i finally decided

I finally decided what to plant in place of the old hebe.  It was quite the odyssey in the end - first digging out the stump, then digging up piles of rubble and a few large stones.  And today I had a disgusting shock.  There were autumn leaves in the hole and when I went to pull them out, thought I saw wet fur.  I tried to dig whatever it was out with a shovel, and what I believe was a dead rat split in half to reveal a bed of maggots.  EW EW EW EW EW EW.  So I dumped some dirt on it and dug some more to one side.  It's well below the ground now, I suppose that even decomposed rats are good for the soil.  EW.

OK now for a nicer image.  I decided to plant a kaffir lime in the spot.  It's a type of lime grown for its leaves and used in Thai dishes.  It makes wrinkled little fruits but they're not really used.  I do occasionally cook with kaffir lime leaves so it'll be useful to me, but because the fruits aren't important I'm not as worried about it being in a spot that's shaded all winter.

It's just a wee little seedling at the moment but it's still big enough for me to pick a few leaves as I need them.  I decided to be clever and put an agricultural pipe in the planting hole, so I can water it down to the roots when I need to.

The striking thing about kaffir limes, if you're not familiar with them, is that they have double-leaves.  Look closely and you can see they're in a sort of figure-8 shape.  Nifty, huh?  I'll have to plan for a few Thai dishes next week.

And whilst I was walking along the path I noticed that my transplanted camellias are starting to bloom.  They've taken their move well; they didn't drop their buds and the first one is now sweetly blooming.  I'll leave you with this lovely picture.

long weekend

Easter is a long weekend in Australia so it's a good opportunity to get a lot of projects out of the way.  I've got a bit of pruning to do but the big project is to clear out the bed along the south side of the house.  As I mentioned in this post, the camellias in this bed have always struggled and a few die each year.  I haven't quite decided what to replace them with but I'm thinking of a simple hedge of Choisya ternata (Mexican orange blossom).  It seems to be a nice hardy hedge that will tolerate both the sun and shade of that bed, and twice a year they're coated with white blossoms that smell like orange blossoms. I once walked by a Choisya hedge in blossom and stopped dead in my tracks, the smell was so incredible. 

I already transplanted one of the camellias last week, I'm going to try transplanting two more to the bed out near the street with the birch trees.  They're currently soaking in a Seasol solution to help them with the shock.  The small one is one of the new ones I bought last winter and the big one is one of the originals.  They both got a trim too to make up for losing roots in the transfer.  I think I'll chop out the pine trees too, they suck so much water and nutrients from the soil.  After that the beds need a top-up of soil before replanting them.

In the meantime, here's the final harvest I got from the soybeans.  I probably could have gotten more if I'd been happy to leave the ones that weren't quite ripe yet, but that was a bit tedious.  So I just picked off everything plump and put the rest in the compost.

It may not look like many soybeans but I eat them as a snack, fresh from the pods, and don't eat too many in one go.  So it's actually quite a lot for this purpose!  They're absolutely lovely though - not quite as big as ones you can buy imported from Japan but a lovely flavour, rich and sweet like a pea.

Update:  Here's a photo of the camellias in their new home, I hope they like it!

a little hedge trimming

Along the back of the house runs a long bed.  It alternates between camellias and tall pine hedges.  The camellias have always struggled - they get shade all winter but sunburned in the summer.  Each year they seem to lose as many leaves as they put on, and most of the flowers get eaten by the possums.  Still, last autumn I replaced two that had died.  They're doing ok, but another one has died this summer.  I feel like I'm fighting a losing, uphill and expensive battle.

In the meantime I hate the pine bush on the end closest to the melons.  It shades the bed in the summer and because of it one of the melons never set fruit.  It's actually taller and thicker than in this photo but I'd already cut a chunk out of it before I thought to take a photo.

So I decided I was done mollycoddling precious camellias along.  The dead one is coming out and I'll try to transplant the other.  I'm slowly going to replace them all with agapanthus, a plant that's nearly indestructible in Melbourne.  I actually have a plant that's formed a cluster of 5 or 6 that I'll transplant. 

And though I'll keep two of the pines, the one on the end has seen its last days.

It was a lot easier to cut out than I thought, the wood is very soft.  I'll wait a few weeks for the next step; the agapanthus you could transplant in the middle of a heat wave but the camellias would appreciate cool weather.  It's starting to cool down for autumn but we could still have some high-30 weather before the end.

Speaking of autumn, you can just see the wilty pumpkin vine in the very corner.  It gave a very bad showing this year, only two tiny pumpkins and I'm a bit worried about them ripening before the vine fully carks it.  I did a lot better last year with the potimarrons but this year I planted them far too late.

And speaking of unsuccessful plants, I give up on chillies.  I've had grief germinating them, I've had them barely ripen before autumn, and this year I didn't get a single fruit.  Just a lot of flowers that dropped and a lot of leaves that fell off.

a little summer insurance

A while back I noted that two of my camellias died this summer.  I'm pretty sure the one on the end died because in the afternoon, the brick bed is exposed to the hot sunlight.  That hit the camellia with a double-whammy: no shade plus hot, dried-out soil.  So I decided to invest in a bit of insurance to try to keep the new addition alive this summer.  I found another pointy conifer, I think it was a Sentinel Juniper, and I'm pretty sure it's the same species as the other pointy conifers in this garden bed.  It's still just little but it should soon grow up to provide afternoon shade both to the camellias and to the brick and soil in the bed, whilst matching the look of the other junipers.  Let's hope it works!

new plants in flower

My new taro and camellia must be happy because they're blossoming!  I don't usually get to see my camellias blossom because the possums eat the buds, but maybe because these bushes are new they didn't get nibbled.  What a lovely blossom!  "Paradise blush" is an appropriate name indeed.

I've never had any of my other taros put out a flower before.  And to be honest they're not exactly a stunning flower, but it's interesting to look at.  I wonder if it blossomed because it was slightly stressed by moving; it did go from a pond to the dirt.  Sometimes plants won't flower unless they're stressed slightly.  But otherwise it looks like a healthy plant so I'm not worried about it carking it.

And finally, an old plant in flower.  I planted these marigolds back in January to add some colour and attract bees to the back veggie patch.  I thought they'd have died out by now but they just keep flowering and flowering!  I just love them.  Oh and if you look carefully in the top-right corner of this photo, you'll see little sprouts.  It turns out the marigolds are self-seeding; we'll see if they survive the winter but they may be spreading on their own.  I have a feeling it's because I try to pluck off the dead flowerheads to encourage them to keep flowering ... except I can't always be bothered to throw the flowerheads into the compost and so I just drop them on the barkdust.  Surprise!  Some of those flowerheads had seeds in them!

new camellias

It's been a busy weekend in the garden over the long Easter break.  Re-doing the side bed was the biggest job but today I replanted two camellias that died in the summer heat.  I don't think they selected very good varieties for our climate, some of them need it to be a lot cooler and wetter.

I bought two camellias called "Paradise Blush" that are supposedly bred for the Australian climate and they're called a "summer survivor" on the tag.  The blooms look gorgeous, white with a tinge of pink, but not that it really matters since the possums tend to eat them anyway.

Before


After


Before


After


They're just little things now but hopefully they'll take off.  They got a good dose of compost and such when I planted them, and the rest of the row got a feed and a water too.

I also planted out this little tiny applemint plant.  I'd bought them as cuttings which meant they didn't have roots so I had them in a little pot for a few weeks.  But they'd started to make new leaves which told me they'd taken root, so I planted it out today.  It's a type of mint with a mild flavour and its leaves are variagated white and green.  It's still tiny but should look lovely when it's grown.