What garden conditions do you have?

Our place is 2.5 acres.
It gently slopes up to the north, so is very cold and shaded through winter.
The lowest temp is about 5 degrees in winter and the highest is 40 degrees in Summer. The average temps are about 22-27 during the day.
We have a high annual rainfall and it gets very humid through summer. We are entirely on tank water and have an inground 90,000 litre concrete tank, as well as an 11,000litre plastic tank off the garage and will soon be putting another 2 x 10-11,000 litre tanks off the big shed. NO WATER WORRIES!
At the top of the slope it is light brown clay and on the flat it has 20-30cm of lovely dark topsoil over a yellow clay base with added sandstone rocks of about 10cm in size.
There is plenty of drainage and most plants do well except for plants prone to fungal problems (i.e some roses, Rhododendrons, Conifers, and cool climate plants such as Cherry, plum and apple trees e.t.c)
Our soil is acidic but with regular dolomite in the garden beds it is not a problem.
I have an annual and perrenial garden which is watered with grey water automatically. I have tried for a cottage garden feel, but find alot of traditional cottage garden plants succumb to the humidity and heat in summer. How ever, daisies, azaleas, Iris, grasses, salvias and heat tolerant bulbs do o.k.
The other parts of the garden are mostly tropical, with palms, cordylines, agaves, crotons and agapanthus, spider lilies, day lilies, frangipanis, Cannas which all do really well.
I collect Bromeliads and succulents, but do not know the names of all i have in my collection and am looking for a Bromeliad expert to help ID them. I have KK for the Succulents, although, have not heard from her in quite a while!
My favourite colours are yellow and purple for the flower garden and burgundy foliage plants in the more tropical areas. I'm looking for full sun bromeliads that are red or yellow.
Please fill in all, about your place and what kinds of things you are interested in!
I know Jean likes Irises, Chrissy and Judy like Brugs, KK and Debi like succulents, but what about you others!
The goal of this thread is to have a reference to what peoples needs are in reguards to trading plants. You can chat and post pics if you want, but it will make it harder to scroll down to find the info you need.
Hope this is helpful
Sue

This message was edited Jan 22, 2008 2:56 PM

Great idea Sue.
My place is around 3 acres. The soil is clay with patches of ironstone underneath. This was an old farm with a dairy and for drainage , the owners used lots and lots of broken bricks and cement . Looks like from an old building. It is everywhere around the back paddock and makes digging difficult . Luckily I only dig plant holes not great ares. I think the lime in the cement does affect some plants over time. There is a lot of gravel in a couple of other ares where old rain water tanks were, this also is not good for some plnts. The drainage is good being on a slope but gets a bit boggy in parts if too much rain.HaHa. when it rains.
Hubby planted gum trees when he bought the place long before we ever met. The trees were not good types and are forever losing branches. They are too shady in parts so one must use discretion when placing plants. The surrounding area is mostly sheep , cattle and cereals. The countryside is undulating up to a tableland where the beautiful old red gums grow. Those that were not cut down anyway.
The average rainfall has changed even since I have been here and would now be around 15"- 20" per year. This is from hubby and I asked him where is the rest of my quota from last year then.
I have a lot of natives which do well once established. The bottlebrush and grevilleas do best.
I have cootamundra wattles which seem to do well anywhere as long as they are away from buildings. They do tend to grow wide as well as tall.
Roses do well and even though they look a bit poor in a long dry they soon pick up . Agapanthus, kniphofia, iris, daylilies, pentsemons, geraniums, vibernum, , daisies ( although they need replacing every few years), lions ears, lilac, some succulents and cacti, lambs ears, rosemary and other herbs, dahlias, hebes, erigeron.
Some of the things that don't like it here are azaleas, rhododendrons, some camellias. As you would see from this , the soil tends to the alkaline side more than acidic. I do have some plants like camellias and hydrangeas against fences where it is more sheltered from the wind. They are doing well.
As Sue noted, I love irises and Chissy has converted me to Brugmansias..
I like all sorts of bulbs and will try anything to see if it will grow. I hate throwing away clippings so always have a few planted up to sell at the local show and trash & treasure .
If it's green and grows I'll try it. I have tried to maintain a sort of organised chaos that resembles a cottage type garden.
I have ares that are separated by being all around the house, so I have different things in them. Roses out the front in the sun, herbs etc along the sunny side, cottage style small area at the back and the paddock garden where anything goes. This area is dominated by the weeping willow that looks great but i wish was somewhere else now. It was a good idea at the time but now it sort of takes over the bottom bit although nothing much would grow there anyway.
Thats me and my garden
Jean.

Hmmm ...well mine is a a mature garden although always evolving and changing as trees get bigger ...triffids get bolder etc and now it seems that the weather is evolving too.
I live on 16 acres of what was market garden on the Western outskirts of Sydney ...not far from the first farming areas established during settlement.
We are on heavy red clay which is full of goodness if you work with it. Our area is famous for greens (lettuce/spinach chinese greens etc),strawberries (people come for miles around) ...cabbages/peppers and zucchini.
There are fresh fruit stalls all around where you can stop and pick
up just about everything fruit /veg/ wild honey etc.
We are on the edge of the Nepean Valley we face a hidden (from our view) valley which rises up to the Blue Mountains ...we are on a tourist route here and buses stop frequently to take pictures of the scenery. There is not much I can't grow ...only things requiring extreme heat or cold, anything in between goes great guns usually although like everyone else we get the odd thing that may not take.After so many years of gardening there are not many things that I can't grow.I have many sheltered and built up beds, and have many non dig gardens which turn clay into magic.
I grow stone fruit and things that need chilling out the front and my tropical exotic things out the back in the sheltered area.
I love just about anything that grows but adore smelly, nice tropical leafy things and vegs/fruit/herbs I am having a love affair with my Angels at the moment aka known as Brugmansias :)
chrissy pssst love this too!

Postcript (sorry Sue (brother interupted me)
There is nothing dainty or delicate about my garden ...approx 1 acre
as due to many things in my life, it sometimes has to fend for itself over extented periods of time while I care for various members of the family ...once in fact almost a year.So it is a rather rampant but lovely jungle at most times.
that is about it really ...so to sum it up
Love everything, but grow tough jungle type stuff.Autumn will bring many seeds and cuttings to swap.
chrissy

Nowra is on the northern edge of the NSW South Coast (which of course faces East LOL). We're on 6 acres at the bottom of a rain forest escarpment on shaley clay which seems to go down for miles and once it has been interfered with with a lot of gypsum is fantastic for growing greedy tropical-looking things.

The garden is full of Cannas, Brugmansias (many bred here), Daylilies (many bred here), and Agapanthus (many bred here too - not the municipal escapers!!) plus a whole lot of other stuff of course.

'Mediterranean' type 'waterwise' plants generally die whenever it rains a lot, but we have a big succulent garden on a hot west-facing slope - not collector's succulents - just ones which are good doers under our conditions.

Water comes from a half acre 12 foot deep dam, plus a bore (salty) and town water - hardly any restrictions doiwn here during the drought, so we were lucky.

Hardly ever freezes, except occasionally waking up to white lawns, and hardly any damage ever occurs in winter.

House is an 1890s weatherboard farm cottage and there are the remains of a dairy including loads of huge sandstone pavers which were the dairy floor (we found them lying around all over the place): they are now a significant feature of part of the garden!

Mine is half an acre of garden and 4 1/2 of paddock with purpose planted edging and some remnant bush and native grasses. My half acre started off 25 years ago with weeds and grass and a couple of trees. 2 were glorious blackwoods. One was dying when we arrived and fell 2 years later in a high wind just missing the back of the house. The other one is dying due to the drought. It has to come out before it falls on next door. I am in the hills out the back of Melbourne on beautiful basalt based mountain soil. Deep chocolate. It is almost impossible to kill anything as long as it has water. As a result blackberries, wandering Jew and ivy are a major problem. I originaly designed my garden as a series of room areas with connecting paths and using the trees from the neighbours as background. It worked very well. I let the garden run riot for about 6 years while I was establishing my business and as a result have had to have help to bring the rampant runaway to heel. Once the pruning and cleaning out was complete it is starting to look much better and old plants down the back have revived. I have a wisteria that clambers to the 2nd floor balcony along with a banksia rose. In autumn it is liquid gold leaves from wisteria and birch trees both mine and neighbours. I have added some red maples to the mix. In spring the rose is lemon and the wisteria mauve and it tumbles down like a fountain. One of my better efforts. I have planted Robinia trees( they may be called black locusts not sure. Grew them from seed about 15 years ago from a tree at uni). down my drive which runs down the side of the house. This stops the hot sun during the summer and it is like a church cloister. I have removed lower branches and they meet over head like an arched roof. They also turn a beautiful rich gold in autumn and the whole drive is covered in a carpet for a week or two. In winter they have very delicate spidery branches that are really pretty. Every window of the house looks out into leafed areas. I have used hyderangeas under the tree canopy along with ferns and fuschia. I also have some lovely old azaleas and rhodos that were here when I came. I am currently eliminating what is left of lawn and planting up with perenials such as salvias and some pretty native things that look like butterflies on the end of sticks. Iris, geraniums, nasturtum (sp) I have a great clump of kangaroo paw and bird of paradise. The pond area at the bottom of an 8 foot drop has self seeded tree ferns and over the years I put in a whole lot more smaller ferns and these are looking great. I also use creepers on my fence for privacy as we have wire fences.
I am on a slight slope and just below my fence line the land drops sharply to the main road. My seat up the paddock has a glorious view as does upstairs area. As I said elswhere the camera is next on list of purchases so people can see it exists.

i live on 5 acres - and have about an acre of house yard to garden. i only started gardening in september of last year so majority of my garden is very young. i do have the odd pine trees and natives that were already planted before we moved here. other than that they had a rose garden out the front with box hedge around it... and some agapanthas around the lawn area.

my whole block is on a very steep slope and therefore we have had to add gardenbeds with sleepers to make the gardens. we have added a lot of topsoil on top of the very hard clay which i put gypsum under the topsoil.

i have only done my first gardenbed but have a lot of plans for the whole garden. in this first gardenbed are penstemons, geraniums, hebes, wistringias, grevilleas, daisies, lavender, fushia, roses, pink & blue rosemarys amongst other things. i have gone for the cottagy type garden... or i guess any plant that is tough and has nice flowers. i love my garden so far and am very proud of its progress in the short 4 months it has been put in.

we are on stage 4 restrictions which means we cannot water outside the house at all. i have no tanks as yet but am really hoping that we can afford some this year. at the moment i am watering my garden entirely with buckets other than the rain that we have been luckily having. i collect water from showers, baths, washing machine and cooking water. any water that i can.

thats about my garden at the moment.

shelly

Shelly,
use muclch it is a great water saver. Also I have started using the milk and lemonade bottlles with their bottoms cut off, sunk right down into the roots. It is a sure way of getting good slow water to the plants. My mulch is free wood shavings from a furniture place. Would you have access to one and some chaff bags. They usually will give it away as it just ends in dump master. straw used to be nice and cheap once too and really improved water retention of soils. Water crystals are also usefull when putting in new plants. I am on 3a restrictions here and have added a couple of large plastic barrels to down pipes. Amazing how much you can water from them. Don't forget your grey water.

Liz

This message was edited Jan 25, 2008 9:39 PM

thanks for the advice liz.
i have used a lot of mulch.. we had to pay for it but it ended up pretty cheap when i brought in bulk. i can also get free horse poo and straw so i have been getting that a lot and putting that around the plants which they really seem to like.
i figure i must be doing something right as the garden is really growing now. i have just taken some photos taken and found some photos of the day i put the first ones in so will add them to the "before and after" post shortly. i don't water by hand a lot unless we have had no rain at all and its hot days. we have been lucky that since the week before xmas we have been getting rain every week or so. i am so hoping this continues.
shelly

I have a 1/4 acre block. You know, the great Australian dream!
No-one had lived here for years before I arrived, so it was overgrown with lantana, cooch, cestrum, broad-leaved privet, mickey mouse bush & oxalis. I am still killing the last of the cestrum now & have a 10 metre privet to contend with next. The soil was mostly clay, so its taken a couple of years to liven it up as I don't use any manufactured fertilisers, herbicides or whatever. There is a huge mulberry that is very generous but it is too dominate & has to be coppiced this autumn. How I will do it without a helicopter is yet to be determined. A couple of young mulberry trees are already making nice garden borders because they were blocking light & didn't branch below 5 metres, leaving slim chance of picking any fruit. There was also an antique pool that would have cost a mint to repair & re-fence, so its become home to passionfruit vines. As they grew, I took an old hills hoist, removed the cap from one of the pool's fence poles & dropped in the hoist to make an overhead frame that the vines have since covered. The partly shaded pool & is due to become a rock garden & bonsai area as I find time.
I use collected rainwater, lots of mulch & compost everything I can, including cardboard & timber. My vegetable beds have mulch above & below, the lower level being inoculated with mycaleum from normal mushroom kits. I have a few fruit trees in the ground, but have lately taken to containing them in stainless steel baskets salvaged from dumped washing machines & clothes dryers. They are ideal, being rust-proof & having excellent drainage. Plus, you can grow things like mint, strawberries & so on to trail over & disguise them. I plan to remove the entire front lawn this winter & replace it with wild meadow, probably incorporating containered trees.
Oh, and I recently acquired an accidental lake which got me thinking that I could use some tarp & an old wading pool to put in a pond if the rain ever stops long enough.

Sounds lovely Ian. Got any pics?

We retired from a 100 acre dairy farm,and it was swallowed up by neighbour.
We have 2 adjacent blocks here.one of 25 acres,and the other with the house of 12 acres.We are only a couple of minutes from town.The original owners landscaped the grounds beautifully,with a stone wall and stone paths,and wide steps leading up to the top level of the house.It had been neglected for some time,and i set to and scrubbed and painted slimy green/blackconcrete block walls white.Overgrown trees had to be removed and dishevelled beds tidied or removed.One large area we cleared of long grass and rubbish,and we found two compost bins underneath it all.Lucky it's NZ and not Australia or there would probably be snakes and spiders amongst it too.
It is a lovely place to live-a quiet no-exit road -the soil is fantastic-dark and quite limey,which meant I needed to put aluminium sulphate with the hydrangeas to get them blue.
Alistair-we stayed in Nowra in 1983-we had pedigree Milking shorthorns-(known as Illawarra in Australia).We had recipricol arrangements with Aussie breeders-inviting them here as our guests,and visiting them in their homes.in AustraliaWe stayed with Henrys,and visited Cochranes, and stayed with O'Keefes at Berry.I really loved it there.At Berry I saw my first jacarandas and fell in love with them.Mrs O'Keefe had a great collection of tea towels on the walls in the barbecue area and I gave her a NZ one to put on the wall too
Emelle

Just a note to say how pleased I am that everyone is getting into the spirit and posting about their gardens.
Hi Marion. Your'e garden is slightly toward the cottage garden style isn't it? I love the photos we've seen so far!
Keep them coming y'all
Sue

Good old Berry. I have seen that town change a lot over my life from a sleepy village to a trendy weekend get away. It's like a little Byron Bay these days. My uncle & his family have a business there called the Treat Factory that they built up from a weekend market stall. They are great people & amazing gardeners too. The whole coast along there is beautiful. Saw a wild waratah growing near Bombadery as a boy, which is something I will never forget. And Nowra has one of the nicest golf courses you will see.
Would you like a picture of Lake Surprise btw Sue? The rain finally stopped yesterday after a solid week of it, so I hope its gone soon. I'll get some after work of trees in the baskets I wrote about. It would be interesting to hear some opinion how they might go.

Wonderful to hear about all the little "Edens" ...so many beautiful places in Australia ...the NSW south coast is very underrated ...I think the Gold Coast is vastly overated! I lived at Burrill Lake just past Ulladulla and thought it was so unspoiled ...Ulladulla was a beautiful fishing village then.Coffs Harbour is so lovely too ...I think we are all very lucky don't you?
chrissy

You are right,Chrissy-so lucky/blessed to be where we are,as the saying goes"Bloom where you are planted"
I was a bit envious when my sister retired to the Coromandel coast,as that was my dream.However I was helping a friend one day and suddenly it dawned on me that my friends in my town are so very special to me,and the home I have made for us and visiting family is so cosy.
This has been an interesting thread to think about.
Emelle.

In a word .... SAND! Sand, sand and more sand. I'm in Shoalwater, WA, about 40 minutes south of Perth. I'm only a few blocks from the beach, and all I have is sand. A lot of planting I want to do is on hold until I can afford to buy some soil conditioner to dig into the beds. I've got no clue about pH or acidity or any of that stuff. I'm in a block of flats, and we have a bore that comes on 3 days a week. There are parts I have to hand water, as a previous tenant had a couple of rotties which ate some of the reticulation. The owner has promised to have it fixed, but still waiting on that.

I've got a couple of beds happening. One is just cannas, which I love to bits. They're a great plant for a brown thumb like me, cos they just keep growing. The other bed has spider plants, cordelines, aloes, mother-in-law's tongues and a big cactus thingee. My spider plants have lots of babies growing (i got them as babies from my mother about 8 months ago), and the mother-in-law's tongues are putting up babies all over the place. Most of the plants I've got have either been given to me, or were somehow surviving in the weed infested waste land the yard was when I moved in.

I have some pig's faces and geraniums (i think), growing along the back fence. They are in plain sand, and seem to be having no problem with it. I'll probably do a few 'please id' posts in the near future, as there are a fair few things I am clueless about.

I looked up pig's faces in the 'search for plants' thing, and could only find one that is a lot finer than mine. Either I have a different strain, or am calling it the wrong thing. I'll wait til I get a flower, then post a picture for a positive id.

Sue, I used to live in Coffs back in the mid '90s. Spent most of that time out Sawtell way and absolutely loved it there. It's one of the few places I've been that I've ever considered settling in. It was fantastic when the electrical storms blew in from the sea. Everyone else would be running for home, and I would be running to the beach to watch Nature in all her powerful glory. It's a wonderful part of the world.

Cheers

Kerri

I agree about the Gold Coast Chrissy. It is horrible. And it sounds like you have a challenge there Kerri. You could look at is an opportunity to grow a whole range of things that prefer the conditions you have. Waratahs for example, like dry soil & a bit of sand. Maybe Proteas too. Asparagus would love it there, as would desert roses, pachypodiums & occotillo. They are just examples of things that I would love some of your conditions for. There are things about every other place that appeal to me because of the different climates & things that grow better but like Emelle says, realising the value in where you are in where it is at.

Kerri just throw some bags of cow poo into the beds ...I am on heavy clay and I use so much washed river sand in my built up beds, Sand and cow poo is a magic combination ...frangipanni comes to mind :) Hi everyone whoopee sun today!
chrissy

Hi Granville and Chrissy

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely look into getting some cow poo. I think there are a few beef farms fairly close by, so i'll just go for a drive until i see a road side sign that says 'cow poo here' :). It's gotta be cheaper than buying bags of soil conditioner.

LOL ... Granville, I'll have to look up most of the things you've mentioned, cos i have no idea what they are. This is a hugely steep learning curve for me ... just love it :D

I'm very fortunate here in that i have a tiny one bedroom unit, but a relatively large back yard. No little courtyard here ... the yard has to be about 3 times the size of the unit. Plenty of room for me to play around with (and the landlord has said i can do whatever i want with it), though i have to admit, i do envy the people with acreages. I'm a country girl at heart, and love the peace and open spaces of rural areas.

Be well

Cheers

Kerri

Interesting to see where we all are! Berry certainly has changed a lot. Tourist mecca on Sundays!!

Kerri a great product for sandy soils (if you want to retain nutrients - not if you are growing local WA plants) is Zeolite. Its a pulverised volcanic rock to which mineral nutrients stick till the plants need them. It greatly reduces the amount of feeding you might waste running straight through sandy soil. As far as I know it doesn't break down, so you only have to apply it once (and dig it through) and you're done. Plus cow poo and/or compost as Chrissy says. Together they greatly improve the texture, the nutrient content and the water-holding capacity of sandy soils.

Cool. Thanks Alistair :)

OK. Ocotillo is a desert tree that looks like a pile of sticks. The leaves grow directly on the main branches like moss. When it gets enough water it forms attractive candelabra type flowers. Sometimes it is called Devil's Walking Sticks or Candlewood. Pachypodiums are water-storing trees. I think our bottle-tree is one or close but most of them are small & spiny. They form nice flowers like yellow gardenias. I am growing a Horombense from seed though it is a painstaking process. The Desert Rose is pretty similar; like a baoab with pink or red frangipani like flowers I suppose. They are popular for bonsais. There is a sought-after variegated variety, aswell as the pink & red ones. Another one you may like is that Yucca they call Joshua Tree.
I am just suggesting plants that would suit you conditions, but are a bit different from the usual agaves & stuff you see around. Though renting the place, you may want to keep a lot of things in containers so you can move them. And asparagus is the thing I would be growing for sure. It isn't easy for some of us to get good sea-sandy beds such as it really likes. In other threads, I have mentioned how you can easily pull apart a washing machine or clothes dryer to get a well-draining, stainless steel container that is ideal for small trees, herb or cactus gardens, apsaragus & so many other things (the basket the clothes go in). Oh yeah, & they require less bending & grovelling to tend :) If you get a couple, you can grow long-term stuff you want to keep & incorporate them into your garden architecture, throw a bit of shade with them & so on. Just some ideas anyway.

This message was edited Feb 11, 2008 5:20 PM

Kerri,
Try searching for Carpobotus for the larger pigfaces - there are several different species.

Good Luck, KK.

Excellent KK, thanks

I'm now pretty sure i have a Carpobrotus edulis, which is from South Africa. The one in the pic has a flower coming, so I can make sure when it appears. The plant files show them with different coloured flowers, but i did a google search, and the Australian Plants Society, Tasmania Inc. says it is recognisable by it's yellow flowers. I'm pretty sure mine have yellow flowers, but not 100%. Time will tell.

Cheers

Kerri

kerri,

i have the yellow and pink of that succulent. let me know which one you have and i can send you the other one and a couple of other groundcovering succulents i have here that are established.

ian - that is the same ones that i will be sending you as well... so we now have a name.

kerri - they are very vigourous and are very easily to replant somewhere else in the garden if you want to.. just grab a handful and pull and then let it dry out for a day or two - and then put back in the ground - i haven't had one piece fail yet :)

i have about 50 different "pigfaces" - groundcovering succulents growing in little pots at the moment - plan on putting them all out the front of my property as soon as i am sure that summer is over so they can all establish out there. i will take cuttings of any others you want once they are established. i have a massive area to cover and i am hoping that these succulents will grow out there with minimum attention and water. i cannot mow this area and my hubby needs to do it all with a whipper snipper which is a very long and tiring job every few weeks in the warmer months.

photo of what i want to cover in succulents (hopefully!!!!)
shelly

Hi Shelly

Thanks heaps for the offer of cuttings, but alas, I am in WA, and quarantine laws prohibit plant materials crossing the border :(. I would love to be able to do swaps with people, but it just wouldn't be legal, or responsible.

Good luck with your front verge. Won't it be great to have this 'before' picture to compare with an 'after' picture once you get it all done!

Cheers

Kerri

Hi there ,I have a 1/8 of an acre section tho the garden is quite small. When I moved here there were afew roses. quite nice ,need some care . Every thing else is what someone else has planted to fill up gardens I think. The plants I enjoy I have brought with me . Day lillies a young Jacaranda Igrew from seed 5ft, rhodos from cuttings, vireyas bromelliads, orchids succulants, a new vege garden and iy is chocka. A grape I grew and fruited in a plant pot last year . Iplanted it out during winter and now it has grapes again, huge big red table
ones. Not bad for a grafted stick four years old. and hellebores and siberian irises,and a few flag lilys, oh and dhalias. The soil is a dry sandy no body type so I dig in compost with everything with 2 trailer loads of mushroom mulch for the vege garden.
Kerri your succulant looks just like a plant that grows wild on the sand hills by the beaches here. The beach is about 3mins from my house but within hearing distance at night and in rough weather, we call them ice plants I don't know why because they grow in very hot and dry conditions , not any ice in cooey. Hi Emelle have you been to see the new grandson yet? Silly question eh. Well you all
sem to have some very large and beautyful properties, which require agood amount of hard work . I'm almost envious but not quite.
I will go home to my other place in a couple of weeks and then realise how lucky I am to be here. Lesley.

Hard work is addictive mate, if it is really that. After working all day, there is nothing like taking it out on some patch of weed, building a rock garden or whatever. The way I see it Shelly has tonnes of opportunity compared to someone like myself, who will eventually run out of lawn to rip up & replace with garden beds.
That verge is crying out to be terraced Shelly. You could start at the base & work up bed by bed, using sleepers, stone or any old fallen hardwood. I use a lot of natural timber for structure & soil retention. I am glad you identified those succulents btw. Carpobrotus sp. are succulent marigolds. I can't really tell the difference between them & senecios until they flower. They look practically identical.

This message was edited Feb 15, 2008 6:13 PM

not a bad idea - will think on that one some more - i definately don't want to be spending money on that section of the garden - but i have a lot of trees at the bottom of the property that i may be able to utilise.

i have found some photos of the succulents i will be sending you - so i will attach here - if anyone else wants any please let me know this week so i can do a package for you as well.

shelly
picture of leaves of the yellow succulent i have - assume Carpobrotus

close up of the flower - notice the tiny ant so you can see how big these flowers are.

photo of leaves of the pink flowered one... haven't got a picture of the flower but it is a very very bright pink.

flowers of the pink shimmer one i have:

and still have lots of hollyhock seeds to give away if anyone else wants them:

I Totally agree with you Granville the results of hard work in your garden is addictive, really spurs you on. Over the last 3-4 years I
have become a reformed one. Now it is hard work, usually for someone other than me. lol Lesley

Very funny Lesley. I'll take some Hollyhock Shelly, if you can spare it. Off to my bonsai class now. Been so looking forward to it that I'll probably lop my own finger off in the excitement. What type of tree should I start on you think?

ok, will add some hollyhock to the parcel.
shelly

Hello Shelly, thanks for seeds, I am looking forward to a gorgeous flower show. Granville, I started some bonsai a few years ago because I like them but they are so expensive to buy. I started with an ash as I had millions of self seeded ones everywhere. It is over 6 yrs old now and doing really well. You don't have to do much to an ash as they do have a lovely shape. My next one was a Lillypilly which is now nearly 5. I did use a bit of wire on this one to get a lower form on some branches. I have a tortured willow and a nectarine ready to go into their bonsai pots this year. The pic here is the Lillypilly, but he looks a bit sad today because of the really hot weather we have had for the last 3 days.
It's great fun to try something different isn't it ?

77 that tortured willow sounds interesting ...I have one here and love to use the branches (dried) inside the home for decoration.
I would love to try it but ...I know it sounds nuts ... but every time I have thought about it ...It sounds so cruel to do that to a tree ...I know give me a smack! it sounds silly and I will try to talk myself into it ...I read somewhere that the best way to do it is to plant the seed into an orange skin (cut in half and then as the roots come out you clip them off) Does that sound right? ...anyway good luck I am interested to watch the twisted willow one. Poor thing in all that heat our Summer has been the coolest that I can ever remember.
happy root chopping.
chrissy

Ooops sorry Sue (we are not supposed to be nattering away in this thread ) oops
chrissy