else I planted.

going away to my parents' place for the week.-- when do you go @Smc and have a safe trip xx

Hello @Former-Member , @Adge , @jb3 , @Sheila

was having morning tea with mum this morning and my auntyasked us if we like to do her gardening

ha ha my mum quickly spoke up and said " no they have to do my gardening first "

I hope your stay with your parents goes well @Smc

You have a Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta), I'm envious.

I tried to grow one here (WA), it's too hot & dry (it died).

Good on your Mum, for being assertive (& saying what she wants) @Shaz51

I hope I'm that plucky, when I get older...

Adge

The Silky Oak is supposedly a rainforest (high rainfall) tree @Smc

So no wonder it doesn't like growing here (low rainfall).

It's only naturally on the east coast.

Adge

@Adge, we're slightly out of climate for Silky Oaks here too (cold-ish), but not too much so. 🙂 It flowers in December, so it's kind of a self-decorating Christmas Tree.

@Shaz51, leaving tomorrow morning.