Filling gaps in the garden has never been easier.
You can easily start your own succulent garden today at little to no cost by simply growing succulents from cuttings. Find out how to propagate your own succulents from a single leaf.
— Read on for this article I wrote in home to love.
Feeling the pinch? From now to autumn is a really great time to take cuttings and get gardening for free…
Propagating plants in 5 easy steps
— Read on http://www.homestolove.com.au/amp/propagating-plants-19360
Lake Innes Nature Reserve is an incredible stretch of bush and perched swamp alongside the road between Port Macquarie and Laurieton. In December it’s often filled with Christmas Bells (Blandfordia sp.) and Grass tree (Xanthorrea sp.) flowering spears, but in spring it’s time for Flannel Flowes, or Actinotus helianthi.
Today driving along the road I found that all the flannel flowers have started to bloom. I’ve never seen them this tall before – they are as tall as me. So, just to check I wasn’t dreaming, I sent a snapshot through to Australian native plant expert Dr Cathy Offord, who works at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
“Wow! That’s an amazing sight. I declare these are tallest flannel flowers I’ve seen (I’ve seen a lot). And I don’t think I’ve seen them growing so thickly. Lucky you!”
Dr Cathy Offord
The last few years have been hard on the people of this region, we’ve lost lives and property to the fires, and then floods and torrential rains caused a lots of destruction. The flannel flowers have, it seems, found their happy place in all this. Phoenix flowers perhaps!
Smoke triggers flannel flower seeds to germinate, and plants grow to various sizes depending on the prevailing weather, their positions, and their genes. For the patch by the road near Bonny Hills, the congruence has meant taller, thicker and lusher fields of flowers than ever.
Earlier in the year, fires triggered another incredible display…this time it was the rarely seen pink flowers of Actinotus forsythii. It created a pilgrimage to the Blue Mountains by thousands of sight seers, to gaze in wonder at the once in a lifetime display of of delightful pink flowered blooms. Shorter and smaller flowered, they were so prolific that they covered large swathes of the bush underneath the burnt banksias.
Scott Pape’s book The Barefoot Investor has sold money management to average record numbers, simply by advocating common sense. Whilst I may not have more than one and a half million copies of my books (probably not even 1% of that), I do like to think we have something in common.
* Gardening is not complicated, nor should the advice be.
* Investing in the future is important, but instead of hedging funds I like hedges!
* Allocating money to what’s important is important…and food is essential.
In the picture here I’m barefoot in the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto. Some might think that silver is second best to gold, but if there is one thing visiting both can teach you, is that both are precious, but the restrained beauty of the Silver Pavilion is beyond comparison. It’s a Zen garden, with self control and discipline being some of the key attributes. Flowers are kept to a minimum, and it’s the rocks, gravel, trees, mosses and overwhelming sense of calm and green that enchant. The same restraint that Pape advocates to becoming financially fireproof, and he is clear to point out that money doesn’t equate to happiness, which is timely advise to remember the Chinese Proverb “One who plants a garden plants happiness”.
Like Pape, who lost everything to fires in 2014, gardens are at the mercy of the weather and natural disasters, but loosing everything is starting afresh, and has its own possibilities and promise. Imagine how much money you’ll be able to divert into savings as you become self sufficient!
The rain, and perhaps imposed self quarantine, mean it’s perfect to to plan and plant your new kitchen garden! You’ll soon be reaping what you’ve sown, like these gorgeous autumn harvests. Image from Grow Harvest Cook, by Sue Stubbs.
Summer has been hideous. For many it’s been too hot to work in the garden, or they have their energies directed at survival instead.
The cooler autumn temperatures are a blessed relief. I think one of the lessons of last summer is how we need to select more resilient plants for our gardens. It’s not enough these days to select, plant, nature and grow. These days that can still lead to failures when a spike in temperature of 42 degrees + results in blackened foliage and leaf drop, at best, and death, at worst.
Thankfully, Autumn is a great time to repair the garden. It’s the perfect planting time and these autumn rains make it easier to weed and great weather to feed.
It’s also time to plant bulbs, winter vegetables, sweet peas and poppies – a couple of fantastic cutting flowers. Planting flowers with your crops encourages bees in to pollinate your crops, so don’t feel that vegetables need to be segregated. Nature doesn’t have garden apartheid and we have only developed this structure of gardening to make harvest and maintenance easier broad scale… in the backyard in doesn’t make sense not to include every thing together, as this kind of permaculture approach is likely to mean a more organic way of gardening is the result.
Autumn is also a time of abundance, as this image (📷Sue Stubbs) from my book Grow Harvest Cook shows.
(Stone, wood and string), by Shannon Foster is part of Eden Unearthed at Eden Gardens.
Gibba Wadi Warura is an investigation of local Sydney Aboriginal art and iconography undertaken by the descendants of the local Sydney people themselves. Through this work, Elders and Knowledge Holders will be engaging in the world’s oldest, continuous cultural practices and forging these practices for future generations.
The work creates a space for discussion, gathering and inclusion under the canopy of bloodwoods and Scribbly Gums. The work includes some sandstone blocks that have been decolonised, recycled timbers, ancient and reworked traditional elements and string. As Shannon Foster explains, “Aboriginal people like to tell stories and learn lessons in a Yarning Circle while they make string. They have always known that it helps to do things with your hands when you’re trying to learn and remember lessons. It is also believed that the memories of a story are embedded in the string so everytime you pick it up, you will remember what you learnt whilst making your string!”
Shannon Forster is a D’harawal woman, artist and knowledge keeper. Here a bit of her back story on Gardening Australia.
It’s been too dry to garden, but finally the heavens have opened and it’s worth the time effort again.
Digging deep this spring has involved planting asparagus crowns, green and purple and popping in some new dahlia bulbs. I’m also seeding some tomatoes and beans, and planting some pumpkins and squash.
At my friends place I’ve been lending a hand designing a new garden for her and her partner to get married in this summer in the backyard. It’s a race to look good, but has a dusty pink and grey plant palette including pink flowering gums, sedums, agave and Mexican sage all jostling for space with purple tipped wooly bush, strobilanthes and echerverias. All drought tolerant too.
Bring on the rain! Bring on summer!
Today is Wattle Day, and also the Centenary of the publication of her famous book The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, who often depicted not just Gums and Banksias but also beautiful mimosa babies, like these illustrations done in 1918, a hundred years ago that are held in the NSW State Library.
Enjoy sunset cocktails tonight at her home on the waterfront in Mosman for $55 tonight to raise money for more garden furniture at Nutcote. Bookings essential.
National Tree Day is held on the last Sunday in July. Schools Tree Day is coming up on Friday 27th July 2018 and National Tree Day is on Sunday 29th July 2018.
Last year over 312 000 people at 3 500 sites dug deep to improve their natural surroundings. Tree Day shows children how easy and fun it is to help our environment.
In March 2017, Planet Ark commissioned an independent study,* sponsored by Toyota
Australia, to investigate childhood interaction with nature and how this interaction is changing.
The research shows that there has been a dramatic shift in childhood activity from outdoor play to indoor activity in the space of one generation.
73% of respondents played outdoors more often than indoors when they were young, compared to only 13% of their children and 72% of respondents played outside every day as kids compared to only 35% of their children. Even more scary was that 1 in 10 children today play outside once a week or less.
64% of respondents said they climbed trees as kids but less than 20% of their children participate in this activity.
If you’d like to plant a fruit tree in your yard that’s also suitable for climbing, consider a pecan, mango or avocado for larger gardens, or macadamia, persimmon and olives for smaller backyards. Happy days!
The report, Climbing Trees: Getting AussieKids Back Outside is available at TreeDay.PlanetArk.org/ClimbingTrees
Meredith Kirton 