Self care by growing a garden

[Smc]

Heya all.

One of my carefully defended self care strategies is my membership of our local garden club. It gives me a social day out with a group who have similar interests. Yesterday the group went on a daytrip out to a native plant nursery and then lunch in a very pleasant botanic garden, with an optional afternoon tea stopover at a nursery that we knew had a good cafe on site. So I came home with an interesting bunch of natives to add to the garden. Morning's been spent planting a semi prostrate wattle under my casaurina, and a correa, a prostranthea and an adenathus in my shrubby never-watered patch down the back. The adenanthus is a red flowered shub that's got incredibly soft and fuzzy feeling leaves- the nurseryman kept us amused with the way he was absently stroking the leaves of a bush the whole time he was giving us an introduction to their nursery... question time at the end, one of the ladies in the group asked "Do you need to stroke it every day?" and I added that I was wondering how long before it started purring. I might need to dub it the Happy Kitty plant. 

[Former-Member]

@Smc is your happy kitty plant also called a woolly bush?

[Smc]

That's the one.

[Appleblossom]

@Former-MemberI am just letting the bulbs scattered here and there do their own thing.

I should buy a trellis, but not planning on spending on new plants, as I have got a diverse range, and believe in self seeding and propagating as much as I can .. in other words .. am tight .. lol

My son pulled out 2 dead bushes which was good.

[Former-Member]

No shame in being frugal @Appleblossom,
I look for plants that self multiply or can be divided too. Am aiming to have a crisis proof garden, Mr Darcy has been out weeding again so I am going to have to see what I can do about filling the spaces.

[Appleblossom]

I tried 2 Eremophilas, and they both could not stand the wind conditions which comes off the bay and is focussed down a channel.

I popped a small apple tree in one hole. 

I had to move on to the zoo as I had taken over every bit of growing space within cooee ... one piano parent joked that I would start digging up the road ..lol ... they had come to me for 10 years and knew me well ...its probably true if I dont have an outlet for that part of my personality.

I aim to spend less time in garden ... its now established ... more trimming I guess ...we'll see .....

Its a great thing to share ... though I get that Mr Darcy is probably about as keen as my son ... which is ok .. it would be boring is we all had the exactly the same passions.

[Former-Member]

Got out into the garden today, planted some salvias a friend gave us but I suspect they might not be frost hardy, the stems do not appear woody enough.
@Smc no go for a woolly bush on my plot, nursery vetoed but got some bauera instead. Ended up moving two camellias that weren't doing so well and will put the new plants in their place but bit more weeding required before I can do that
@Appleblossom, Mr Darcy is not overly fond of gardening, just wants things to look nice. He does the heavy duty stuff and I fine tune. I need to ensure that I only ask him to do a bit at a time as he has been struggling since his trauma.
@Shaz51 hoping your gardening stint hasn't given you plumbago (oops ... lumbago).

[Smc]

Hope the salvias surprise you @Former-Member. Maybe they'll be tougher than they look.

The first of my drastically renovated veggie beds is coming together. It now has compost and manure added to the top, a few silverbeet seeds scattered down one end (Rainbow Chard) and the existing fennel plants have had their seedheads taken off and the long stems are cut down to just above ground level to encourage the "bulblets" to develop. 

I went out this morning, and found a couple of very clearly defined wallaby footprints on the unplanted half... and some fresh manure from the same source. I will very definitely be fencing off the beds as I plant them. Planning on using old mattress spring frames. I'm hoping singles are tall enough to discourage the wallabies. I know they can jump that high if they want to, but it would be a pest having to make it taller than that.

I bought some reduced plants yesterday; a couple of punnets of snapdragons, some dill that's going to seed and an abutilon. Some of the snapdragons have gone into the veggie bed. I often get stumped for where to plant annual flowers, except of course for the enthusiastic self seeders that plant themselves wherever they please. I figure that if I include them in the veg beds, I'll have colour as well as food ready to pick.

Between collecting and barrowing manure and compost, digging it into the bed, doing some pruning, clambering under armco barriers and up and down a steep bank to collect apples (see Hot Choc thread) plus general walking around, I got a fairly thorough physical workout yesterday. Today it's raining. 😄 Yay, free watering!

[Former-Member]

hello

I love gardening but when unwell the garden is neglected. the size of it means i lose quite a few plants.

watering is an issue as well.

i had various salvia but find they need quite a bit of water.

white rosemary is beautiful

does depend on how much sun, morning afternoon, how much wind, frost etc.

i will get back to it one day

had a beautiful protea in a pot at the front that was weeping with an off white colour.

[Shaz51]

Hello @Former-Member, @Former-Member, @Smc, @Appleblossom, @Faith-and-Hope

these all came out , tried not to get the weeds in the photos