brunnera update

Two months ago this week I made cuttings of my brunnera Jack Frost.  Of the four cuttings, two of them now have long healthy roots and the other two rotted and died.  Look at those roots!  So I can officially report that brunnera will take from cuttings.

So today I moved them into their own punnets.  The leaves sure don't look like much but if I don't manage to kill them now they should start settling in and put out now growth.  Hopefully by the autumn they'll be big enough to plant out.  I just have to figure out where to plant them...

tomatoes are in at last!

I almost didn't think it would ever happen.  Look at how long and leggy my poor toms had gotten!  The basil's still small, though, I'll wait a bit longer before I plant that out.

I made a hug mistake, though.  It's a good idea to plant leggy seedlings several extra centimeters deep in the dirt to grow some extra roots.  When I plucked the leaves off my honey of Mexico, I did this.  Don't do this.  This is silly.  Trim off the leaves, don't yank them.  Good thing I had extra seedlings...

And now, at last, they're in the tub.  They only need a small stake at that size, but it won't be long until I'll be wrapping string all around them to keep them from flopping.  But will I have tomatoes before Christmas?  That's the real challenge in Australia!

jeepers, creepers

I thought I should report on the front path to our house.  It's not a very inspiring part of the garden, more of a chore to take care of.  It's involved lots of destruction, cutting down plum trees and ornamental plums.  They were pretty, but they constantly just into the narrow path and they were so shaded by the birches they'd go mildewy by the autumn.  So now this is all that's left - three lovely birch trees with camellias at one end and my kaffir lime at the other.

But I'm slowly starting to integrate some plants into the bed.  One annoyance is that blackbirds love kicking the barkdust into the path so I'm planting some creepers to keep the bark in place.  The first thing I planted was some cuttings of Kenilworth ivy.  Remember these?  Back in January they were little threads I'd pinched from a crack in the sidewalk.  Now there are three or four lush clumps already forming little purple flowers (you can't really see them in this photo).

But I also decided to mix it up with some native violets.  They're shade-lovers and look remarkably similar to Kenilworth ivy; if you look closely the leaves are shaped slightly differently.  I had to buy these but split the plant into two before planting it.

In addition to some creepers, I'm slowly planting some taller shade-lovers along the fence.  I've planted some cuttings of plectranthus but so far one died and two aren't thriving very well, we'll see how they go.  But I also bought a little white calla lily.  It's flowering for the first time now.  It's tiny now but one day will be a big, lush clump!

Hopefully one day this walk will be a lush, beautiful welcome walk to our house.

brunnera cuttings

I love my pretty little Brunnera "Jack Frost" and decided I'd try to see if I could get it to root from cuttings. Some plants, like rosemary, mint, salvias and plectranthus, will easily grow from cuttings; you just cut a section of stem, pick off the lower leaves, and roots grow from where the leaves used to be. But I couldn't tell from my internet research whether brunnera was a plant like that. But there's no harm in trying!

So I cut this flowering stalk from my brunnera. I cut off all the flowers and cut the stem into four pieces. I tried to give each stem a section where I picked off the leaves to see if roots would grow where the leaves used to be.

Then I dipped each cutting in root-hormone powder that's meant to encourage it to grow roots. I put them in a Ziploc bag with moist potting mix and sealed it closed to keep it from drying out. Now I just wait and hope! So far they haven't shriveled up or molded.

some plants for the porch

We haven't made much progress since getting the pergola put in; we finally chose an outdoor setting but it won't arrive for another fortnight.  But I've been thinking a lot about what plants to put in around the porch.

These beds used to be overflowing with the dwarf cumquats.  If my husband had his way they'd be pebbles or astroturf so we can walk on them without worrying.  I managed to convince him to try dichondra, a little low-growing native creeper.  It'll stay green all year round, unlike grass, and you can still walk on it.  They're just little tufts now but hopefully they'll spread quickly.  Now if I could just keep the blackbirds from making a mess of the new mulch...

I'm also taking some more cuttings of plecthranthus Mona lavender.  It's such a tough, gorgeous little plant I'll probably put a few in.  It's also nice to get your plants for free!

This is what Mama Lavender is looking like, by the way.  Still pretty compact and bushy although I think she might outgrow her spot this summer, considering how much she grew last year.  She's a pretty self-limiting plant though - the branches are brittle so if they grow into the path they get snapped off pretty easily.  Oh and how about those clivias?  This is their third year blooming and they've thrown out two pups (although the babies are still too small to bloom).

I'm also thinking of putting a few brunnera Jack Frost next to the porch too.  I've got this one flowering its head off in the western garden bed (the flowers are far more blue than the camera captured), it just thrives in dry shade and even when it's not in flower the leaves are so beautiful.  I'm not sure if these guys grow from cuttings but I might give it a try.

My goldfish are also having a bit of a transition period.  I figured out that their pot was leaking from a tiny crack on one side, so I had to drain it, seal the crack as best I could, then buy some pond sealer.  This took about a week to get organised, plus the sealant takes a week to dry.  The goldfish have been patient in their hotel room (aka a bucket) but I'm pretty sure they're looking forward to returning to their home!  It's getting pretty green in that bucket...

I'll keep you updated as the porch progresses!

final plans for the west bed

I widened the front half of the west bed last weekend and decided on ajuga reptans "black scallop". It's probably the darkest form of ajuga, I though the colour would be a nice contrast to the black stems on the colocasia, and the flowers are a nice bonus. They're just little now but they'll spread a fair bit.

Not that you can see them, but here's the bed with the ajuga in.

I though long and hard about what to put between the ajuga, if anything. I finally decided on more plectranthus "mona lavender" after being given an unexpected opportunity to try to strike some cuttings. Yet another limb snapped off (dang that plant is brittle) but this time I thought I'd try to make some new plants from it. I've got a whole set of cuttings going now! On the right is Kenilworth ivy, on the left are cuttings from my tequila blue salvia, and after this photo I added some from the plectranthrus. So far none of them have died and the salvia's already sprouting new growth.

In any case, the pletranthrus should look lovely with its dark green foliage and the purple-black undersides. I still haven't seen it flower yet but it's meant to be beautiful.

tomato scare

I came home after a particularly warm (20C!) winter day to find my tomato seedlings had done this!

I was so upset! I wasn't sure at first if they'd just dried out or the opposite had occurred, "damping off", when they're damp for too long and get killed by fungus. I instantly splashed them with water and within an hour found out they'd dried out, because two of the seedlings had already perked back up. It's the stupid little punnet, they're so small the dirt dries out really quickly. I'll never start seeds in punnets this small again. And I was so angry because I had planned to prick them out into larger punnet just two days after this happened; if I'd done it earlier this never would have happened.

Luckily by the end of the day two of them had actually perked back up so that you couldn't even tell they once looked like this. The third still looked pretty dead, but by Saturday when I went to prick them out, the dead seedling was starting to look alive again! I decided to reward this effort by very carefully pricking it out to see what happened. I have such admiration for this drive to survive even when you're sure something's got to be dead.

This is what the setup looks like now. They ran out of room in the smaller plastic bin so now they're in a cheap plastic cat litter tray (only ever used for gardening). Along the top row are the four tomato seedlings including, on the far left, the Tommy Toe that's still struggling for life. Next are the two Serrano chilies and then the lettuce leaf and cinnamon basils which are powering along. I've left the punnet of chili seeds just in case some of them have been waiting for the last two months before they felt like sprouting. Despite a few setbacks, I have high hopes that these guys will survive to the summer.

pricking out

Not all of my marigold seedlings came up and meanwhile in some punnets two seedlings germinated.  So this weekend I decided to prick out the double-ups and pot them into the empty punnets.  This is the first time I've done this but I think it went well.  You wait until the seedling has its first set of "true" leaves (not the two leaves that come straight out of the seed), but don't wait much longer or else it'll have a lot more roots that you can potentially damage.  You use a pencil to gently loosen the soil under the seedling, waiting until you feel the roots release their hold on the soil.  If you tug, you'll likely break the new roots.  And as you can see here, they do have a decent set of roots on them even when they're this small.  No wonder they grow so slowly when they're this small, they're spending as much time building roots as building leaves.

NOTE: I later found out that you're not meant to hold them by the stem as I'm doing here.  You're meant to hold them by a leaf, preferably the seed leaf not the true leaf.  If you accidentally smoosh the stem, the whole seedling dies but if you accidentally smoosh a leaf it'll survive.

Once you've got one out, you just carefully place it in a hole dug into another punnet.  I watered both before and after with a diluted seasol solution.  Seasol is made from seaweed and it's not a fertilizer, rather it nourishes the roots and reduces shock.  I'm optimistic that all of my transplants should take just fine.

This is good practice as I'll soon have to do the same thing with my tomato seedlings.  They're in tiny punnets and next weekend I'll move the four that came up into their own four-inch punnets.  Oh and in the meantime, my lettuce-leaf basil came up exactly six days after sewing, just like the cinnamon basil.  But on the chili front, I still have only the one Serrano seedling.  Chilies just don't seem to like me one bit.

more propagating

OK I've had to modify the setup significantly so as not to cook the sprouts.  I've used a folded-up plastic crate.  What you see here is the base, and below it is a few layers of plastic lattice so the heat slowly seeps through the air and through the plastic to get to the tray.

Something must be working because 6 days after planting the tomatoes started to sprout and so did the cinnamon basil.  I still only have the one Serrano seedling, so I got impatient and planted more chili seeds.  In doing so I found at least one seed that had just started to germinate so perhaps they were just taking their time (like 6 weeks, seriously taking their time).  I've also got some lettuce-leaf basil that I put in just today.

It's all going along nicely now!

advanced propagating

I tried growing tomatoes and chilies from seeds last year with disastrous results.  I didn't water them enough and overheated them.  But I'm determined to try again this year, using an even more complicated system (yeah I know, adding more complication probably isn't the right move but oh well).  What you see here is my little propagation corner in an upstairs window.  We have a plastic bin with a few seed trays in it - two types of chilies in the purple, two types of tomatoes in the black and some cinnamon basil in the red.  But this year I decided to get a heat pad to keep the soil warm, ideally at 20C.  Propagation trays are fairly expensive so instead I found a reptile head pad on eBay, the kind you put under a terrarium.  You can't see it in this photo because it's buried under four layers of bubble wrap, plus two rolls of newspaper to hold the tray above the heat.  Why?  Because it's a very good heat pad, so good it made the soil 32C!  I'm glad I tested it on a punnet with no seeds first, that would have cooked the seeds.  Even with this set-up it's still a bit to hot to I've unplugged it on nice days.

I'm really not sure it was a good idea in the end.  One of the chilies sprouted last week, before I got the heat pad, after 4 weeks germination - none of the other 5 chilies have though, no even after getting the heat pad.  The tomatoes and basil I just planted this weekend so here's hoping I don't mess this up for a second year in a row.

In other news global warming is ticking along nicely, we had a balmy 20C day here today.  My designer twig (the mandarin/tangelo tree) is putting out another flush of growth, and this time there are tiny flower buds forming!  We'll see if it's strong enough to actually grow fruit, it's less than a year old though so I'm not sure.  And my sad little Japanese maple may have survived last year's horrible ordeal, there are lots of tiny red buds and a few bunches of leaves just starting to peak through.  It really is feeling like spring!

planning for the summer veggie patch

We've had some very chilly nights to remind me that winter isn't over yet.  But visions of summer vegetables are already dancing in my head.  I'm planning on growing tomatoes, chillies, lettuce and pumpkin again as well as rockmelon (cantaloupe) and maybe soybeans (for edamame, steamed fresh soybeans).  Chillies take a long time to start going (last year I had a lot of jalapenos still green on the bush when it cooled down) so I've decided to start them inside already.

Last year I had woeful luck starting tomatoes and chillies from seed.  I used crap potting mix and didn't water them enough so multiple generations died and I had to go with seedlings.  This year I'm using good quality propagation mix and I know a lot more about how to take care of the sprouts.  Plus I tried a new planting method; I put my seeds between layers of wet paper towel. That way I have better control over planting depth and I don't have to worry as much about the seeds moving around when I water. We'll see if it's a help or a hindrance.

I've planted some marigolds using the same method, half with paper towel and half without. They should germinate quite quickly so I'll soon have an idea if the method is a complete disaster.  In the meantime that hopefully means I'll have marigolds in the garden withing a month or two.  I do love the bright, cheerful marigolds and I was sad when they died off in the cold.  With my luck we'll get another cold snap and the baby marigolds will die off!

the nursery

I've started referring to one corner of my front porch as "the nursery".  It started when Bunnings delivered somethings and left us with a little basket which I used to keep my succulent cuttings together (don't ask about the succulents, they didn't work out too well).  But now I've expanded the enterprise a bit.

I've decided that if I'm planning on planting a lot of flowers, I'll do the bit of work beforehand and try to grow them from seed first.  So here are purple punnets planted with alyssum seeds.  Alyssum is a small white flower I planted together with salvia, you can just see some to the right of the photo peeking out from the flower pot.  I wasn't a huge fan at first but I've been won over.  They're tough, they flower almost all year round, and they smell lovely.  So I'm starting a bunch of them to plant in front of my geraniums along the house, at least until the geraniums get a bit of height to them.

And since my "nursery" is at the front door next to my pot plants, I won't forget to water it!