Plants grow better outside

It has been too long since I last posted anything on this site so here I am updating my blog. The seasons are harsh and go from one extreme to another often daily. Plants need time to adapt to the weather, drought, and their environment. Sometimes this can take 12 months depending upon what happens.

Looking at the pictures I last added to this site a lot has been done to the garden since then. What concerns me the most right now is the consistent lack of rainfall. With it being the last month of Autumn and Winter already setting in with really cold nights and heavy frosts still, I don't tend to water much of anything in Autumn/Winter. I will water the garden about once a month if it doesn't rain during that time.

A lot of the plants I have added to the garden are doing well but the newer ones planted late last year are enduring their first frosts. They will toughen up over time and be resistant to frosts next year. We've had some remarkable warm days this year. In fact it hasn't cooled down much since Summer ended at the end of April. Nights are cold now and so too are the mornings.

Later on today I will add another post with some pictures of the garden and more information about the plants I have added to it, etc. For now this just has to be a short post. I have many things to do today. Blogging is but one of them.

Finally obtained Walking Stick Palms

Linospadix monostachya - Walking Stick Palm has to be my favourite rainforest understory plant of Australia. I recently learnt about the palm natural distribution is Northern NSW and QLD, and just had to get some, and finally after a few months of trying to find some online, I found some. So I've purchased 10 of them. I can't wait to receive them in the mail.

The Walking Stick Palm grows to 2-3 metres on average; has a trunk size of 3 cm; and prefers to grow in the shade. It can adapt to some sunlight. It flowers in early Autumn and the florets turn into a string of orange or red berries. However, it is a slow growing plant, so to reach maturity will take a long time. How many years it will take before it developes flowers and fruit is anyone's guess. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how long it takes.

My Walking Stick Palms will be grown inside until they are bigger and will beautify my lounge room with their presence.

The southern grassed driveway

Currently, and for all the time I've been here at these flats, this is what the driveway looks like. It is slightly sloped and covered in grass. It is not appealing nor enjoyable to look at. The whole area needs a makeover. The driveway is used a lot so there can only be, at the most, two garden beds taking up a small amount of space on both sides of the driveway. And, of course, a lot of plants added to it.

For the right garden bed, as the carport supports have been set into concrete, I was thinking of adding some plants that will trail up the inside of the carport or have some narrow shrubs against the side of the carport. 

The driveway itself is actually wider than it looks in this photo, and the driveway and backyard slopes toward the southern fence (far left in the photo above).

The picture below is the kind of look I am after for this driveway but reduced in size to allow for vehicles to drive through it and to park around the back.

By creating the odd shrub that sticks out on the left of the driveway I can create some privacy at the back of the driveway as well. In the corner of the driveway at the back, with privacy permitting, I want to create an outdoor sitting area right in the corner but allowing enough room for vehicles to reverse out of the driveway. This would mean getting rid of the corner garden triangle shaped garden sleeper bed and make that whole area curved. It would also have to be higher up than ground level but not too high as to see over the fence.

With the placement of some smaller growing trees on the left of the driveway along the fence line garden bed I can create shaded areas and space for smaller growing plants and annual flowers, even some vegetables.

I already plan on adding a Koda tree; 4 Small leaf Tamarind trees and 1 Blue flax Lily to this area. I need to look into buying some native plant seed because I will need several hundred plants of lots of different species just to get started, and if I bought plants it will cost me a lot more money than I dare to think about. So seeds are the way to go. Finding the right plants might be the challenging part but I'm up for the challenge.

Tidying up by my front door

After trying to figure out a way to make the front entrance look nice I decided it'd look a lot nicer with 2 Cabbage Palms out the front in pots. So yesterday I potted the one on the right in this photo up, and brought the remaining of my plants outside that need to go into the ground (left of the door).

What I really want to do is create an area out the front where I can sit and relax but have some privacy as well. It's difficult to create privacy when I currently have nothing to use as a screen. I was thinking of putting both my bins side by side to create a small screen on the left of the door, and put the plants on the right of the door to the left of the door. That would just leave the palm on the right side of the door. Hmm.... I'm hoping to figure something out soon.

I think I need some more plants just to use as screening that I can grow in pots. I'll see what I can find online.

3 garden beds almost completed

Sunday, 20th September 2015
Finally done some catch up gardening and planted 8 more plants into the garden and weeded. Only one third of the entire properties' garden has been weeded (and has a half decent garden). And then I had to water the 3 garden beds.

As I was weeding and planting as I was going several birds came to investigate my gardening activity. A Pied Currawong flew in several feet from me then flew to my bin and just watched me; a minute later it took off. A pair of Red Wattlebirds? flew in and perched on the power line going to the flats and looked at what I was doing; chirped a lot then flew away. Australian Magpies hung around me and went through the weeded area looking for bugs and found lots of them. Birds of many different species always take an interest in what I'm doing when gardening, as if they approve of or are excited about what I'm doing, especially if I'm planting plants in the ground.

Only disappointed about one thing: I lost a Coral Creeper to slugs. I have another one so it's not a complete waste/loss.

Being undecided about what to plant where today I just randomly selected plants and put them in the ground, including my dwarf Daylily that I had in a pot. I think I'm going for a random look for the garden. Just throwing plants in here and there but planting the trees in the centre of the beds. Once I've got my coleus seeds germinated and they're big enough they are going into the garden as well, for a splash of leaf colour.

The photos below go from left to right, minus the footpaths and half a garden bed, when facing the road (Pelham Street) looking due east. The first photo begins where Flat 1's letter box is; the last photo ends at the southern end driveway.

Two unknown seedlings I discovered the other day that self seeded.

Long awaited weeding done today

Finally done some catch up gardening today, spending about 4-5 hours out in the garden and planted 8 more plants into the garden and weeded. Nearly all that time was spent just weeding the outside of the garden beds. Only one third of the entire properties' garden has been weeded (and has a half decent garden). And then I had to water the 3 garden beds.

As I was weeding and planting several birds came to investigate my gardening activity. A Pied Currawong flew in several feet from me and landed on the fence then flew to my bin and just watched me; a minute later it took off. A pair of Red Wattlebirds? flew in and perched on the power line going to the flats and looked at what I was doing; chirped a lot then flew away. Australian Magpies hung around me and went through the weeded area looking for bugs and found lots of them. Birds of many different species always take an interest in what I'm doing when gardening, as if they approve of or are excited about what I'm doing, especially if I'm planting plants in the ground.

I am only disappointed about one thing: I lost a Coral Creeper to slugs. I have another one so it's not a complete waste/loss and that one hasn't been munched on by anything.

Being undecided about what to plant where today I just randomly selected plants and put them in the ground, including my dwarf Daylily that I had in a pot and a Cabbage Palm. I think I'm going for a random look for the garden. Just throwing plants in here and there but planting the trees in the centre of the beds. Once I've got my coleus seeds germinated and they're big enough they are going into the garden as well, for a splash of leaf colour. I'll keep some of the coleus plants in pots to spread the colour around the garden.

Yesterday, on my way home from town, I saw an ivy plant in someone's garden that was hanging a foot next to the footpath so I grabbed a small end piece of the plant. I plan on getting ivy to grow in the garden too. I also saw another groundcover which I liked so I grabbed a piece of that too.

I plan on planting a lot of different plant species in the garden so I'll always have something different to look at. It will be interesting to see everything in flower. I plan on getting some of the weeds to germinate and grow in the garden too as I noticed the native bees were hanging around the flowers of one specific weed. I pulled those weeds up regardless of the bees.

Pretty soon the garden will start growing and will be a mass of flowers to attract the bees.

I'm after a certain look for my garden

Having a narrow in width and long in length garden beds has limited me in designing a garden that will display all the plants I want to add to it. I love a lush green garden especially one that looks tropical. But here lies the problem: even a tree like a wattle tree will take up too much mid ground room leaving less room for me to walk around the front lawn. The lawn has to stay regardless so I have to come up with inventive ways to create the look I want with the plants I have already and will purchase in the future.

This is the kind of look I'm after with my garden, generally.

But with a whole lot of colour at various times of the year as in this image below.

I am after various foliage texture, shape and size, leaf colour variations, and flowers that are not only colourful but unique and spectacular to look at. All the while I am trying to achieve this with mostly Australian native plants.

My recently purchased Cabbage Palms (an Australian Native) and a few native trees will add the texture, fragrance of flowers and a general tropical feel to my garden. However, the trees naturally will grow the wrong shape that I want in my garden so changing the way they grow is my only option.

I'm currently trying to come up with a design to intertwine some of the tree branches once they get older so the trees not only create a canopy of shade but will be difficult to know which plant is which. Planting trees close together might hopefully reduce their ability to grow to their full height. Its a theory I still need to research.