Make way for the seedlings!

In the spirit of experimentation, I have been planting seeds and seeing what happens.  There are resources available on propagating native plants, but they are not so detailed that it is possible for me to draw on other people’s experiences of propagating bladder saltbush in my area (for example)… and I have been trying things out in order to learn.  A couple of weeks ago I planted seed of 4 different types and to my surprise, ruby saltbush (top left) and bladder saltbush (bottom right) are coming up in numbers!

It is a sign.  It’s time to keep planting out!  The little patches of disturbed soil in the picture below are the places I have added to plantings made by a contractor.  My trowel tells me that the contractors are not planting where there is too much rock or bluemetal below.  We will see how the saltbush take to it.

Next stop, the park, where we planted quandong trees some years ago.  The quandongs didn’t take to it, but the fine leaved boobialla we planted to be their host (quandongs are parasitic, to simplify, and need a host plant)–have gone really well.  So here I am coming home with lots of rubbish, empty pots, and cuttings.

On the way home, I stopped to admire one of the beloved neighbourhood trees and listen to the birds that were there at the same time.

I am still not sure whether putting the cut ends in honey helps them take or not.  But I have lovely honey from friends who run a bee centred beekeeping operation and are such sweethearts… so honey it was.

So many cuttings! Oh.  I forgot I needed to make way for the seedlings!  I guess I have to keep planting….

And also, that I need to face that the time has come to mend the fingertips of my favourite gloves.   The dirt is gettting into my fingernails in a very big way!  I mended one gappy fingertip by hand and that was so hard I put a thin layer of cloth beneath the other one to catch remaining soil and stitched it on my machine.