Lawn, or Lack Thereof

I live in a hot dry place. We've been getting less and less rainfall each year and our winters are getting warmer and drier. The amount of water in the dams doesn't go up much during winter.

As a result we've had garden watering restrictions for quite a few years now.

In summer we are only permitted to turn our sprinklers on two days of the week (allotted according to your house number). If you have a private bore (which I do) you are permitted one extra day.

This year we also have watering restrictions in winter! Watering via sprinklers is totally banned at present. The exception is that private bore owners are allowed to run their systems once per week - so as to ensure proper operating functions (they can seize up if not used for long periods of time).

This, together with my many battles with lawn - the bindii, the clover, the dead patches, the bits where the sprinklers don't reach anymore (because the water table hand pressure has dropped), , the mowing and fertilising, the fight to find the sprinklers when they've gone underground... I'd had enough of battling with the front lawn - it's not as if any of us go out there and use it.

So I now have NO front lawn. This is not such a radical departure from the norm; many people are getting rid of their lawns.

Most lawns are replaced by paving or concrete (sometimes cheekily painted green), one person on my way home has put down fake grass and it doesn't look too bad!

Me, I've currently replaced my lawn with mulch/bark chips. Most of it was the free mulch from the council. Here's how it looks at the moment:


It's pretty bland at the moment, however it does look better than dead lawn with the added bonus of no watering and no mowing. I poison off the few weeds that rear their heads from time to time.

My long term plan is to plant natives in there - but have no definite plans as yet (though I do like the idea of having a dry creek-bed effect)

Current To Do List

Cut out the top of the avocado tree
I am waiting until Thunderbolt is here to do thisas I don't like using the chainsaw when I'm alone. This is something I do about every two years, to stop the tree from getting too tall and out of control.
Sadly there are fruit on the branches I'll be cutting out, but there's quite a lot of fruit on the lower branches too. I know it means less fruit at the next flowering but it has been producing more fruit than I can eat, so that's ok (the friends and family might be a bit miffed at not getting freebies though!)

Mow Lawn
Again and again and again - it's like housework this one, always needs re-doing.

Work Out
What to do with the 'nothing' part of the entertaining area. Having the funds to build the pond is a long way off. I keep thinking that I could plant things there in the interim. Have to be careful about this with plant choice and where the retic goes in case the pond actually does ever eventuate.

Rear Garden Replanting
Still have one section of this that could be done. Likely to be lots of tree roots (the tallow), but the bed is only small and already has day lillies in it, so it should be do-able.

Vege Patch
The good bit - keep picking produce!
Probably should fertilise it again, and re-stake the tomatoes.

Very Pleased

Very pleased I am that I forced myself out in the weird afternoon weather and planted:
2 types of lettuce
1 type of cucumber
1 type of squash (yellow)
1 capsicum plant

All after having tilled over the soil and added blood & bone and NPK blue.

Why so pleased? Cos tonight we were blessed with rain :) Glad I didn't leave it until tomorrow.

Tomorrow is get the lawn beetle day!

5 Weeks Into Spring...

Pepper Trees - noticed from the upstairs window today that one of them is covered in flowers!!!!!!!!!!

Chinese Tallow and Liquidambar are both 'in leaf'. Liquidambar is also in 'seed' so have many seedy thingys littering up the place - it's almost as bad as when it looses its' leaves but worse - cos when these seed thingys get wet they stain the paving and stone path :(

Peach - is in flower, but only on one branch, obviously got the pruning wrong last year.

Hippiastrum - now there are three flowers on the ones in the pot and two in the ground!

Frangipani - hasn't put on any leaves for the season as yet, wonder how many flowers I'll get this year.

Azaleas - one brave plant has put on some new flowers, after I thought they'd all finished doing their thing!

Lawn - the fertiliser spreader mustn't do so well on the 'down run' of the lawn, I have not-so-wonderful stripes of less-than-green lawn. Maybe next time I'll do both accross and up/down and end up with a chequerboard lawn!

Biiiig Day in The Garden

I have lavished such attention on my lawn today that I'm sure it will die of fright.

Involving about 5 hours of work on the front lawn I:
* aerated it by hand, with a garden fork (I do not have a small lawn, and fully expect my arms to drop off when I get out of bed tomorrow morning)
* pulled out the worst of the flat weeds - there were lots of them
* raked up said flat weeds
* mowed the lawn
* fertilised
* turned on the sprinlers to find one not working, about an hour later and much swearing and cursing (well not really, I'm not the swearing type) they were all working
* watered the lawn for 20 minutes.

Now if the silly thing doesn't grow well after that then I'm about to give up!!

In other garden news:
Mango - is starting to flower. Gave it some NPK Blue in honour of the flowers.

Peach - is flowering, but seems to be only on a spike growing from the base of the tree. I'm not sure whether it's below the graft or above ... will wait and see what eventuates.

Nectarine - is in fruit .. may spend some time tomorrow taking off some of the fruit and maybe make a fruit fly trap.

Hyacinths - tallest flowers I've ever had on them. Not as many flowers on the spikes as I thought there would be though.

Freesias - flowered and finished.

Vege patch - seems to be doing fine, however weeds are starting to grown and with the bird netting (to stop the cats digging) makes it impossible to weed . The Pak Choi seeds have sprouted but no sign of any corn.

Avocado - flowering.

Garden Update ...

Camelia - second lot of flowers out, still more to come.

Azaleas - Charity (lightest pink, behind the big tree) flowering well, Snowflake flowering too but not as well.

Dietes iriodes - some have set seed!! They will definately be harvested and sown.

Gardenias - no flowers nor sighting of buds :(

Clivia - mamma certainly flowered. The flower stalk is short but it's a great flash or orange in the garden.

Lioriope Mascari - the ones in the ground looked very sad, dead ends on the blades but most had a bunch of new growth coming from the middle so I gave them all a fairly severe hair cut. Some have put out babies.

Sweet Pea - as well as the red and white flowers I got the palest mauve, a deep purple and a deep red too. Am pleased with how they went, might do that again next year (tepee in a pot).

Babiana in pots growing vigorously but no sign of flowers, may need to fertilise differently.

Potatoes in tyres harvested - a goodly crop this time.

Beans - all pulled out of the ground, they never recovered from whatever hit them.

Still finding bindii in the lawn, not so bad since getting out there gets me out of the house and into the beautiful warm sun.

Nectarine is heavily in blossom, will have to be better at pulling fruit off this year so another branch doesn't break off. Wasn't sure how it would go this year considering the heavy prune I gave it.

Leucospernum - putting on some flowers. Again, wasn't sure whether it would as I pruned it last year. As the pruning didn't kill it I'll do it again, further back this time, once the flowers have finished.

King Protea - don't like it's shape at all, will try to take cuttings and see if I can grow a new one.

Pruned the mini standard roses, think I need to put them into the sun.

Might have to go to Waldecks and finally spend my gift voucher tomorrow!

Long Time No Post...

The first camelia flower opened today. The plant has had buds ever since I bought it (back in January I think). They (the buds) went quite brownish on the outside and I thought they were going to die, but today I am rewarded with a flower, and the others will surely open now too.

The dietes iriodies are on their second lot of flowers :) ... so two lots of white flowers at the moment.

The gardenias are looking a little pale (the leaves), but so was someone elses I saw yesterday so perhaps it's just the time of year. I think it's a little early to be fertilising them just yet.

Some of the azaleas have a few buds. The plants in the sun are looking a little stunted and pale, the ones in the shade have lovely dark green leaves.

The mamma clivia seems to be about to have a flower, it has made two more babies since I planted it in the ground. It's first baby seems to be doing ok, but too small for flowering yet I think.

The hydrangeas are covered over by philodendron leaves so I can't get a good look at them except to be able to see they are still alive.

The liriope seed I bought from Queensland finally, after many months and almost giving up hope, broke ground and there are about 11 plants - not bad for $10.00 instead of $8 per plant at the nursery. They are growing very slowly.

The dietes seeds given to me by the lady across the road have germinated well, but are also growing slwly, again I think it's just because of the time of year.

Pruned the roses last weekend.

Gardenias in the front garden, and native violet doing well.

Sweet peas grew well and are currently flowering - red and white flowers so far.

Something bad happened to the beans, they were growing well but now most of the leaves are brown and dying - maybe overspray from the glyphosate I used on the weeds in that area.

Yellow day lilly up the back divided, and babies in pots flowering.

White irises from out the front divided and growing well in pots. Plan to sell these and the day lillies at the Salvos carpark meet one day.

No idea what has come up in the pot in which I thought I planted the native frangipani seed given by the lady across the road; she says it doesn't look like native franigipani.

Jonquils almost finished, didn't get any daffodils, but maybe they are just later.

Plenty of hyacinths coming up under the avocado tree.

Poppies coming up everywhere.

Finally a sucessful planting of mixed flower seeds in the very front garden (aka the problem spot with weird soil). Cosmos flowering there, lots of other plants have come up there but no idea what they are and can't remember what was in the packet - but there are many plants, ie not just weeds.

Bindii growing in the lawn.

Rocket in the rear herb garden growing slowly but looks ok.

Preparing

..for the long weekend, well kinda.

Lawn
Have put on raincheck a petrol mower, little electric one just can't cut it anymore

Roses
Bought two standard minature roses last night, one apricot one red. Hope to get them planted this weekend.

Avocado
Heaps of flowers coming

Mango
Also flowering

Tomatoes
Have my first actual tomatoes, some plants doing better than others, some in flower others not.

Pak Choi
The bugs seem to be leaving them alone now and growing well.

First Entry

Have been thinking for a while of having a garden blog, like a garden diary to write down when I've done what, and projects I'm thinking of .. so now I have one.

Today - 26 September 2004
Gardenias
Repotted the gardenias that have been very sickly with damn mealy bug. Gave them a re-furbish type prune (ie very savage). Be interesting to see if they come back, doesn't matter really if they don't.

Rear Downchains
Thought of putting pots under the chains, but have decided to use a pile of rocks instead - the water will splash off them more gently into the lawn/garden. Also considering developing that further into a creek bed type thing, which will be damp during winter and dry during summer. Appropriate plants need to be considered - grassy types I guess.
Could also then grow the creek bed across the back to end in the kind-of defunct pond.
Big project, but can be done in small stages - the rock piles will be the starting point (once I manage to get some of the concrete slabs out of the way.

Lawn
Mowed the back lawn with the electric mower. Probably wont have a petrol mower before it needs mowing again . Verge needs doing but the electric wouldn't cope with it I don't think, so will leave it be and wait until I have a petrol one.

Hippies
Budding their heads off - have 9 buds, some will be open in the next few days methinks.

Tulips
Waste of time, only two plants reared their heads, made leaves only a couple of inches tall and have now died away. No doubt the bulbs are exhausted - think they will be bin material. Remember NOT to bother with these next year.

Runnunculas
Did/doing very well - plant these again.

Mango
Starting to blossom.