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Who else likes gardening?

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hi everyone

I hope you're staying well today.

Who else likes gardening? I would love to connect with people here who are happy to share their gardening adventures.

For me I know that gardening helped heal my soul during tough times. I hope it will again.
Then with other things going on, it became a jungle.
I'm part way into rediscovering it again and doing A LOT of hard yakka atm, when I am motivated.

I have new dreams and ideas to put into the many bare places, as I remove thickets of lantana etc. This will all be on a tight budget and I'm ok with that.

I want to create a peaceful place where I can be.
I would like to grow food again (tell 'er she's dreamin' atm lol).
I would like to re-establish my worm farms and compost heaps.
Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year in the garden.

I'm 'alone' in my gardening journey and would love to share and hear about other's gardening antics. Hopefully we can troubleshoot any issues in our gardens and talk about any healing we're feeling too. There's a lot of knowledge we can share. I hope this thread can brighten your day!

Love Ecomama

Please

977 Replies 977

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey Gambit!

I don't know what's bad about that!!

I think it's AWESOME you bought some roses!

Thanks Mark for coming in to give Gambit a leg up with growing his new beauties!!

Is there a special type of potting mix to use for roses in pots guys?

About the only thing I know about helping roses is using all types of hair in the soil, I used to bring home our hair from the Barbers to put around our roses at our last home.
Oh and rabbit or guinea pig droppings I also heard lol... ugh that reminds me of the friend that told me that... I must call her!

Thankyou also Mark for inspiring courage to PRUNE things lol!

Us novices are so shy about pruning.

EMxxxx

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
Hi Em and Gambit the potting mix is a rich mixture with compost and manure mixed in and good drainage.You can buy a specialised mixture for roses these days which are good.
Roses are such a pretty flower to grow and so many different varieties and colours Their are some beautiful miniature roses you can get today with magnificent colours.
Happy gardening,
Mark.

Lillylane
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey EM

Glad to hear you’ve had the lovely sound of your kids together and the rain 🙂 Pretty special I imagine!

Oregano is on my list to grow. I’m wondering if it would do ok in the winter if planted in a sunny, but protected spot.

My username is based on my love for Lilly Pilly trees. Our trees are so full of flowers and bees at the moment. My phone keeps wanting to auto correct it to say ‘Lilly pillow’. That would have been a good name :p

I’m picturing all that lovely chicken poo in the rain. Wonderful stuff! I’d love to have chickens one day.

Your cabin sounds like a great project! Will you be building it completely from scratch?

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Just an update and IDEA for a present!!

My daughter was blown away by a bunch of gifts she was given last night by a very wealthy friend of hers omg... and she phoned me in shock and wondered what to give HIM!

He had revelled in her array of plants and found out the health benefits of having Sansevieria - commonly known as mother-in-law's tongue - in the bedroom.
So she's going to buy a fancy pot lol and I'll dig some up from my garden for him.

She's also buying him a "drive around a race- track" thing lol.

Just an idea for next year now when it comes to giving a present, why not think of your garden!!

EMxxxx


ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey Mark

PHEW that there are potting mixes esp suited to roses.
That takes all the guess work out!

lol.

Thanks for the info MARK!!

EMxxxx

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey Lilly Pilly lol!!

I turn every Lily's name into Lilly Pilly lol! Happy that was the basis of your username! LOL!

I've got lots of Lilly Pillies in my garden.
I pot up seedlings in groups and take them to work and either plant them there in the HUGE acreage we have lol... no one even notices OR give them away.
Or drop them off to the Community Garden near my work with a little note of what they are.

Native Bees, animals and birds LOVE them!

I also LOVE the shade they provide, their foliage is so dense, it's PERFECT! lol.

OH I LOVE MY KIDS ALL BEING HOME TOGETHER!! It's such a precious time and I'm soaking up every nano second of it! Going through all those Courts for years was devastating, robbing my time for the kids GRRRRR. 95% of the reason for all the Courts WAS the kids. I would have walked away and MOVED away if it wasn't for them. (We were offered new identities, so it's hard. Hence Victim's Services putting in CCTV for us).
Now I'm virtually 100% focussed on them and even my MH to be a better parent FOR them.

ALL GOOD! lol. Happy days!

Having chooks is AWESOME for the garden, they are SO WORTH the fuss lol!

Aha a cabin lol why not! There's so much land, I'd prefer to use it to house people.
Our population here has exploded this year, like really crazy. There was a housing shortage BEFORE the 2020 pop'n explosion.

BUT it will be a 5y project I'm thinking. I want to get as right as possible and respect the land as much as possible too. Plus take things slowly so I can afford to build it myself without a loan (still pondering that one).

My own passive solar design, designed to reduce issues with mould & hopefully well enough to withstand any flooding. We'll see lol!

My fiancee (in the U.S.) is drawing up the plans in his fancy computer program. We may LIVE in it 1 day so it has to suit both of us. Then rent out the big house.

Doing more research and measuring over my leave so we know everything lol including WHERE to begin building the low, but long retaining wall. (More on the Building thread where I ask questions from time to time of our resident Builder Geoff).

YES!
Oregano will delight in Winter sun! (Not sure how high up in Oz you are?)
I have mine in a huge pot so I can move it if it's not coping with the sun OR not getting enough sun. It's growing all along the ground now lol overflowing from the pot. So I guess it's chosen where to live itself!

EMxxxx

Matchy69
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member
My new profile picture is of my beautiful orange rose I have growing here and it is to inspire Gambit in his rose growing.

Lillylane
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

That is a stunning rose, Mark.

What a colour!

Jstar49
Community Member

Oh I love roses!

Hi all. It's so nice catching up on the gardening thread! Like a refreshing shower of rain! We've had enough rain for now tho lol. It's beginning to get very soggy here, and we live on a hillside.

Gambit I hope that your roses produce such beautiful roses that you never regret buying them. My rose has delighted me with it's perfume, and been surprisingly resilient ( It's position is dry, full sun and gets scratched by the chooks, so it's doing well.) My pa used to put heaps of manure (Cow? I think) around his every year, probably before spring. I prune mine hard-ish- except I've found that if I let it grow tall, it gets less attention from the grasshoppers. Which is a good thing!

The indoor plants are delightful. We have them grouped together for company and H is already lovingly wiping leaves and turning them twds the sun. 🙂 I agree Em, it's best that he take care of them. Plus it will be good for him!

I bought my d ( the one who's not currently speaking to me) a lovely little plant in a glass bowl for Christmas. My youngest, T, got to see her today, and give her the pressies. T was so delighted when she got home, little darlin.

My oregano has almost succumbed to the damage done by our chookies ( lovely destructive things they can be) They love that bed cos it's so dry- perfect for dust baths! Its in a pot in it's next life. Poor chookies- they've gotten so wet these days! I designed their chookhouse with a shelter underneath it, for our high rainfall, but it turns out it's a river of water (read MUD) from the run off from further uphill. Sigh! Ah well, I've about given up on my garden, except for the lettuce ( and they're not for long with this heat unless I shade them) so I might just let the chooks in. They'll love that.

And then I can get on with sewing my perfect handbag! I've begun designing it- I need to look semi- professional in my future job next year- and I love a good handbag! I take my inspo from Mary Poppins and Hermione Granger- both excellent bag ladies lol!

So long happy gardeners. Remember to take time to smell the roses! ( but not after fertilising....)

J*

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Hey J*

I absolutely LOVE that you take your inspo from Mary Poppins and Hermione Granger!!!
Our family were (and probably still are lol) Crazy Harry Potter fans!

Just letting you know that I started the BB Arts and Craft Circle thread yesterday LOL!

I must've read your mind lol... LOVE THAT BAG!

So are you starting work again or have been promoted or something?

don't really want to mention demon again but he destroyed my beautiful sewing machine and overlocker 😞 I don't have any of that any more and I'm not happy to go buy new ones either... yuck memories now.

BUT I want to be inspired! And you do inspire me, so thankyou!

Thankyou also for all that awesome feedback about growing roses. (Maybe I'll get there too one day lol!).

Yah keeping chooks is a palaver, but we do what we can for the little darlings.
For quite some time I had quite tall plastic mesh around my pot of oregano, pegged in with tent pegs! I do that all around my pots 🙂
After more than a year of the chooks trying to get IN to my oregano they gave up... interesting.
Now I have no mesh THERE but it's still around all other pots.

Oh dear my oregano took a beating from the sun!
Then the rain.
It's looking dwindly and rough BUT it's amazingly resilient, so it'll bounce back.
I nearly put a big umbrella over it and still might do that with the beating sun if it cops it again.

Oregano LOVES chook poo infused straw.

I did a stack of weeding yesterday whilst the ground was still wet. It's so much easier to pull weeds after the rain! My green bin's half full now.

Then scrubbed the billeo out of my porch and paths, cleaned up the bird, lizard, snake baths etc.

Then I went for a short nap and slept for FIVE hours! LOL!

How nice that T got to spend time with her big sister. How are you feeling about all that?
Does there seem to be any progress in your relationship with her?

I hope she likes her pressie.

Love EM