Australian and New Zealand Gardening: Where are you in AU ., 1 by Kaelkitty

Kaelkitty wrote:
Here am I in Adelaide, it's RAINING, It's RAINING! Sorry, got a little over excited. I moved into a new house in October last year, just in time for a very hot & nasty summer, so I am only now getting around to doing some serious garden work. When I moved in, the lovely heavy Adelaide clay soil was like concrete in the borders, and the back yard is wall to wall buffalo grass (YUCK!) The bones are there - I have a nice bottlebrush, a beautiful double hibiscus, a lovely dense melaleuca, a pear, a plum amd a big fig tree - all the rest is grass, except for a peculiar pseudo rockery up the back of the garden, which was bare earth until the rains started and is now hosting a luxurious carpet of soursobs (oxalis). O frabjous day!

Into this not very much-ness, I moved a large collection of potted bulbs, cacti, other succulents, and assorted odd xerophytes and caudiciforms (a good couple of thousand assorted plants) and I have spent the last six months trying to beat that lot into submission, relocating and shifting, re-potting and getting up at dawn to get enough water on to keep things alive for another week, before the 8am curfew. Thank goodness that is over, at least, I will post some pics later on as there is not much to see until the new transplants settle in and get going.

I would like to join with others in hoping that this forum will take off, and be well used. I have noticed that there has been some comment about the need to subscribe, in order to use all of the features of the website, and i too, felt this way at the beginning. After lurking for a while however, I tried out the trial sub ($5 for two months) and I am planning to renew for the year as I have certainly gotten my money's worth. After all $19.95 US is only about $25 australian and most annual magazine subscriptions cost more than that, and they don't give you the pleasure of interacting with so many genuinely nice people.

I am an invalid pensioner with a very small discretionary income after food and rent, and I find most of my spare money goes into my garden, in some form or another - I would much rather pay for DG than go out to the movies or buy a meal in a restaurant. I hope this will give others food for thought and I would be pleased if anyone here would like to visit my DG homepage.

http://davesgarden.com/members/Kaelkitty/ All the best for now, Jacq (AKA Kaelkitty)

PS: As a gardener of limited means I am very interested in exchanges and swaps - please feel free to contact me by d-mail if you would like to exchange plants or seeds. I am enclosing a photo of my Agave collection taken about 6 weeks ago. So far It is the only part of the garden that I am "happy" about, because everywhere else still needs major work, LOL! Thankyou.