Going native in the Perth Spring

Made the most of the rain today and got some native plants into the front garden.

Via BOM (radar)

 Hoping they'll survive okay over the Summer - it does get pretty harsh!

View on Flickr

 Here's a record of our plantings today, so we can see how they develop (or, if we lose any!)...

1. Grevilleas
'Little Drummer Boy' (grevillea langiera dwarf), 'Mini Marvel' (grevillea thelemanniana):
These are shrubby groundcovers that suit rockeries and underplanting, with showy sprays of flowers that you can expect from Grevilleas. Good also in coastal conditions. The Thelemanniana is endemic to West Aust.

'Robyn Gordon' (grevillea banksii x bipinnatifida) is a showy Grevillea endemic to West Aust with red/pink flowers in the classic Grevillea style of tumbling sprays of flowers. It should flower almost continuously too, and is bird-attracting. We've used it as a bit of a screen for our bins, but it sits under a large Callistemon tree - so, here's hoping it will settle in okay.

2. 'White Wave' (Leptospernum)
This is a small teatree shrub with gorgeous white 'foaming' flowers along the stems. Also bird-attracting and is good around rockeries and for small gardens as it grows to about 50cm high and 1 metre wide. There are so many beautiful teatree varieties too, from white through to deep pinks and mauves and everything inbetween.

3. 'Sea of Purple' Hardenbergia (violacea)
This is one of my favourite spreading native plants, as I grew up with it around the stunning karri bush of my hometown, Pemberton, hanging from the trees and sprawling along the understory, showing of its pea-like purple flowers! We've planted four of these in the hope we'll get a lovely visual feast of purple, plus some cover to minimise the dreadful onion weed and other weeds that spring up.

4. Groundcovers
'Purple fanfare' (scaevola aemula) has a lovely semi-circle, fan-shaped purple flower on creeping stems, with slightly serrated glossy green leaves. It's of the Goodenia family and also found in white.

'Creeping Boobialla' (myoporum parvifolium) is a creeping groundcover that can quickly develop a matting habit (actually been found as a weed in parts of the USA). Ours has pastel pink flowers and tight dense leaves along the length of the stems. Fast growing, so again hoping to keep down the weeds, as it develops. May need to prune of it becomes to invasive for other plants.

There's also a small Dianella (flax lilly) in front of the rock to the left of the path - it has gorgeous little purple-blue flowers on stems that extend above the leaves. It's a lovely native that seems to do well wherever you plant it (here's hoping!).

We'll see how it's all looking this time next year!

Happy gardening!

The Mulberry Hotel - Our Chook Pen

We have finally got our chooks! Hooray!

Simon, Alfie and Peter worked over a weekend to put up the frame, then the wiring and cat/fox proofing happened the following weekend, and finally the chooks arrived this weekend!

The girls are 18-week-old ISA Browns, vaccinated and about 3 weeks off laying. We have tenatively named them Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Moe.

They are still a bit unsettled but we are sure it won't take long for them to enjoy The Mulberry Hotel!



Happy gardening!

Autumn goodness continues

We've had close to 60mm of rain over the weekend which makes it a perfect time to plant and sow in the garden!

We picked up two olive trees at the local garden shop: a kalamata and a manzanillo.



Kalamata


Manzanillo

We had two half wine barrels from a friend down south which are a perfect size for these.

Alfie and I also planted out our Desirée potatoes on the weekend, plus some mixed lettuce and rocket.



Simon and Clancy planted some purple garlic on ANZAC day which sprung up only about 5 days later with the rain and the relative warmth!


Water (via rain) is an amazing elixir. You can just see how alive everything becomes after a decent rain! It's renewing and rejuvenating :-)

The birds obviously love it too - the Willy Wagtails are such great gardeners too!



What a special time in the year! Happy gardening!

Gardening companions

Clancy decided our garden needed a scarecrow. And he couldn't be happy, he had to be an angry scarecrow to scare the birds away!



The weather has been warm enough to give our seeds a cracking start too. The beetroots are already surfacing, as are the peas and beans planted at the same time. Its been barely a week!

Haven't seen the carrots yet. I have a feeling the seed was old. Will give them a week's grace.

Enjoying Autumn, happy gardening!

Down South in Spring

twenty-eight parrot a photo by margoc on Flickr.

Spring in the Pemberton region is simply stunning! I did a few walks to the Gloucester Tree while there and the birds are more than interested in us visitors! This twenty-eight was obviously looking for a bit of brekky.

The wild flowers and creepers are out in full colour - stunning! Check out the pics on my Flickr site for more!