Gardening SA

Mr. McGregor's Daughter wonders what you are growing in your house. My tally of indoor plants:

Living Room
Croton petras [currently on a slow death march – they don’t like dry very much]
Zamioculcas zamiifolia

Dining Room
Chlorophytum comosum [variegated spider plant]
Cissus rhombifolia [grape ivy]
‘Fatshedera‘  [A cross between Fatsia Japonica & Ivy (Hedera)]
Epipremnum aureum [variegated pothos]
Three stow-aways from the December cold snap – a Dykia, an Agave x, and Wilcoxia albifloria

Office
Vriesea splendens
Zamia furfuracea
Scilla viola
Ficus benjamina
Sansevieria trifasciata
Polyscias  fruticosa [Ming Aralia – currently vacationing on the patio after a bought of malaise]

Bedroom
Orchid x
Polyscias  fruticosa [another one!]
(2) Saintpaulia x [African violets]
(2) Euphorbia splendens [crown of thorns]
Cyclamen [of the grocery store cyclamens, red]
Senecio macroglossus
Schlumbergera x [Christmas blooming cactus]
Nolina recurvata [ponytail palm]

Twenty-five total, including the three winter refugees.  This number is MUCH smaller than what I grew in my Michigan house.

"It's a dry heat" doesn't do much to convince a plant that it's happy. [Doesn't do that much for me, either, truth be told.]

Wait, wait, I forgot the …

Kitchen

Hippeastrum [Amaryllis]

(2) pitcher plants of unknown specie [Trader Joe's purchase: impulse = bad]

Adenium obesum [in for the winter]

Tray of Fescue grass [testing the seed viability - the danged Bermuda I bought was all dead... and yes, down here we actually plant that evil stuff, if our Landlords have a lawn that we are maintaining.  Fun fun fun, here in the low desert.  Grass.]

(2) pots of Schlumbergera starts [dying, sigh]

Schlumbergera [another impulse purchase, this time for color on my desk at work, now home]

Tradescantia pallida [rooting in a jar]

and something that might be a hoya, but I'm not sure…

So that's 10 more - Thirty-five total.  Hmmm. My SO will declare this a jungle.  He's not fond of plants indoors.  Oh well. 

Observation Date: FEB 14, 2010
Start Time: 9:00 AM
Total Birding Time: 8 hours 30 minutes
Party Size: 3
Skill: excellent
Weather: excellent
Habitat(s):
       urban
Number of Species: 9
All Reported: yes
Checklist:
       Mourning Dove - 2
       Inca Dove - 9
       Anna's Hummingbird - 3
       Northern Mockingbird - 1
       Abert's Towhee - 2
       White-crowned Sparrow - 2
       Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) - 9
       House Finch - 7
       Lesser Goldfinch - 5

This was a lot of fun. I look forward to doing it again next year.

We’ve now been in this house for almost 7 years and a lot of growing up has happened in that time. The kids are nearing teenager-hood, we’re getting grey hairs and the suitability of the garden is changing - at least our needs of it are.

This is the service side, or dead-side, of the house. It’s where most of our home’s practicalities reside or traverse through. If you look carefully you can even see the washing still on the line!

While it’s served our family well since we first landscaped it, it’s also had a few quirks that needed ironing out. Firstly, this part of the paving previously had only one slab width and was skirted on both sides by rendered limestone bricks. This was fine until I cut off access on the other side of the house forcing the lawn mower to navigate between them - even though the mower was wider than the path.

At the other end of the house was where our trailer lived. It was perched atop a postcard-size lawn which meant moving it each time I needed to mow. Plus, it’s shadow didn’t allow much lawn growth and it would often die off in places as well.

So, this weekend was spent re-paving. I had previously ripped out the grass at the front and pulled the rendered brickwork apart at the back but now it meant laying some bricks and slabs. Hiring a brick cutter for the weekend was a great motivator and forced me to get it done.

The next phase of the alterations will be to rebuild the brick walls and then I can start revegetating the garden beds again. This will be the exciting part….

Join Cornell Lab of Ornithology for the Great Backyard Birdcount

February 12-15, 2010!

Beurré Bosc Pears, or Bosc Pears as they’re more commonly known, are by far the best eating and most intriguing pear available. Their leathery, mottled skin often turns most people away from trying them - especially kids - but these appealing fruits hold a distinct flavour masked by their blemished packaging.

The most popular varieties, Bartletts, Red Bartletts and Anjous, will continue to dominate the pear market as their “normal” shape, size and colouring appeal to the fussy consumer more readily. However, if you’ve never tried a Bosc pear then you really are settling for second best.

One of the common myths of the Bosc pear is that they must be peeled, and cooked, before eating which simply isn’t true. This fruit can be eaten straight from the tree and while the skin may feel like a different texture it is still very edible.

Once you’ve realised that this wonderful pear is far more delicious than the popular varieties you will soon discover that they are also reasonably difficult to source in the supermarkets. Due to their lack of populus appeal many grocers won’t stock them, or if they do it will only be a limited supply. Therefore you may need to grow your own Bosc pear tree if you want to enjoy more than a few offerings.

How to Grow a Bosc Pear

A good starting place is to read this post on growing apple trees. Growing pears from seed - even seed from a Bosc pear - will not guarantee the production of Bosc pears. The best specimens are grafted onto rootstock and showing signs of good leader growth.

You can often buy grafted Bosc pears as bare rooted stock towards the end of winter and early spring. This is usually the best way to buy them because it allows you to investigate the root system before planting ensuring that no disease, or potential for disease, is obvious.

The next part is quite simple and just involves following this tutorial on how to plant a tree and then how to stake it correctly so that it’s not blown around in the wind.

You should prune the leader, once it’s in the ground, down to where the other outer branches are protruding from above the graft. This will assist your Bosc pear to push outwards rather than clutter in the middle allowing better air movement through the leaves and fruit. Then, before each spring, prune each branch by about a third and continue shaping your tree so that it opens outwards.

As the fruit begins to bloom, cut off any branches that are producing too many fruit buds. This may sound counter-productive but it will ease the weight on your branches and help the tree not to split.

Fertilise your Bosc pear at the start of spring with a rich, organic manure around its dripline.

There are two ways to look at this question; firstly from our (the gardener) point of view, and second from the dog’s viewpoint. For while we may assume that what works best for us should also work best for our pets, our logic may differ from reality somewhat.

So let’s start by looking at what is the best grass for dogs - from a dog’s opinion.

Dogs love grass - almost as much as digging holes in our neatly manicured lawns. Firstly, it’s a soft play area. Dogs can run on a turfed surface much more safely, and comfortably, than anything else we have to offer - even sand!

Second, they love to eat it. While we may assume that dogs are carnivorous animals and love to chow down on a gravy meat at any chance, they are actually more akin to an omnivore’s diet and happily eat their greens with their proteins. Grass, while not naturally part of their food pyramid, is more like a health supplement to their bodies - much like multi-vitamins are to us. It aids in cleansing their vital organs and offering pain relief for infections as well.

However, from a gardener’s viewpoint, is there such a thing as a “best grass for dogs”?

Naturally, gardens and dogs - especially juvenile pups - do not readily mix. Young dogs love to dig, have uncontrollable bowel movements in human-traffic areas and scatter their play things to the outermost extremeties of your yard. Their robust play can tear up a piece of sod quicker than you say, “Drop that ball!”

Therefore, the best grass for dogs is one that grows quick, can tolerate being covered with faeces and urine and regardless of how deep it digs will rebound once it’s given some relief.

Some gardeners assume that this means artificial grass but nothing could be more further from the truth. In fact, fake grass could be classed as the “worst grass for dogs”! They can’t chew on it, to aid their internal systems, but they can still dig through it - yet it doesn’t replenish itself. Plus, in the middle of summer your synthetic grass can get 2-5°C hotter than concrete - hardly conducive to pet play!

No, the best grass for dogs is a fast growing kikuyu or couch. It’s not necessarily the best lawn for a garden, because of its deep root system which constantly penetrates your garden beds, but where dogs are involved it will handle itself with aplomb.

Obviously, maintaining a lawn for a dog is different to keeping a neat garden lawn growing as well. The fertilisers MUST be organic and pet-friendly, watering will need to be more regular and mowing may become more of an obstacle course.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years you may have remembered a post I wrote on Vegiforms, styling veggies with plastic moulds as they grow. Well…one young Aussie has taken it to the next level and is now producing strawberries shaped as hearts…that will be harvested just in time for Valentine’s Day.

The 22-year old engineering graduate from Melbourne has teamed up his invention with a Tasmanian strawberry farm and plans to have these out within the next 3 weeks. Could this be the ultimate gift idea for Valentines?

However, in the true essence of Valentine’s they will be suitably priced at $2 each. For the frugal romantics, buying a punnet of strawberries and some dipping chocolate may prove a little cheaper.

As it was so wet & miserable just did a quick visit to the plot today to take the household waste to the compost bin, had a look at how my seeds etc were getting along and found that some of the garlic has started to sprout - Hooray!

I was reading a blog the other day, and it’s author has decided to stop blogging because he could think of nothing new to say about vegetables. I think this is very sad - I love looking at other peoples blogs, particularly the ones with lots of photos - even if they say similar things each year. They are a great source of inspiration.

I don’t think I could ever tire of the amazement that seeing things grow from such tiny seeds gives me.

So for now I shall keep on blogging and if I repeat myself…so be it!

Kathy Thomas from VADirectory.net, who also blogs about her garden here, sent me an email recently extolling the virtues of this site - BotanicPhotos.com.

The site offers garden and botanical photos for sale where members can either offer their own images or purchase and download others. It’s a great repository for bloggers, garden websites, authors and publishers wanting to enhance their work and will be used by magazines, greeting card manufacturers and the list goes on.

While this is not a new idea, by any stretch of the imagination, it is quite novel in that it only caters for horticultural images. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that image stock sites such as iStockphoto, Shutterpoint and Fotolia already have many botanical photos within their lists. But, many of their images are predominantly “eye-candy cliches” instead of the novel nuances of unfamiliar flowers and plants.

Botanic Photos are priced to compare well with these other image houses and if you’re handy with a camera, and people are willing to buy your photos, you could earn up to 40% of the image’s sale price.

So if you’re looking to buy, or sell, garden photos then join other horticultural enthusiasts at BotanicPhotos.com.