Category Archives: Neighbourhood pleasures

Daylight savings has started here, so long evenings have come into existence and spring is upon us. I arrived home from a weekend away where I had a lot of conversations about climate change and the prospects of halting it. What better way to celebrate such a happy and inspiring event than by planting?!

This time, I planted out mostly bladder saltbush.  I think it is a really pretty plant, and I’ve had some success propagating.

They went into a triangle of land where I have planted dozens of shrubs and saltbush and a tree, beside a footpath.  Most are doing remarkably well.

I clustered them together so one day they might make quite a display of silver foliage.  I did a bit of weeding too.

Next stop was inside the fenced off area for the railway.  Don’t tell.  I wasn’t ever near the line.  There is a spot where lots of tall weeds are growing, which shows something could grow there.  I ripped out the weeds as best I could and found they were mostly growing in blue metal. May the saltbush and boobialla I planted sink roots down to the places the weeds were finding nourishment!  That was some tough digging.

Finally, home again with weeds and rubbish and empty containers ready to receive the plants that are sprouting now!  My spring native seed planting has begun to produce seedlings. Not to mention the vegetable and Japanese Indigo plantings…  Spring is an exciting time, especially if you don’t think about summer too much!

A few days after I did this planting and drafted the post–I arrived home from work about half an hour before sunset to find the whole triangle had been mulched.  This is great news for weeding and for water retention, as this is really exposed land that has had no cover for a couple of years now.  However–about twenty plants had vanished, including the E Nicholii I had planted.  I hurried home, changed into gardening kit and started scrabbling in the mulch trying to retrieve plants.  There is now a watering system (or at least, pipes for one), in there under the mulch, so there must be planting plans (other than mine, of course).  So I assume some plants were destroyed in the process of putting the watering system in and others just buried–but I wasn’t able to retrieve many.  Dozens are still there and had been carefully mulched and left standing.  Now to wait and see what else is going to happen after this surprise event!

Gentle readers, there has been knitting and spinning and stitching going on but there has also been an overwhelm-ment of day job and a distinct lack of photo taking. I will try to sort myself out soon.  Meantime, post-work planting began this week.  The days are lengthening and I have seeds coming up ready to be pricked out, but no empty pots to plant them into. The queue seemed to require I get onto the planting!

14 ruby saltbush ready to go into the ground.  Plus my leaky watering can.  In the end I stood it next to a plant so the fine but steady stream of water squirting from its side could go to use while I was digging!

The darker patches are the places where I have watered and planted.  They are around the edge of my previous plantings.  This is a patch where people and dogs can choose just to walk through (and of course, people walk through at night when small plants are not so obvious), so I am trying to allow the existing plantings to be larger and then for the planted area gradually to grow wider and wider. I am hoping that I’ll manage to sprout some larger shrubs this spring and summer that I can plant into this understorey.

At one end of this patch my earlier plantings are now quite a decent size.  Some of the conversations I’ve had while working here have started to show that people can tell what I’m trying to do.  The Olearias along the wall further toward the street are now quite a good size and the leaves are a pleasing silver grey.  The E Nicholii is still alive!

Home again after a little weeding.  Time for dinner and music…