Who else likes gardening?

[ecomama]

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

[Guest_1055]

So about the cuttings....

Does the honey do the same thing as the cutting powder?

And would you know about catmint. Would that grow from a cutting. I have a plant of that. Its is pretty when it flowers.

I have honey and some pots, so I will be able to take some cuttings. I am up to try that.

And I have noticed below these trees that grow along our driveway.... well there is a few tree seedlings under these trees now, I was thinking of digging them out and planting them somewhere else.

[Matchy69]

Cutting powder has plant hormones in it thst promote root growth.I have never used honey but have heard of people using it.My mother never used anything and had great success with her cuttings and propagation though my mum could grow a dead stick if she wanted to.

[ecomama]

Wow Shelll you're a natural green thumb lol!

1. As Mark said above the powder has a growth hormone in it so it promotes root growth immediately. It's great stuff! Honey has a natural antiseptic so I guess it can kill off any yuckies and could even be providing some of the sugars that plants need and usually get through photosynthesis. We can only hope to become like Mark's mum lol! I wish!

I've never tried to propagate soft plants but try it and see how you go, why not!
I've instinctively gone for woody stemmed plants like lavender, rosemary, fig trees, gardenias, geranium - can't remember any others I've done atm. So while you have all the things you'll need, you may see a neighbor has one of these harder stemmed plants and maybe you could ask them? Every single time I've asked a neighbor if I could possibly take cuttings, they've LOVED that connection and you can learn heaps from older gardeners too.

2. omg you Green Warrior you... awesome idea digging up the seedlings and repotting them for somewhere else! yay! I do this all the time lol. I have a HUGE lilly pilly that drops it's fruit and then they sprout into gorgeous little seedlings. My tree is about 50ft tall so I DON'T want them growing everywhere here. If you can't give them away to people you know, you can deliver them to a Community Garden even when no one's there with a little note from the Green Warrior Princess lol.

The GREAT reasons why spreading all these trees around is fantastic is because more green is cleaner air. Also many groups have planted swathes of mono cultures of eucalypts in our bush. This is not the natural way our bush was when our First Nation peoples were here without the rest of us. It was always extremely diverse. Plus eucalypts are prolific, they're doing okay lol. The OTHER plants are in far smaller numbers and not as oily and don't burn as fiercely - eucalypts can be accelerants. I love them too ofcourse but we need more diversity.

I've been known to do some Guerilla Gardening and planted my lilly pilly's babies in parks lol. Schools have taken them too 😉 Many schools have had to remove their eucalypts because of the gum spears (branches) that fall and injure people. My lilly pilly has berries which are bush foods for our native animals.

Love your work
EM

[Matchy69]

Hi Em i also do grape cuttings and roses and Geraniums,they are the easist things to get growing.My next door neighbour said help myself to taking cuttings from her garden so have taken rose cuttings and geranium ones.All growing well.I took a cutting from my ex's garden of a ground creeper that gets pretty little pink flowers on it and is growing very well.I planted one in my new garden yesterday and it great root system on it.I haven't had much problems with growing soft cuttings.Just dont give them to much water.

Lilly pillly fruit makes a great jam.Their is many varieties of them and the birds love them.My mum had one in her front yard and it made a really nice jam.

Happy Gardening,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Hi Mark

Lilly pilly fruit DO make great jam, the most unused fruit in Australia I think! I made marmalade out of cumquats once and it was beautiful.

Yes grapes are super easy to grow from cuttings too. I forgot but had propagated an Isabella Grape and they're so sweet to eat (if I can get some before the birds lol).

You have a greener thumb than I do Mark, I haven't had success with soft cuttings. When things are re-set up here then maybe I'll give them another try 😉

EM

[Guest_1055]

Thankyou for explaining about the cutting powder and honey Mark and Em. And about how to take cuttings. You are both awesome.

About the photosynthesis Em.. (You wrote something a while back about it) Yes we did go over that in this course. I remembered some from school as well. The word I was thinking of was phototropism. Like the plants ability to change its growth and head in the direction of the light. Something like that.

Maybe like what your oregano was doing in the pot. And I guess the reason they do that is so they can photosynthesis. Survival.

Then there was heliotropism, like sun tracking... the plants ability to change itself to follow the sun. Like the sun flower. Which I love the idea of those. Such beautiful happy flowers. Thankyou for the tip about planting the sunflower seeds. Is it a good idea then to attract bird life into your garden like the birds that eat the seeds. Reason I am asking is that mum has white cockatoos I think eating their green passionfruit. I have a passionfruit growing, so now I am wondering whether the sun flower loving birds will eat the passionfruit. Suppose I could put some of that netting over it.

You guys are really inspiring me to get out there into it all.

[Matchy69]

Em where i use to live i lived near a creek that had native fruits growing like Lillypillys and Burdekin Plum and sandpaper figs and strangler figs and i use to make jam out of them all when they were in season.

[Matchy69]

Yesterday i started planting my new garden up with geraniums roses,Dianthus,pansys and marrigolds.Today we had heaps of rain so it was good timing.My son wants me to plant sunflowers but wont be able to plant them to spring.

[ecomama]

Hi Shelll!

Your Scientific and horticultural knowledge is amazing 🙂

Yes sunflowers are so beautiful.

You could trial sunflowers in your garden and see what happens?

It's a tricky one balancing enough for the birds and animals and enough for us too.

Jackie French has written all sorts of great books on gardening. I like her philosophy - growing a canopy of food plants so the birds & animals can have the highest ones and we get the rest. Great in theory but I know the animals around me have their habitat so heavily encroached upon and I'm part to blame too.

Plus Autumn is a rough time in the bush with little food. The Brush Turkeys are even eating my oranges atm. That's ok.

I tried netting half my fruit trees ONCE then took it straight down after beautiful mama bats and their babies got stuck in it. Seriously I was crying my eyes out as I was ripping it down trying to save them. I had to call Wildlife ARC etc.

I needed the very tightly woven netting and to tie it down TIGHTLY. My mistake. But I don't net at all now lol.

But my philosophy is "The animals can't go to Coles". I can.
I get what I can early in the season then leave the rest.

Love your work Shelll
EM

[ecomama]

Dear Mark

Where you lived near the creek sounds like PARADISE! How wonderful to have all those beautiful bush foods growing right there. Have you seen how expensive those plants are to buy??? ugh.

Your new garden will be so pretty. Kids are fun to garden with.

Have you got a Community Garden nearby Mark?
Also have you heard about the Permaculture groups?

They SHARE so much. Both usually have talks and people share their plants and produce. They're both great groups full of quirky people like me lol. I love how the farmers beg you to come take their manure away for free lol.

I was in these groups (and more) so much before stacks of horrible stuff happened here. I stay home as much as possible now for the safety and wellbeing of my children. They used to come with me when they were little but now they are older, they don't want to. Plus I'm too tired to do anything at night even if I could right now.

Anyway I have plenty to do at home and in the garden.

EM