Well, it has been a busy weekend. Yesterday (Saturday), I drove up to Ballarat to visit friends. It was wonderful spring weather, a bit windy, but otherwise warm and sunny. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the shore of Lake Wendouree (which has water in it again!), and then just hung around chatting. Eventually we watched the sunset over the lake, before heading our separate ways. I was a lovely day.
Today, I planted plants into my new garden bed. I have been working on the garden bed gradually for months, starting with using a mattock to dig trenches to lay sleepers in, then laying down cardboard to kill the grass, then filling the bed with soil. Finally the bed was ready for planting. One of my friends in Ballarat (one of the people I had lunch with yesterday) had sent me a list of plants that are indigenous to the area I live in, and this morning I visited a native nursery that stocks some of them. The nursery is a not-for-profit organisation called Greenlink, which relies on volunteers to grow indigenous plants in tube stock. The goal is to make sure that the species that are local to the area continue to be grown in the area.
I was lucky enough to find three of the plants on my list in stock, and another type that one of the volunteers told me is definitely indigenous to my area, and one that they are trying to push people to plant. So I got 2 of each type, for a total of 8 plants. The varieties are:
Epacris Impressa (common heath)
Platylobium obtusangulum (Common flat pea)
Dianella admixta/revoluta (Black Anther Flax Lily)
Anthropodium strictum (Chocolate lily)
I planted out the tube stock, except for the platylobium, which the nursery volunteer told me was a bit small to plant yet, he recommended that I keep it in the tube for a couple of weeks before planting. I have put the tubes in the location I intend to plant them, and if they survive the next couple of weeks then I will plant them in. I also put some clear plastic tubing around the plants, to give them some protection for the first week or so.
And now, I wait. Hopefully some of them will survive, and maybe all of them will. Time will tell :)
1 comment:
What else was on your list? - I may be able to help. Or alternatively, would you like some indigenous melbourne filler plants? clay or sand? Medium or small?
A great book for for indigenous plants, if you want to go that far is "Flora of Melbourne: a guide to the indigenous plants of the greater Melbourne area"
The clear plastic tubing's greatest help will be in water conservation - you might be keeping it on for up to a year. Mulch is good too. The heath and chocolate lily will want a little more water than the others once established. (all will want a bit extra water until established). The chocolate lily is semi annual - don't be surprised if it dies down in winter and one year doesn't come up again. But if you love those purple flowers as much as I do, the good news is that it works well in a pot and is easier to get extra growth and flowers. (yay first flower on ours yesterday!)
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