The Resprouting of Optimism

Winter is officially over and very slowly I’m discovering some encouraging signs in the garden. It has lacked any serious winter character since our Cootamundra Wattle fell apart a year and a half ago.

According to neighbours the wattle was a very old tree and it had obviously endured some very heavy-handed pruning in the past which left some very ugly stumps in the place of former branches.

But despite its flaws it really brightened up the back yard in winter. The wattle blossom seemed to last for ever and glowed in the sunlight. Even on a cloudy day the colour was vibrant, almost fluorescent.

Then one morning half of the tree had fallen onto the back fence and over the next few days I started to dismantle what was left (of the tree, not the fence). This exercise significantly opened the back yard to more direct sunlight and also opened up more possibilities with the veggie garden which could now be expanded.

Despite the new possibilities, the tree’s loss robbed us of the major feature in the back garden. While its physical presence restricted our use of so much garden area, it had given the backyard character. It dominated the outlook from our most lived-in room at the back of the house. It acted as a screen between us and our back neighbour. And it gave us a lot of colour over winter. Its loss has perhaps made winters less appealing. Everything else in the backyard is more noticeably dormant without the amazing glow of the wattle blossom.
As if to emphasise our loss, the tree was able to leave behind a solitary orphan offspring in our neighbour’s yard. Halfway down their side fence line an immature tree is now big enough to remind us of what has been lost.

Since the loss of our tree I’ve been trying to grow something that will give us some of the benefits that we now lack, but at the same time not rob the yard of suitable growing space. As yet nothing is coming close to restoring some of the privacy we (and our neighbour) previously had. And nothing is producing the stunning, lengthy display of vibrant blossom that made it a pleasure to look from our back windows.

While there is still a way to go before the back garden regains its healthy spring and summer appearance, those first hints of life are becoming noticeable. We now have a “paddock-load” of healthy garlic that almost overnight have changed from low grass-like blades into foot high plants.

Our newly planted raspberry and gooseberry plants are both showing healthy new leaf growth, as are the older Goji berries from last year. (I didn’t realise the Goji’s were deciduous until their leaves started to look distressed and I checked their label again).

The roses are also covered in juvenile, burgundy coloured shoots. I pruned most of them earlier than last year to see if I can extend their flowering season before summer scorches the health out of their blooms. I think they need much more water than I’m willing to give them to keep them in peak health over the hotter months.

And some of our perennials are starting to show some new healthy growth giving a hint of the potential display of colour they have in store for us over the coming months. And that is the key word: POTENTIAL. I can see things starting to happen, and the regrowth in the garden (as subtle as it may be) is starting to inspire a refound optimism.

Grevilleas

When the opportunity came for me to have a garden after more than 13 years of living in a Sydney home unit, one plant near the top of my wish list was the Grevillea.
I’d grown a very successful Robyn Gordon many years before and was so impressed with it that Grevilleas became my favourite species of native plant.

My garden now has many different types of Grevillea but unfortunately the larger flowered types like the Robyn Gordon do not survive well due to the heavy winter frosts. As well as the Robyn Gordon I tried similar plants such as “Coconut Ice” and “Ned Kelly” before I realised that the conditions just weren’t suitable.

I still have one very impressive, leafy “Ned Kelly” in the backyard. It barely survived last winter and had to be cut back severely in early spring to remove the frost damage; but eventually recovered well. Now as winter approaches again I’m nervous and don’t hold much hope for it. It is very susceptible to frost burn when the frosts are heavy, and our temperatures can drop to -6.
While it is now a very attractive bush, it has never given a good display of flowers. At the most we’ve had a short spell with one or two, but most of the time it’s had nothing but leaves. But that seems to have been a problem with a lot of our Grevilleas. They are often described as being long-flowering plants but ours, if they flower at all, do so for only brief periods.

My “Coconut Ice” clings to life in my native “bonsai” garden near the front fence-line. While it hasn’t been affected by frost (it is sheltered by some kind of Melaleuca) its roots have been restricted by the concrete-like clay that lies under the raised garden bed. Nothing has thrived in that particular bed, and the “Coconut Ice” demonstrates its distaste for its home by refusing to flower.

This week I have noticed that several Grevilleas have started to bud. They are the sharp leaved types like the G. Rosmarinifolia. One is near our front windows. It is one of the few existing plants that we kept after we moved in. At the time it was a tiny specimen that seemed to have self-sprouted in a crack in the concrete garden edging. It has now grown into one of the most robust plants we have and when flowering is a favourite of the Red Wattle birds.

The pride of our Grevillea collection is the Bulli Princess, a plant that was discovered at the Bulli Grevillea Park near Wollongong. Ours has been here for less than a year so I am concerned about its chance of survival over winter. It is now over two metres in height and about the same in diameter, so it’s a bit too big to shield with plastic. There is a photo of a “Princess” flower in my article “Gardening Progress”; however the photo does not do the it justice. The photo was taken at the Bulli Grevillea Park. Our plant has so far joined ranks with my other Grevilleas in being stingy with its flowering. To date we’ve had only one flower from it.
The experts at the park seem confident that it won’t be affected too badly by frost. They know of one growing in Canberra where the climate is very similar to ours. But then again, survival can also depend on which part of a garden the plant is growing in. Some parts of our garden seem to be more protected from the cold than others.

Grevilleas in my Garden:

Bulli Princess; Fireworks (x2) Poorinda Peter; Longistyla; Ned Kelly; John Evans; Rosmarinifolia “Nana” (x3); Unknown Rosmarinifolia; Coconut Ice; Lady O; Amethyst; Scarlet Sprite;.

There are two more whose names elude me. For some reason the name Molongolo comes to mind for one, which is a very dull rust colour with absolutely no vibrancy. The other is one of the “woolly” Grevilleas; I think a type of “Lanigera”. The latter are quite common in nurseries around this area so I’ll be able to check the name next time I go plant shopping.

Gardening "Progress".

I’ve recently been reading about gardening achievements that others have described in their books and blogs. This has made me think more about what I’ve done in my own garden and what I want to achieve in the future.

The reassessment of my gardening “progress” perhaps started a few weeks ago when I came across the book “Velvet Pears”. This in one of those very attractive books full of gorgeous photos interspersed with personal memoir.


The book details the creation of a stunning garden and the restoration of a house, at Tilba Tilba on the south coast of NSW. It’s the kind of story that will inspire any gardener; but also has the potential to plunge them into frustration and despair when they realise their own efforts fall well short of the apparent perfection the book portrays.

Moving on from the book I came across the blogs of two people who have recently moved house and now have gardens that are blank canvases to work upon. Their situation is similar to my own when I moved to my current home almost three years ago. I had all kinds of plans and prior to the move and I enjoyed sketching them out – trying to picture what I could do.

The basic parts of my planned garden started with the desire for roses, native plants (in particular grevilleas) and a veggie patch. I knew more or less which parts of the garden I would dedicate to each and to a great extent I was able to stick to that plan. Unfortunately the reality has not lived up to the dream.

What went wrong?
I’ll ignore the fact that I had no gardening experience – even though my ignorance was most likely the cause of every one of my problems. I now always say that my gardening efforts have been a process of trial and error, with an emphasis on the latter.

The first hindrance to fulfilling my gardening dream has been the block of land. Its width exceeds its length, and on a smaller block I don’t see this as ideal. This makes it more difficult to create the individual areas I wanted. I tend to think a longer block makes it easier to divide a garden into separate “rooms”.
Every part of the backyard can be seen from the windows of our back room so with any attempt to create “separate garden rooms” the joins are clearly visible so the intended illusion of individual secluded spaces is lost.

We also had a large, fixed clothesline right in the middle of the back garden that gave a very “picturesque” view from the back windows of the house. That problem was recently fixed. We removed the old clothesline and put in a new removable one at the side of the house.
Other problems are not so easily fixed such as the soil. It is very heavy clay. When dry it tends to bake like concrete, and I have found that it forms a hard crust about six inches deep, beneath which it is soft and powdery. However, that powder soon becomes thick and sticky when it gets wet.
The soil has caused most of my problems, the most noticeable being an area of natives I planted near the fence-line of the front garden. I attempted to create raised areas of free draining soil for each native plant but the results weren’t good enough. After a promising start several of the plants died and others were uprooted by the wind, having insufficient depth to give them an anchor. The growth of those that remain is very stunted, creating a collection of bonsai grevilleas.

The clay soil also slowed down the success of my veggie garden. I was foolish enough to think I could deal with the clay by digging in a bit of gypsum and composted cow manure. While this did have a slight effect, it was no where near enough to turn the designated area into a veggie friendly garden.

I took similar short cuts with the area I set aside for David Austin Roses. Instead of building up a significant area with decent soil, I decided to restrict my work to improving the soil in and around the planting holes. This did not have the desired effect. While I’ve had reasonable results from the roses, they have not grown as well as they should have done. I spread thick layers of newspaper around the plants to suppress the weeds and I covered this with sugarcane mulch. While this MAY have had an effect on the weeds for a while, our resident blackbirds soon put an end to that effectiveness by turning the paper into confetti as they dug through it in search of worms.

The last of the physical aspects I want to highlight is the aspect of the block. The front slopes towards the south which doesn’t help with frost. Firstly it is sloping away from the low winter sun and secondly it performs the perfect conditions to funnel early morning cold air towards the back of the house, aiding the forming of frost on my veggies and other plants. Last year we lost several plants to frost burn including a couple of grevilleas. I am now tentatively awaiting this years -6 temperatures and hoping they don’t damage my prized Bulli Princess which has grown to more than two metres tall since I planted it last year. It is now too big to protect with a tree guard.

In addition to the physical aspects of the land, my impatience to make a start on the garden has left me with some less than perfect plantings. I made use of the plants we had already purchased in Sydney prior to our move. This included a selection of red salvias and lavenders. I planted these in the first section of garden to be built from imported topsoil. It was along the side fence and I didn’t make provision for any taller screening plants because the salvias and lavenders grew far wider than I’d made allowance for.


I added a few other plants that were available at the time, but apart from a standard rose, nothing in the garden grows higher than about a metre. I am now trying to rectify this by adding a few taller growing shrubs. The first of these is a pencil-like conifer that should grow to 2-3 metres tall but no more than 50cm wide. The second, planted a few days ago, is an Acacia Decora (Western Golden Wattle) which can grow to 3 metres high with a width of 2 metres. Unfortunately the only suitable position for this was beside the standard rose, which will now have to be transplanted when winter arrives.

A Gardener's Diary part 3

It’s now over a year since I started on the garden. Progress has been slow and not everything has worked as I hoped.

Somehow the yard shrank. What seemed to be an overwhelming amount of land to fill with plants quickly became too small to accommodate all of the things I would like to do.

Unfortunately the block is wide but not very deep. The house is perhaps set too far from the road, giving us more front garden than back. And I can’t do a great deal with the front because most of it is needed to give driveway access to the side of the house.

One of the failures has been the garden of Aussie natives. This was more or less my first project after moving into the house. Most things remain stunted. I didn’t give them enough depth of soil to get established and there’s too much hard clay under the surface. It seems like I’ve developed a native bonsai collection.

The roses I planted at the front of the house are having mixed success. All of the books tell me that roses need 5-6 hours of sunlight per day; but they didn’t say that too much direct sunlight isn’t very helpful for the flowers. These are in direct sun for most of the day. Almost as soon as they open, many become discoloured – or dried up.
The biggest disappointments have been the Red Pierres. These red climbing roses develop massive clusters of buds – most of which turn brown before they even open. It’s only now, at the start of autumn that we are getting some good colour in the blooms.
Our Double Delights have been anything but delightful. They seem to develop one problem after another and the flowers have been few this season. I am thinking of transplanting them over winter – if I can find a more suitable spot for them.

The back garden is looking more promising. We trucked in a few loads of soil to give a decent depth of raised garden beds above the clay. This area has become a mix of natives and exotics. Most things seem to be thriving – though some are thriving too well. Everything now seems to be planted too close together and the salvias are taking a lot of work to keep under control. Most of the salvias seem to be “Hotlips” which according to the illustration on the label should be red with white tips. However, for most of the year white seemed to be the only colour being displayed – nowhere near as spectacular as the brilliant red flowers that were our first introduction to the salvia family.

A newer area was intended to be dominated by David Austin Roses. This was another disappointment that didn’t work to plan. Two plants bought through mail order died after a few months. This wasn’t surprising because they were the most pathetic rose specimens I’ve ever seen. If I’d seen them at a nursery I wouldn’t have given them a second look. Despite the poor start, this bed is now showing a little potential. Between the roses I’ve planted a few salvias. These are a deep burgundy, a much more impressive colour than the “Hotlips”. The surviving David Austins are Winchester Cathedral, Othello, Hero, Mary Rose and Heritage. I’m not sure whether I’ll try to replace the departed Glamis Castle and New William Shakespeare with other roses, or to try something else instead.

Behind the rose garden I’m trying another area of natives. A few haven’t survived, but so far it seems to be going reasonably well. The biggest failures have been Banksias. None have survived so I’ve given up on them for now. Also a group of Correas all gave up the ghost one by one after showing a very promising start.
The biggest surprise has been a native hydrangea. It was tiny when I planted it, but only months later it’s the most dominant plant in the back yard. It has almost overwhelmed the only non-native in the area – a burgundy iceberg rose. The burgundy of the rose contrasts brilliantly with the purple of the native. I had intended to transplant the iceberg away from the natives, but the colours are so effective together that I might keep them alongside and just move the rose slightly aside to give it a bit more room to grow.


The veggie garden has been a mixed success. For the second year we’ve had a good crop of butternut pumpkins. I don’t know how well I’ll go with them next year because I don’t want to devote as much area to them. I might try growing them as a climbing plant if I can make a suitable frame to support them. I’ve read that they can be suitably grown in this way.
Then again, we can’t believe everything we read. This was made very clear by the failure of my potato crop after I tried to grow them under straw as per an article I read last year. I don’t want to know how much I spent on this method. Not only was there the cost of the seed potatoes, I lost count of the number of bales of straw I had to buy to keep them adequately covered during their growing season.
We’ve had more success from one or two Ruby Lou potatoes that must have been left in the ground after last years crop were dug up.

This year’s zucchini crop didn’t seem to match the one we had last year, but it was more than enough to keep us fed. We just didn’t have as many to give away – and we didn’t need to make zucchini soup.
A big success was our first attempt at growing onions. They were Barletta onions – a mild white salad onion. The seeds germinated well and most of those transplanted matured into good size onions. I’ve now sown the remaining seed from the packet into punnets and they’ve now started to sprout. But unless I buy more seeds, the next crop will be much smaller.