Tag Archives: saltbush

September 21, 2016 · 3:18 pm

The springtime, it brings on the planting

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It’s spring! Well, maybe not where you live.  But it is where I live!  the first poppy came out!

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Bark is peeling…

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My part of the country is better known for droughts than flooding rains, but we had a close call and neighbours on our street were flooded.  This is just round the corner…

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And this is one of my planting sites, with salt bush to the right and water pouring down the bike path to the left!

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So I planted out sheoak seed of two kinds.

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And the last few months’ collection of E Scoparia seed.  I’ve been tucking all the gumnuts I find into this bowl and there is a satisfying drift of tiny seeds at the bottom.

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And there were, needless to say, also saltbush seeds involved.  And now, we wait!

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July 21, 2016 · 4:56 pm

Train station plantings

I finally decided to plant out the Eucalyptus Scoparia I manged to grow from seed.  I have been planting out an area near the railway line for some time now and it has gone from bare and weedy to bushy and well covered. There is plenty of protection for a tiny tree now!

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I planted some more ground covers and was surprised to find that the seafoam statice that had been doing so well there had vanished, with some holes left behind.  I hope it has been dug out and replanted somewhere where it was wanted.

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The E Scoparia went in behind a bench where I’m hoping it will be safe to grow.

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Later in the day I headed over to a new place I have been thinking over.  It is a barren space adjoining the railway station in my neighbourhood, with an open drainage route running through it.  I have been wondering whether the rushes might grow in the drainage channel, which is quite mossy in places at this time of year. I thought I’d start with the sides of the space though.

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I took over some native pigface (Carprobutus glaucescens) which has grown readily from cuttings, some saltbush, a hop bush and a eucalypt (unknown species).

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In they went.  There was some soil here and a lot of sandy unpromising material as well.

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And, there was so much broken glass.  It looks to me as though someone/s must have had fun smashing bottles against the bridge walls here at some point.  So I collected all I could.

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I took my haul of rubbish home and tucked the rusty wire into my iron water jar for later use in dyeing.

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July 15, 2016 · 3:21 pm

Winter planting

Once I got started on the rushes, I wanted to keep planting and there have been some breaks in the rain.  Today I noticed a leak from one of our rainwater tanks.  It was near the top, from the overflow pipe, suggesting there is water up above the overflow outlet in that tank which is struggling to escape.  That has never happened before, and is evidence of HOW MUCH RAIN we have had.  You know what I’m saying: planting time is upon us.

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Here is my bike trailer load of plants bound for a bed alongside the tram stop on the nearby main road.  When I got there, there was another woman already at work cleaning up, who said she picks rubbish up there twice a week (she also cleared the paving and all manner of improvements).  She was impressed that I was doing my own planting and propagating and suggested I might want to join the adopt a station programme, which apparently provides plants.  Clearly she works up and down the pubic transport corridor, because she knew the best planted stations, where work for the dole are active and where the lavender is growing so well anyone could pick it. It was fun speaking with another close observer of these often unloved spaces.  She had noticed the reduction in rubbish and weeds from my efforts!

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This time I had rhagodias from my generous friend (this is a sandy site where I hope they will do well), creeping boobialla that has come on strong since the cuttings went in months back; some little wattles and yet more ruby saltbush.

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I put them up into the bed and climbed up after them.

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In they went!

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There are previous plantings that look dead in these beds, but perhaps they will come back… and in among them, there were some struggling knobby club rushes and…

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Can you tell?  In the foreground, a small patch of the Ngarrindjeri weaving rushes!

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In the meantime, I finished all my grey handspun in an airport a few days back and I am now creating more so I can finish! More soon… it would be so good if this jumper could be complete before the cold weather passes!

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May 28, 2016 · 6:34 pm

#MenditMay Guerilla gardening

Continuing the mending theme, I’ve been out doing a little earth repair in the way of guerilla gardening. This time I planted rhagodia (seaberry saltbush), and an olearia gifted by a friend.  These plants are native to the area she lives in, and as well as having them in her garden and the nearby scrub, she has them coming up in inconvenient places in her garden.  When that happens she pots them up for me!  Bless her heart.

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Here they are ready to go out into the wider world… in which masses of fungi had sprung up very recently. They are so pretty and delicate and so numerous!

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As I planted the shrubs, a cyclist pulled over and hailed me by name.  She turned out to be a friend of the woman who gave me these plants.  I had to love that sweet coincidence!  These plants have gone in beside the train tracks where a couple of dead trees have recently been removed and the gaps are creating openings for weeds and for travellers who don’t care for tender little plants the way I do.

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Hopefully, being planted in cool damp weather, they will grow up in time for summer heat.

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Later the same week I went out with more plants and added them into areas where plants died in summer or gaps look like they might need filling. Out they went to be planted beside fences…

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These three were pulled out by the roots next day!  Perhaps someone thought they were weeds?  Happily their neighbours were all left intact.

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Some of those planted a year ago are really large now!  It’s exciting to see these plants thriving round the neighbourhood, while I’m propagating more for the future.

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April 11, 2016 · 2:39 pm

Tram stop plantings

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This time, I went out ready to plant seaberry saltbush (rhagodia candolleana) as well as ruby saltbush (enchylaena tomentosa).  I decided to take the benefit of a long weekend and go further afield than usual.  There is a local tram stop where most of the understorey plantings that might ever have gone in have died.  And, there is a plan afoot to upgrade the tram fencing which might well result in plantings along the tram line being dug out.  The evidence that digging is imminent was parked by the tram stop, actually!

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Here is the best part of the site.  Some things are holding on for dear life.

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There are some trees still here too.  And plenty of empty space where native plants could be growing.  I planted the larger seaberry saltbush toward the platform.  Some of the soil is very sandy so this plant might be happy here!

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I weeded, collected rubbish, and had a chat with a few passersby, one of whom is clearly a regular tram user who said he’d keep his eye on the plantings, bless him!  He wanted to know where the water I was using had come from and was clearly very surprised to think I had brought it with me. But needs must, and I have a bike trailer.

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You can see all the little disturbed and damp spots where new plants have gone in, about 20 in all.  Homeward bound, I collected all this from the site itself and then, since I had gloves on and a receptacle to hand, I picked up all I could manage or stow in a nearby bin on my way home .  To care for land is a special thing, I’ve decided.

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April 4, 2016 · 12:16 pm

Harvest

There is a very large patch of dyers’ chamomile beside the Torrens River in a public park in the city.  I was going that way recently and decided I would deadhead the chamomile.  So I packed my secateurs and bags when I was headed that way again (en route to a day at WOMAD with friends) and took a detour. The summer has not been kind to this patch and some of it has turned black.  But there is so much of it, there was no way I could cut all the dead flowers.

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I had a lot of company.  Regular ducks and maned wood ducks and a coot and a top knot pigeon and some moor hens came to chat.  Most departed when I didn’t offer any morning tea.

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This young one was persistent, chatting on to me as I worked away.  Eventually quite a few of its relatives came along to make sure everything was OK and watch carefully from the other side of the path.

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I kept snipping out dead flowers as passersby stared or ignored me or hurried past in case my strangeness was contagious, and maintained a bit of a conversation with the young moorhen. Next day I had this to set out to dry in the heat.

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I can feel future dye baths coming on.  It has been a great summer of harvest.  We have had so many cucumbers!

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The rhubarb kept coming even though the summer has been hard on it.

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I have been out in the neighbourhood collecting saltbush seed.

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I even found a new kind of saltbush that the council has planted a little way away from my house.

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Friends had an open garden where they sold plants for an excellent cause.  I donated my collection of divided succulents, and they all sold.

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In March, we continued to enjoy local strawberries and bought the big box of seconds for the sheer delight of them.

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And now autumn has begun, the quince harvest has come in too, lest the possums eat them all… and the new season’s harvest is begun already.

 

 

 

 

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March 29, 2016 · 10:45 am

More autumn plantings and some plants in progress!

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On a cool, autumn morning I set out with yet more ruby saltbush plants and water to help them settle in.

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Some went in here replacing those who didn’t make it through the summer.

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The truly surprising thing is that many did make it through summer.  Some have held on with the tiniest of plant toenails.  But others have grown a good deal.  Even one boobialla (myoporum) made it in this inhospitable spot!

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Here are some of the many survivors.

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I also planted some more on the border of this space, which was bare earth when I started in on it.  It is so settled now I am considering putting some trees in quietly, among the ground covers and shrubs.

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After that, I headed off with secateurs to start some cuttings. These plants are thriving in local public plantings and they are regularly trimmed off the street by council workers or passing cars.  So I took cuttings from the street side and went home to put them in! Fingers crossed for spring planting…

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March 15, 2016 · 9:30 am

Guerilla gardening after the rain

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We had some quite substantial rain overnight last week, the first of autumn.  I took it as a sign!

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These little ruby saltbush plants are destined for a spot along the tram line where contractors have planted tiny plants into deep mulch, so that their roots never touch the earth below (which is packed hard).  It is amazing that any survived, but some did.  And there are lots of barren patches.  The mulch is starting to convert to soil.  So… in they went.

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And then some more.  I would like to expand out from this point into an area that is colonised by pest tree seedlings and weeds at present, but it gets poisoned.  So I am thinking it might need to be done slowly, edging out rather than interplanting the whole patch and risking losing all those seedlings when the weeds get poisoned.

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Some of the little eucalypts that went in here are doing well.  They are almost as tall as I am now.

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Ah, the joy that is rain!

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February 11, 2016 · 10:58 am

This week in guerilla gardening

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This morning, I went out with some saltbush I’ve grown from seed and some other plants a friend has grown and given me for guerilla gardening.  She comes from a coastal area and is growing plants well adapted (and mostly endemic) to her local sandy soils.  They are thriving in sandy areas of our suburb.  So the saltbush went in under a large river red gum in our neighbourhood, the better to protect the root zone of this giant tree.  Then I trundled around to a spot in the neighbourhood where the pattern of what will grow is very different to the rest of the patches I’m working, partly because the new beds created here in the wake of major infrastructure works are very sandy.

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In went several of these native hibiscus, an olearia, a kangaroo apple and a rhagodia (seaberry saltbush).  Out came weeds, alive and dead, and feral tree seedlings.

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The tiny E Scoparias that my friends and I planted months ago are thriving here but still small.  The council has planted a random eucalypt and a Manchurian Pear since we put them in, and they were much bigger–but they left the E Scoparias to live, bless them.  Let’s see how it goes.

Where previously nothing grew, now there are a lot of boobiallas (myoporum), some good sized olearias, a few saltbush and a couple of feijoas as well as the trees.  One saltbush is loving it here and has set fruit.

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As I finished watering the new plants in and set off to weed invasive grass out of a very successful patch nearby, one of the cyclists whizzing past called out ‘good work!’  It was a good way to start the day: kneeling in the earth and planting things that might help it heal.

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January 25, 2016 · 12:35 pm

New year’s guerilla gardening

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Some of the guerilla plantings from last year are coming along very well indeed!  Shrubs are looking shrub like.  Ground covers are bushing out.

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I made two trips with silver leaved saltbush plants (two trips doubles the amount of water I can apply, and there is a parched planting nearby).  This is prime growing time for saltbush so hopefully they will take off!

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I have continued adding to this area. I think it is looking great, and I have larger plants in seedling form that I can add now that they will be protected.  There is another spot in the neighbourhood where a house has been bought and sold and the new owner really likes the plantings I have made beside his driveway.  He has given them little sticks so that no one can miss the fact of their existence, and my beloved has seen him watering them–and had a chat!  They are really growing well now.  And all of this is a comfort because last week the council came through weeding and tending, and the next day an entire planting of twenty or thirty plants began to wilt in the way that plants that have been poisoned do.  I have no idea why they decided on poison after almost a year in which they have come by several times.  The plants were getting to a nice solid size… and perhaps they were judged to be too big.  I guess a guerilla gardener has to take casualties in her stride and keep propagating…

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