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

[ecomama]

All good Paul, hugs back! .... have you watched alot of gardening shows?

I have 🙄... so I searched my notes section in my phone because I take alot of notes from these shows that can be related to my garden and ofcourse the knowledge I DON'T have which is stacks.

Monty Don's stuff I find particularly great... The following is the most important information I never knew (from him)... this relates to any hedges we have or want to make (I was doing it ALL wrong and made far too much work for myself ugh)...

Hedges need to allow sunlight to the lower parts - less of a problem in Australia than where Monty mainly gardens...

Pruning in Summer tends to RESTRICT growth.

Pruning in Winter tends to PROMOTE growth. (wow huh)

So in Summer you prune the strongest growth hard.

In Winter you prune the weakest growth hard.

Relating to Australia's climate and knowing so many of our garden plants are NOT natives...
I would wait until the coldest part of Winter to apply his rule....
Spring is fine where I live for the Summer application = result.

Therefore I only prune my Photinia once a year. Looks great.

I LOVE BAMBOO so much. It is beautiful and what it does for our world is amazing. I've made beautiful trellises and teepees from it - love it.

What it's done for my friend's and family's properties though is devastating, so I'm pretty afraid of it having spent months of my life cutting it and digging it out of the ground.

A guaranteed non-invasive type sounds great. But oh my gosh that's so expensive.... I'm a cheap cheap cheap gardener lol. My kids and mortgage is where most of my money goes by far.

I only have what I can grow from seed, propagate myself, what I pick up from curbside throw outs and what's given to me as gifts, growing in my garden, usually.

I'm want to grow a long row of blueberry plants, so I guess I'll be buying those. Me buying plants is almost unheard of here lol.

It's a freaking brilliant Spring day here! About do go out for a series of appointments but hope to get back in time to get into the garden before and after dark lol.

Bestest wishes Paul! It'll look great!
EM

[blondguy]

Hi EM

muchas muchas gracias for the excellent advice....Being a cheap gardener is a smart gardener 🙂 I really like your highlighted points too!!

I have been thinking about planting a few Photinas after your earlier post as a 200mm pot of Gracilis 'clumping bamboo is woefully expensive...

The horticulturists bug me when they say that the red bottle brush makes a a good screening plant....Sure if we live on 10 acres lol. The red bottlebrush's roots can crack concrete

You are a legend for propagating and using seed....I wish! I planted a Seaside Daisy a year ago....and it doesnt want to grow much.....until I realised I planted it under a deciduous Robinea Mop Top.....Doh!

I guess I am more of a landscaping design person than a plant person....yet I will keep on trying EM!!

I have a steep block/backyard thus trying to figure out the best narrow screen plant I can get. My backyard overlooks my house and faces north

My bestest and kindest thoughts EM

Paul

[ecomama]

Oh wow, I wish I had more landscaping knowledge and SKILLS! lol. I've had to learn that all from scratch since buying this sloping block. My other properties were sloped also but I had more resources back then a a fraction of the land I have now.

Landscaping is so expensive!
Still I am using what I have and making do. For now.

My background of hobby study has been Permaculture and "Natural Sequence Farming" plus keystone elements. So to meld all these together to landscape is a challenge since.
Esp since all my previous work was destroyed with a sledgehammer... years of this changed the landscape tremendously.

So I'm starting from scratch again but with now almost a year of pretty solid work to DISCOVER the ground again lol.

It's been very sad and at times extremely triggering for me remembering the assaults in the garden.

I work alongside a lovely gardener I hire sometimes and he really helps co-regulate me. Talking about HIS family's problems helps me focus on that and not on my past.

I envisage a Balinese Style Garden.

Lots of terraces, around my fruit trees.
Still I need to construct a set of steps. I'll use short, stumpy stakes to hold timber in place and lay pavers to walk one. Only 3, I'll start my hard landscaping with that lol.

We terraced the front with big fat stump logs on the weekend and it looks AMAZING. One son helped move around 40 of these logs from way down the back to way up the front and he's still aching! Poor darling.

I have hundreds of pavers and bricks, still finding them strewn everywhere and even buried. So I'm just stacking them for use down the track.

Gotta get to work now. Talk soon.

I love the photinia idea.

Bestest wishes as always Paul

EM

[blondguy]

Hey EM

you are spot on! landscaping is expensive and then some...ugh

Balinese garden sounds gorgeous! Are you going to use Bamboo panels? They are cheap and about 1800 x 900 and if you shop around they are really good value and give a good tropical feel to the garden

Cool idea using excess pavers as steps!...I cheated and used 1200mm sleeper cut offs 🙂

Hugs always

Paul

[ecomama]

Dear Paul

I would LOVE to have bamboo panels as a backdrop all around my fence line but my back yard is over 600 square metres!

For now my financial priorities are the children. Not spoiling them lol, although some think I do (I do not), just providing for them is expensive enough. Ofcourse they're worth every cent and some lol.

I've been looking at a lot of Balinese styles online. I noticed things not mentioned on sites I've found. Plus having spent alot of time in Bali, it's not ALL there.

Water is featured alot. (I have to squeeze my Permaculture things like bath worm farms in places too lol - so funny. Balinese PERMACULTURE garden. Most permie stuff will be hidden or disguised. Water will be in pots with water plants.

I have "worm towers" which I can dig in and hide in plantings. Composts too.
Plus I plan to grow food plants in amongst the gardens. Probably obliterating the "vege patch" idea altogether. Fine by me. As long as there's food too.

I grow ginger and turmeric. They go well with Bali style.

I also need to move my banana grasses (tree sized) away from the fence. I'm going to relocate the "pups" to pots whilst I plan each bed and decide where to plant them.

I started the drawings tonight. (We've had some family garbage going on since I started this, I'm a bit distracted lol)... Bananas are SO tropical and create the lovely height too.

I also have 2 dragon blood trees in pots, so "in" with the Bali style. Leaving them in pots bec they grow TOO big and tall.

But it's the paths, even earthen ones or different types, that will wind around the garden in a myriad of ways that I need to solidify in my plans first. Wide enough for a wheelbarrow lol. Then I can see what garden patches I can fill.

Plus idea of "levels" for hugelkultur type terraces. (I have to envisage the cabin's areas too and keep work inside my garden space).

I have lots of plants already but I need to move some to create the look I want. Hopefully may gardener will help!

Just getting the plants, I can get for free, ready simultaneously. The ones I need to "manifest" are: Birds of Paradise, more sansevieria, anything with elephant ears, monsterio, specific succulents, more. SO many ppl throw out all sorts for Council pick up. If they suit my garden then I just pick them up instead!

EM

[blondguy]

Hey EM!

I didnt mean as a continuous fence thing....that would be super expensive!...I only meant a couple of panels here and there to marry up with your species of plants and Balinese theme 🙂

In Vic they are about $30-00 a panel...slightly warped ones are about $10-15. Of course your children come first as you mentioned before..Just food for thought for later on to add some flavor

Have a really good week EM

Paul

[ecomama]

I love your suggestions and it would look very Balinese. It would be a later on thing.... but I remembered a piece of bushland near my friend's old house. It was so full of bamboo that she called our Trading group many times to come help clear it.

I made a lovely trellis from it but it rotted in about 2y. Maybe I could cut some of that later but I think I would have to stain it or treat it somehow.

getting back to the area you wanted to plant your non-invasive bamboo.... did you settle on what to do?

My gardener said I have to get rid of LOTS of things growing in my garden. I have a plant he called "Mickey Mouse plant", I thought they were native fuschias omg! I have to get rid of the lot and they're REALLY stubborn. As well as the lantana, wash rinse repeat.

I "put it out there" last night that the plants I wanted were going to come to me for free... yeah I do this. Then today our psych at work offered me some of the EXACT plants I want!!! She's going to pot some up for me in 3 weeks time when they do more garden renos. Pretty excited lol. One is a purple coloured succulent. Another a bulgy juicy succulent.

It's a wonderful escape planning my garden. I'm enjoying it when I can.

EM

[Lillylane]

Hi EM

Thanks so much for this post. I’ve enjoyed reading through everyone’s gardening experiences.

I’m fairly new to the forums and haven’t posted much yet. Takes me a while to be comfortable expressing myself.

Plants and gardening have really helped me in difficult times.

I visited a community garden recently and was blown away by the great work people have been doing. It’s also great to talk to people about plants etc - it’s a good ice breaker and probably the most relaxed I’ve felt around people in a long time.

Favourite plants I’m growing at the moment are westringias (they are so tough!) and pineapple guavas.

I’d like to grow more edible plants. Being a little restricted with water and space, I’m wondering if I should try planting into one or two large pots? Maybe start with some herbs?

Best wishes with planning your garden,

L.

[ecomama]

Dear Lillylane

What a beautiful post! And a very warm welcome to our gardening thread, it's so lovely to have you here.

Warm welcome to BB also lol.

I guess we're all travelling together in our separate but connected gardening journeys.

Indeed! I know FOR SURE that my gardening & growing food journey really helped me battle depression for many years. It's pretty much gone now.

My garden was trashed by my attitude was NOT lol.

Oh I just looked up Westringia! Pretty coastal rosemary. I'm on the coast, looking at the water from my balcony right now at dawn. SPECTACULAR dawn btw, absolutely beautiful.

IF you can grow Westringia and you LIKE eating rosemary then I'd get one of those.

I read your post then made my 4th hot milo lol - it's really cold here this morning after a few warm days.

Water:
Then I noticed something we do that you may want to do. We have a little 2 litre bucket (from a restaurant - we have LOTS of them for difft purposes).. & we put it under our kitchen tap in the sink to collect water we wash our hands with.

I just watered the pots in the front garden & porch with that water now.

I'm so glad you've met Community garden folk - little pixies! I get all sorts from Community gardens, they're fantastic!

If I were you, I'd start with a long list of herbs you like to EAT. Only grow the ones you like to eat.
Then you can post here and we can divide them up in groups (and seasons) if you like.

If I'm planting more than one herb in a pot then I ALWAYS companion plant. It helps ALL the plants growing together.

Parsley is easy to grow but the one you MUST start with IF you like eating rosemary is ROSEMARY. Awesome plant. I like the "skewer type" rosemary. It's form is straight out and easy to use as skewers for kebabs. Yummo!

Rosemary needs little water being from the Mediterranean. Any herbs from there are what suits little water and hot weather. The bigger the pot, the bigger it can grow to. I wouldn't grown anything else in the rosemary pot. Up to you to try.

We're coming into my favourite BASIL season, yay! SO easy to grow from seed directly in the pot. It likes to grow in a FOREST so you can fill the whole pot with seeds & watch the forest grow.

I also grow oregano in a pot. One is struggling with not much sun, I'll have to move the pot.
The other is like a painting from Ancient Greece! It's spilling over the sides of a HUGE pot & growing along the ground.

So there are 4 if you like them?

EM

[hope4joy]

Hi everyone, just thought I'd drop in and say hi as i love gardening!

I have a collection of well over 100 pot plants! I make ceramic pots and found this wonderful not-for-profit local native nursery and decided to experiment with what I could grow in pots. I've got a lovely collection of different species of banksia and grevillea, a lemon myrtle that i use the leaves for to make delicious tea, an aniseed myrtle, some erophophilias, some gorgeous coastal pines and lots of other plants. I enjoy growing natives because they attract insects (always finding praying mantas on the banksias) and because the one's i've chosen like it hot and dry, so are very hardy. I've got a few veggies and one fruit tree but the possums near my house eat through most things which is a bit off putting.

I'm saving for my own home and hopefully within the next 12 months will have my own garden to plant some of my beautiful trees into - I love the idea of getting a 'clean slate' yard that i can design from scratch. And want a big water tank for use on the garden.

My plants are doing much better as i'm learning more about what they need - some of the banksias and grevillias expecially don't like much phosphorous and like quite poor sandy soil - so i've learnt to be very careful in fertilising them! Some neighbours up the road drop off worm wee once every now and then which all the plants seem to love.

Anyway enough rambles from me. Really nice to see a gardening thread!

🙂