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Self care by growing a garden

Self care by growing a garden

A SOS to any green thumbs out there

I have always found gardening to be therapeutic and it has given me great joy. However, after a major crisis with Mr Darcy's health I have not had been able to get back into it. Have other gardeners suffered from a similar hiatus and how have you recovered and got going again?

Darcy

PS have a spot that needs filling any recommendations for a 1m high cool climate white flower plant?

2358 replies

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In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

@Former-Member

Awwww. Garden art for faith and hope?

In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Haha @Former-Member

could stick it in the front circular part..

would not look out of place at all with the grass that has dried off and left that sunburnt country look...

In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

@Smc

you continue to impress me with your skills and ideas.

we have some old bearded irises that come up every year

also lilies

sorry about underline...dratted ipad

In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Hi @Former-Member @Adge @Smc plus, whoever else reads... Next step my garden is too. Buy some oblong / oval shaped corrugated iron garden beds. The ones that are about a metre high and two metres long. And then place them around a court yard like space in the back yard. Fill with soil and plant with seedlings or seeds and water. Looking at about 4 or 5 of them. Which will come to a few hundred dollars.

I'm so eager to have the small fruit Orchard which is yielding already. But unfortunately it's a timely process. Plus, am really wanting to establish a chook yard. So I can get some eggs coming in. And use the manure for the garden. And too get a mulch heap going for the weeds and pruning's. Eude.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

My garden & gardening is still on hiatus @Former-Member Since you mentioned yours being on hiatus, some time ago.

I spent over 10 years of hard work & constant planting, to establish those trees & shrubs from scratch. It was bare sand with virtually nothing there (except an almond tree & a canary island date palm), before I started.

Most of the lovely ground-covers are long gone.

The surviving shrubs (Grevilleas, Hibiscus, & Melaleucas etc) are a tribute to how tough & well-established they are. Not so much a sign of being well cared-for (at the moment.

I still get a lovely show of flowers.

Adge

In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Hi @Determined @Adge @Smc and @Former-Member how have you all been going? And what have you all been doing?

I got my nectarine and peach seeds ready for winter / spring. Plus the almond and apricot seeds. Do any of you have plans for winter and spring gardening?

I get frustrated when I go into my garden. Cause I've got stuff to do left right and centre. However it's still a relaxing place that distracts me. I got ideas and visions about how I'd like it to be. Eude. One day at a time. Easy does it.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

@eudemonism

I would like to get some vegies growing. I have been given an old rain water tank that I am going to cut down and fill with some good soil.

Will make it easier to maintain and the ground we have is not any good for growing much so having a raised bed hopefully may make it easier. Just need to find the energy to go fetch the tank.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

That and get some banana and pawpaw suckers of my father-in-law, little people love that so should enjoy seeing their own produce grow up.

Also need to get some water to where I want the gardens, more work

🤔 thinking a really long hose may do for starters, over digging trenches and fixing pluming at the moment.

In response to: Re: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Hi everyone.

I'm still mostly working on pots with assorted vegs and perennials in them. My "Russian Giant" sunflowers are out, but not exactly giant- they're about 1m tall with saucer sized flowers instead of 3m and dinner plate sized. My fault- I took too long getting them in the ground and the root systems got stunted. Four of them are still in the pot I started the seeds in, and flowering. So if you ever want dwarf sunflowers and can't get the seeds, you know what to do.

Went to repot my wasabi, and discovered its root system was desperately unhealthy, so I've gently divided it into five small plants and put them in damp gritty sand to develop decent roots. Once they look healthy enough, I'll pot them on into something better.

I'm getting a few tomatoes, but haven't been watering them enough for really good crops. Peach tree is finished fruiting for the year. I bottled some, made icecream and sauce from some, there may be enough left from my last picking to make one more batch of icecream.

Will be heading off to my parents' house next week, and am wondering how my "set and neglect" veg patch there will be going. I expect there will be some potatoes ready, if they haven't started to regrow. Tomatoes probably although I'll have to check them for fruit fly. Bush pumpkins very maybe. I planted some of them in October, when I was back there in November the snails had eaten all of them so I tried a second lot of seeds. Am not optomistic about those being anything other than snail fodder.

Winter-spring plans... usually it's too cold and wet to do much. I'm hoping I might manage closing in the sides of our back porch to make a small greenhouse area, and also that would slightly help keeping the cold out of our very draughty house. I'm hoping to manage a weed preventing mulch over some beds ready for next springtime planting, or if not, I've got old sheets of corrugated iron for weed smothering.

Late winter/springtime our garden explodes with no-care-required flowers. We get self sown nigellas, poppies and calendulas, and all the spring bulbs come up. White and pink nerines in May, then jonquils, followed by grape hyacinths, daffodils and tulips. A few special ones too, like mini bulbous irises and English snowdrops. I look out for the snowdrops every year. I thought I'd lost them when we had the sewerage line connected, and the soil from the trench ended up on their spot in the garden. Then a few years ago I had the lovely surprise discovery of a snowdrop flowering next to a shed, on the opposite side of where the trench was dug.

In response to: Self care by growing a garden

Re: Self care by growing a garden

Hi @Smc @eudemonism @Faith-and-Hope @Appleblossom @Determined @Former-Member

Had a little bit of rain so green tinges all around. Today we planted two carpet roses that have been in pots over summer. We used to have galanthus but could not bring them interstate when we moved.
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