New garden path! Fairy enchanted!

It was a long term plan of mine, to have an informal path under the trees in the front garden, from the letterbox, round the mulberry tree and to the steps under the pergola. The idea was that this path would give definition to the garden beds and keep our feet to the path, where we might be able to move around even in wet weather without getting too muddy. 

I wanted a path that would be relatively cheap and easy for us to put down ourselves. We are in our early 70s and so brick paving is a bit hard on the old knees and not a DIY project.

In the end, we chose a metal corrugated garden edging and a pile of woodchips which we had delivered. 

It took 4 days of activity - about an hour at a time, which was quite enough for a couple of older gardeners like us. DH laid the edging and I did the mulching. 

I have been planting volunteer plants like yarrow and pelargoniums on the garden side of the path and I expect that by next spring the place will look great. 

AND then we added lights!

I am delighted with the results! The wood chips are easy to walk on, and they keep my feet dry when the garden is wet. Each day I walk along the path and pull out any nasturtiums who want to grow in it, but that only takes a moment. The fairy lights give me a little bit of joy every evening. 

Is that rain? and other adventures

Apparently Western Australia was in a 'heat bubble" with unseasonably warm temperatures in late April and early May. We had had lovely warm days of about 25C with cooler nights, but worryingly, very little rain at all. Finally about a week ago, the rain started to fall!

I was harvesting limes, grapefruit, tangelos and limes, and still hand watering the snow peas and garlic I planted expecting winter rains. I still have so much citrus at this time of the year, and often I offer it to neighbours for their use. 

DH made a lime chutney but was disappointed in it -he thought the skins should have been softer after cooking. We left it in the jar for several months, and have discovered that now it is exceptionally yummy! 

Our 3 year old passionfruit vine has finally started fruiting. I grew it up over the dead lemon in the front garden, bordering our neighbours' driveway, so we are all getting excited to see the large round fruit appear. I check it every day to see the fruits change from green to yellow, when they will be ripe. It has been too many years since we had our own fresh passionfruit. 

This beautiful view of King George Sound's entrance is from nearly a week we had away in Kinjarling Albany -our favourite place for a holiday, 5 hours south of Perth. We had a really really good time. Due to the late winter, it was warm and sunny most days and while it is a worry for farmers, I have to admit it was a lovely time for us. 

I found this original watercolour of a beach shack on Wadjemup Rottnest island, in the op shop. I really love it!  We are gradually filling up the wall space over the sofa bed with a gallery of original paintings.

The autumn weather has brought seasonal flowers in our native vegetation: banksia and eucalypts in particular. 

I have been pleased with the roses in my garden which have enjoyed the autumn weather and put on a nice show of blooms, too. I am trying to put more perennials in my front garden so that there is a more full, abundant look out there. 

So glad to have a warm and comfortable home for the winter season, so grateful to have some rain at last! This is Dora who loves to sit on quilts, and will seek them out if they are available anywhere in the house. 

Thanks for visiting! 

One more turn of the summer merry-go-round

We are all done with summer, at least emotionally, but summer is keeping on keeping on. Just when I was all inspired to get into autumn planting, the hot weather came back for one more go. It was all I could do to keep up with the watering and keeping things alive! 

Mind you,there have been a few showers, and the temperatures have slowly started to go back into temperate temperatures. 

While I am waiting  I got this lovely book by Huw Richards called The Permaculture Garden, with lots of lovely ideas for me to be thinking through. 

He has a very clear and concise way of explaining things, and the diagrams are beautiful. His Welsh garden is so lush! I thought I might find it too Northern Hemisphere to be of much use, but really there is so much that is relevant here. 

The hoya was moved to a slightly sunnier spot and immediately celebrated with lots of buds. 

We took a little trip to Bunbury to see the wonderful Gregorian Brothers in concert, which was sooo, sooo beautiful.

On the way there and back we had a chance for a some sightseeing in Mandurah and Pinjarra. 

Having had a lovely lunch with a friend in Pinjarra, we visited a favourite op shop there and found a treasure: an original oil painting for $15. The frame was in need of some repairs, but DH was able to fix it in about 10 minutes or so. We really like it. 

Sometimes the weather turns into autumn properly in Perth at Easter, so I have my fingers crossed for next week. 

 

Gardening after a long dry summer -inspiration!

Well, the big news is that it RAINED! So yes, it is officially 'autumn" or actually it is bunuru, the Noongar name for the season where the storms begin and the weather gets a bit cooler - low 30C rather than high 30s-40C-  and the Marri trees are in bloom. We had a fabulous thunderstorm this week and it has made everything greener and more refreshed. 

I harvested the pomegranates, to save what I can of the crop because various birds or rats have been eating them. I took a few to a local food pantry, along with some fresh limes from our tree, and they were well received. Now I need to get the kernels out of these in the bowl, so we can freee them for salads later in the year.

A bit of rain makes Perth gardeners think of planting things! I went to a garden cntre and bought a new hibiscus, some herbs and a salvia for the front garden, which I have been renovating. I have scattered calendula and marigold seeds in there as well. Our rear garden is pretty much given over to the fruit trees and productive raised beds.  The front garden, however, whilst it is wonderful with both fruit and flowers for much of the year, looks pretty drab at the end of summer, as very few plants flower in the heat, and everything is a bit stressed. 

I want to plant things closer together and have more foliage, at the very least.

This is a rose called glamis castle, I think. It is never very abundant in summer, but the spring and autumn suit it better. 

The plants that can take the heat in this climate -frangipani and hibiscus - are going to be featured more. My two white roses are survivors, but they have shown that they just need more water than our drip irrigation, 2 mornings per week as allowed, can deliver if they are going to flower consistently. I have changed the watering delivery method to help support them, along with a bit of handwatering too. 

I have planted an apple blossom hibiscus and a purple one called Hawaiian Skies.

Everyone says that salvia are tough and long-flowering, but I have tried two before, which died. I have a new one, and will take special care of it and hope it becomes established. 

I have put another frangipani in the ground -it was a cutting which I grew on in a pot since last year- and also a lemon verbena which I also had in a pot. 

There will be some lower storey plants -yarrow, iris, pelargoniums, daisies, along with some herbs like thai basil and parsley. I have scattered marigold and calendula seeds.

 

Getting Inspired

There are a couple of places I have found real inspiration recently. One is the wonderful Regenerative Skills podcast, which connects me with a community of permaculturists around the world, who are working in hard conditions, and who often have very few resources.  It is a source of hope.  

Hugh Edward's You Tube channel is also a fantastic resource. I loved the 9 tips one which helped me get on to the job of processing my seed for storage. This picture below is fennel which I had been drying in the laundry. It smells amazing! I have come to really think that fennel is an under appreciated herb. It grows as a perennial, has tall ferny fronds and is so useful in salads and for creating a bed for your roast to sit on in the roasting pan. You can eat the seeds and they germinate well in the garden and will grow without much water. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIyoaLX5LQs&ab_channel=HuwRichards

I have been letting these self-sown pumpkins run under the citrus trees. There are about 5 which have survived and grown well, but they do try to take over!

The limes are gowing fresh and juicy at the moment. We have mandarins and lemons ripening up too. 

I have some elephant garlic to grow, when the temperatures drop a bit more, and I need to decide on other winter vegetables - we love snow peas so I want a lot of them!

It feels so good to be energised after the hot summer, and I am looking forward to seeing my garden green up soon. 

 

Verging on the verge -and other garden stuff

 A couple of years ago, listening to a permaculture podcast about water and soil, I thought "I have too much brick paving on this block".  It gets hot in summer, it is ugly, it offers nothing for biodiversity. Within days I was on my knees pulling up the brick paving on our verge. The neighbours thought I was insane!

I started stacking bricks up down the driveway. A few at a time, a couple of days a week. The stacks got higher and higher. What on earth was I going to do with them? Fortunately, my son and daughter in law wanted some brick paving at their place, so they took the bricks away and helped me get the last of them up. 

I didn't do much preparation for a garden, apart from spreading a couple of loads of mulch on the top of the compacted yellow sand below the brick paving. The soil was so compacted that I needed an auger to drill through it to start planting. Quite a few things died, but some of them lived and are now thriving. Several more loads of mulch have begun to get the soil organisms growing again. Gradually I realised that I needed to use a sprinkler one morning per week for 10 minutes to keep things alive over our summer. We have a challenging summer!

 The garden keeps growing, though, so when we did the Great Retaining Wall we had leftover rocks. Some of these were bordering the garden near the house, but They were pretty bad at retaining the soil which l fell out onto the path and they were uneven. As part of our retaining wall project, we pulled them up. 

I didn't want the rocks in the garden any more, so we advertised them as "Free" and pretty quickly they were snapped up by someone was happy to get them to use to build a waterfall at their place. 

DH then used the old concrete retaining wall blocks in the old retaining wall on our eastern boundary, and made this lovely wall under the grapevine out the front. 

More Plants!

Over the autumn our city council offered free native seedlings suitable for verge gardens. I got a pack of 10, and planted 9 - gave one away because it was a grevillea and I am allergic to them. They will help to fill up the spaces in the verge garden and will be habitat for wild birds and insects. I am eager to watch them grow now the rains have com. 

The verge still has one extra parking space for visitors. It is well known in the neighbourhood because this is where I put excess produce and people come and help themselves. The limes are followed by grapefruit and lemons and olives. 

On Mother's day I was given 5 kangaroo paws of various colours.  They should do well here, despite the harsh conditions. 

I am hoping to see a lot more pretty verges like this one in our suburb. Maybe this one can  be a bit of inspiration!

Autumn is here?

 We haven't had much to identify our weather as autumn yet. It has been so hot and dry! This week, though, the temperatures have taken a dive toward 'mild' instead of 'hot' and I am actually wearing jeans for the first time in 6 months. On the strength of this alone, I planted today some lovely native plants which were free from the City Council. I got the 'verge pack' and planted them to fill in gaps in the verge out the front. If it ever starts to rain, they will get a good start on growing before the next hot summer, but I am prepared to water them as necessary to get them started on life. 

I gave away a grevillea to a friend because they make me very itchy, but I have planted a prostrate banksia (Banksia petiolaris), Black Kennedia (Kennedia nigricans), Woolly netbush (Calothamnus Histutus), Grey Cottonheads (Conostylis Candicans), Emu Bush (Eremophila glabra), Cushion bush (Leucophyta brownii), Ground Banksia (Banksia blechnifolia),  and a Rose Banjine (Pimelia rosea).  

Last week we had a worker build us a new retaining wall across the whole of our eastern boundary. It was a job that needed doing for a long tim. It was a mixture of jarrah sleepers and concrete blocks but it was falling down! It is so nice now it is completed. I still have to get plants and reticulation sorted along this whole length though.  The good news is that the jasmine has survived both last year's new fence and this year's retaining wall builds, and has not skipped a beat. 

The citrus trees are now ripening so here we go again with our massive harvest!

The ruby grapefruit are so yummy as a breakfast juice. We feel very luxurious having this resource to use and share.

DH is going well after last year's knee replacement surgery. We even have managed a couple of gentle beach walks. He has signed up for his other knee to be done in June and hopes that, when recovered, we can do many more. 

This gorgeous Elna Automatic was given to me by a friend, whose mother got it from her sister. Both of these ladies are in their 90s! I took it along to a retired sewing machine mechanic for a service and he was very impressed with the quality of the engineering. It is a lovely machine, and the knee lever is a joy to use. I will gradually get more familiar with the machine and its wonderful selection of stitches.

Last weekend we opened our home for the third time as part of Australia's Sustainable House Open Day.  We showed 26 people over the house and garden in the course of the day, in four time slots.  They were very appreciative of us showing how we have adapted a 1970s home -such as the ones they live in- to be as sustainable as possible.

See all the houses which were open at https://sustainablehouseday.com/

Apart from all these things, we have been busy with grandparenting duties- our son and daughter in law have moved into a shiny new house and that is quite a bit of work, to get packed up and then start unpacking at the new place. 

Midsummer update

 

Here we are still, in midsummer, and just after Christmas 2023. A lot has happened since my last post, so I thought I should do an update. 

Christmas was quite lovely. Made special by family and friends.

This little picture is of a series of fairy light strings which now grace our home. Our grapevine has these coloured LEDs, and there is a string of white solar powered ones which enchant a small area near the DDs room.

There is a new bee bath near a frangipani and Geisha Girl duranta repens which I have decorated with glass beads and stones so the bees can escape the water while drinking. 

We finally got our ugly old asbestos fence replaced with green colourbond. The workers did a great job, and I am happy to report that the large jasmine vine has had a big haircut but is very much alive at the end of the patio. This picture above was just after the fence was installed. Since then I have been decorating the space and seeing what I can do about plants. 

DH and I escaped for a week to Albany for a holiday prior to him having a knee replacement in the first week of December. He is not driving at the moment due to his pain medication, but is doing well. He can walk around inside very well, and has ditched his wheeled mobility aid for a simple walking stick. We are now in 'rehab' mode which will ramp up as his healing progresses.

We are very grateful for a modern and free health system! 

I haven't done much quilting for a while -but I hope that now the surgery and Christmas is behind us, I can get back into the several projects I have on the go! 

Thank you for visiting this site. Gosh, I hope we can all see a renewal of peace for the new year. 

Getting ready for summer -it is going to be hot and dry

It didn't take long for the winter rains to dry up here in Perth. Far too early, for me, the forecasts began to be for weeks of no rain, and in this Mediterannean climate that could go on until March. 

The sandy soil dries out quickly unless mulched and shaded.

What is even more concerning are the reports and predictions that this summer will be hotter than ever, and the sea temperatures hotter also.  The toll on our environment is going to be a major concern.  

Click here for the BOM prediction of hotter, drier weather in Perth  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-01/el-nino-weather-pattern-in-wa/103032024

 

About two years ago, Perth and the South West had one of those 'heat bubble' type of weather patterns. The accustomed afternoon sea breezes never arrived. The houses got hotter and hotter and had no time to cool down before the next hot day arrived. It was just after Christmas and went on for about 10 days. 

All the passive cooling strategies we had set up around here, all the shade sails and grapevine pergolas, all the ceiling fans were suddenly not enough.

It was hard to sleep.

Plants died in the heat. Trees were stressed.

We went to the shops to see what we could add to the house to help cool us down. They were selling out of anything which might cool people down - fans, portable air conditioners, the lot. The sales staff confessed the warehouses were empty and that even if you could buy something more permanent like an evaporative air conditioner, there were no installers free to put them in. One guy said his own flat was too hot to sleep in. 

In the end we got a house wide evaporative air conditioning system installed in March of that year, and we LOVE it. In our dry climate it works really well, is very cheap to run and if there is any run off I was able to put in on the garden via a low-pressure sprinkler. 

There are times, however, when we know this system won't be enough. If there is a lot of smoke due to bushfires, or if the humidity is too high, you can't run the evaporative air conditioner. It is not normally a problem in Perth, but the climate is changing! 

We saved up for months, and this week we put in a couple of Reverse Cycle Air Conditioners. They are in the bedrooms. This is so that we can ensure a good night's sleep, and we can always retreat to the bedrooms if the rest of the house is too uncomfortable.

DD is also happy that it will also give her a heater for the winter time. These RCACs are efficient but can be noisy, especially for neighbours. In the process of cooling rooms, they vent hot air outside, which makes the problem worse for our cities. 

Apart from this, I am working hard to get the garden ready for the summer. The reticulation is always in need of some tweaking after winter. I have shade on the veggie beds. I try to grow climate hardy plants, but in summer there is really not much which will survive a 45C day, especially if it goes on for weeks. 

Of course, some of these strategies are not available to people who are renting. There are landlords who do not even have insulation in the roofs of places they let out, and in this climate it should be mandated by law. 

I support the team of activists at Better Renting . Better Renting is a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. They are doing a survey this summer of the type of conditions renters are facing, and also will be providing strategies for those who are too hot in their rental. Click the link to find out more. 

Meanwhile, I have found some tips for renters here from Milkwood -and they are really practical. 

 https://www.milkwood.net/2022/10/10/rental-permaculture/?fbclid=IwAR3gSv5SRP-RpaeRa-WxkQ9rq0XrPmZ07lugZyteNMPN-1_Qc7VBReBxZdM