September 27th, 2021
Part 3: The final Countdown
In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .
A very difficult spot that experiences 40 degrees C temperatures in summer and winter temparatures below 0 and even minus 5 degrees C at times.
A hard clay soil that had been compacted by heavy vehicles driving over part of it for many years.
The planting also included these very tough and hardy plants.
- Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m
- Phillyrea angustifolia . Drought, heat, frost and salt tolerant. Phillyrea are olive related which explains their toughness-dark green glossy leaf with serrated edge, making a contrast to the other silvers in the bed. Height to 2.5m, slow growing. Alternative to English box. can be kept to under 1m in height
- Aloes
- Other succulents
- Beschoneria yuccoides-Mexican lily, is a perennial succulent with a rosette of slender strap-like leaves that can grow to 1m in length.
- Rhagodia spinescens Salt bush-Small, native shrub with silvery, grey triangular foliage growing to approximately 1.5m. Tolerates all soil types and coastal conditions
- Atriplex nummularia, commonly called Old Man Saltbush, a large grey shrub to 2 m tall and to 4-5 m wide, with brittle woody branches
Glenice said in her post that
She said of the garden that;
We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.Continued to give any plants in the area a deep slow water by hand to ensure they receive a good amount of water closest their roots.
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| Garden at the Berkshires-photo Glenice Buck |
- Selected plants that will cope with the tough conditions that area hot and dry conditions.
- Over planted the slope- I planted out all the plants with closer spacing than recommended as they will help protect and buffer each other in this tough location. They will grow, settle in and get established more quickly together.
- When you're dealing with tough locations like this you also need to have patience and give the garden soil time to take in all these improvements. Soil preparation is very important and you should try to hold off planting before the soil is ready - haha! try telling a gardener to do that when there is open soil / spare space in the garden. I didn't wait!
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape designer and Arboriculture consultant.
September 27th, 2021
Part2 Tough Garden Bed
In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .
- We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
- Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
- Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
- Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
- Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.
She said of the garden that they did this process listed above ,every year for 5 years but it wasn't until the 3 year mark that there was a turn around in plants being able to survive.
Without those years of soil preparation, the plants would not have been able to thrive.
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| Miscanthus transmorrisonensis |
Planting Palette Glenice used for this area - lots of silvers!
- Miscanthus transmorrisonensis-Evergreen Feather grass, evergreen leaves to 80cm tall by 100cm wide fountain-like mounds
- Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ or Blue Switch grass is special for its dramatic, metallic blue foliage and for its strong upright habit to around 140cm.
- Senecio viravira- a beautiful rounded evergreen shrub with silver-white dissected leaves topped by soft lemon flowers. One of the best silvers. Sun loving and drought tolerant. 80cm x 100cm.
- Artemisia Powis Castle- a hardy, bushy, low growing shrub that has very attractive, soft, silvery grey, deeply divided foliage
- Olea europaea 'Piccolo' suits really tough conditions - drought, frost, poor soil, no irrigation. Grows to 2m
- Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m
- Philorea
- Aloes
- Other succulents
- Beschoneria yuccoides-Mexican lily, is a perennial succulent with a rosette of slender strap-like leaves that can grow to 1m in length.
- Salt bush
- Atriplex nummularia, commonly called Old Man Saltbush, a large grey shrub to 2 m tall and to 4-5 m wide, with brittle woody branches
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.
August 30th, 2021
Scientific name: Leptospermum lanigerum
Common Name: Woolly tea tree
Family: Myrtaceae
Etymology: leptos, meaning slender, and sperma, meaning seed.
lanigerum, is named using the Latin word for wool-bearing, describing the silky hairy leaves and hairy buds, shoots and young capsules.
Height: 3m by 3m wide
Location: any soil in sun and will tolerate heavy shade. Frost hardy to -7C
Description: Dense shrub to small erect tree with persistent fibrous bark on larger stems, smaller stems shedding in stringy strips.
- Not all tea trees have green leaves, and this one has pewter grey or silver tiny leaves with typical 5 petalled tea tree flowers.
- May be limbed into a small tree. Light summer water though very drought adapted. Excellent background shrub or screen or large informal hedge.
Takes well to pruning as the leaves are tiny and the more you prune the bush will become more dense.
Listen to the podcast to find out more
I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado
August 30th, 2021
pt3
Scientific Name: Westringia fruiticosa
Common Name: Coastal Rosemary
Family: Lamiaceae (mint family)
Leaves: green, with a covering of short hairs giving the plant a silvery tint . Leaves are up to 2 centimetres long, narrow and pointed and set closely in whorls around the stem.
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| Westringia 'Grey Box' |
Flowers: Appear in my garden from September onwards with November seeing a main flush. Typical of flowers in the mint family either in white or pale mauve with a couple of reddish spots near the throat of the flowers. This is a bee guide for Aussie native bees.
Looks like rosemary but it isn't and Adrian regards it as the 'murraya' of the Aussie native plant world.
Tough as 'old boots' seen hugging the cliffs and down to beach level, either prostrate or several feet high depending on situation.
A useful garden plant that has been hybrised extensively.
Westringia "Aussie Box' and 'Grey Box' is a great alternative to box hedging.
TIP:Adrian recommends use mechanical shears instead of electric or battery operated shears for better results when pruning
Listen to the podcast to find out more
I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado
August 30th, 2021
pt 2 Silver leafed plants
Scientific name:Rhagodia spinescens
Common Name: Aussie flat bush; spiny saltbush
Family: Chenopodiaceae
Height: 0.5-1.5m tall by 1.5-4metres wide.
Flowers:January -April, tiny cream panicles, fairly insignificant.
Conditions: frost and mildly drought tolerant, best suited for temperate and semi-arid regions.
Location: tolerant of soil types and will grow in full sun or dry shade.
Uses: prune to shape as a hedge or leave to make a groundcover.
Quite a vigorous grower and hugs the ground so makes great habitat for native reptiles and small birds.
Ozbreed has a compact form makes a great ground cover and performs better if it is pruned annually or more often if a manicured look is desired. 30-50cm x 1m wide
Listen to the podcast to find out more
I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado
August 30th, 2021
PLANT OF THE WEEK
All About Australian Native Plants with Silver Leaves.
Plants with grey or silver leaves are adapted to a drier environment because the colour of the leaf better reflects the sun than green leaves regardless of the size of the leaf.
This in turn means the plant uses less water for its functions.
There's usually more to the story as is the case with eucalypt trees having a thick waxy coating that makes the leaves look silver or grey in the first place. This waxy coating is added protection from the sun's rays.
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| Eucalyptus perriniana |
Mature leaves are often different from juvenile leaves not only in shape and size but orientation.
Mature eucalypt leaves hang vertically to reduce exposure to high levels of radiation and water loss.
Silver leaves don’t just have to be about small shrubs and ground covers, there’s some beaut examples of silver leafed gums.
pt1 A Couple of Eucalypts with Silver Leaves.
- Two great silver leafed gums were our picks:Eucalyptus perriniana and Eucalyptus cinerea
Silver leaves can be so attractive in the garden, in the vase or just in the landscape.
The add texture and structure to a garden. But they also can brighten a dark spot in a garden where dark green would just disappear in the gloom.
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| Eucalyptus cinerea |
Other fabulous silver leafed eucalypts
- You could also try Eucalyptus pulverulenta, known as the Silver-leaved Mountain Gum.
- There’s a dwarf form of this one called Baby Blue which only grows to 3m.
- The Silver-leaved Mountain Gum is an unusual Eucalypt (especially for eastern Australia) because it hangs onto juvenile foliage into maturity. Plants rarely produce adult leaves.
Listen to the podcast to find out more
I'm talking with Adrian O’Malley, native plant expert and officianado
August 24th, 2021
Edna Walling and Bickleigh Vale part 2
Last week, I introduced you to Edna Walling was one of Australia’s most influential garden designers of the 20th century.
The people that live in the village of about 20 homes, are all in love with Edna's design principles.
In spring, the gardens are like fairlyland, with flowering wisterias, crabapples, flowering cherries, birches, hornbeams. hawthorns, plums, apricots, oaks and elms .
"Edna Walling had a free and easy attitude to garden maintenance and she believed that every window of a house should have a view of the garden, to create the effect of bringing the garden into the house."
Edna Walling came to appreciate Australian flora more and more and started to incorporate many native species in her designs even early on.
I talk again with Trisha Dixon, garden author and photographer.
August 24th, 2021
EDNA WALLING & BICKLEIGH VALE
Part 1
Edna Walling was one of Australia’s most influential garden designers of the 20th century but I daresay, not too many people have heard of her.
Edna was Walling was born in 1896, in Yorkshire and grew up in the village of Bickleigh Devon, England but came to Australia at 17 years of age.
Edna was influenced by her father and studied landscape design at Burnley Horticultural College in Melbourne.
Walling was awarded her government certificate in horticulture in December 1917, and after some years jobbing as a gardener she commenced her own landscape design practice in the 1920s.
Her plans from the 1920s and 1930s show a strong architectural framework with 'low stone walls, wide pergolas and paths – always softened with a mantle of greenery'.
While doing some garden research I happened on one of her most famous creations called Bickleigh Vale in the Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark in the foothills of the Dandenongs.
- She just happened on some land while out bushwalking and convinced a bank manager to lend her money to buy the land and build her first house 'Sonning.'
Who better to talk about them is someone who has researched Edna Walling for the last 40 years.I'll be talking with Trisha Dixon, garden author and photographer and sometime tour leader of gardens.
Trisha mentions that she found that actual village that this was modelled on, the real 'Bickleigh Vale ; in Devon, in England.
Listen to parts 1 & 2 of the podcast below.
A quote from
https://www.bickleighvalevillage.com.au/properties.html
is this quote
In the early 1920s Edna Walling acquired land at Mooroolbark where she built a house for herself - 'Sonning'. Here she lived and worked, establishing her nursery and gathering around her a group of like-minded people for whom she designed picturesque 'English' cottages and gardens. She named the area Bickleigh Vale village.
The houses and outbuildings that were designed or approved by Edna Walling in what she termed 'the English style' include her own home 'Sonning' which was rebuilt in 1936 following the destruction of 'Sonning I' in a fire,
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| Bickleigh Vale Village |
Have a listen to part 1, a bit of Edna’s history and a bit about Bickley Vale.
We’ll continue next with more about the actual village and also more about Edna’s vision in creating beautiful gardens.
If you have any feedback email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675
August 19th, 2021
Garden Snips vs Secateurs
You would think that gardening tools would have all the same name pretty much all around the world.
What else would you call a spade ?
Perhaps a trowel may have a few different names, but what about secateurs and garden snips?
Are they the same thing?
- Secateurs are sometimes called pruning shears or hand pruners .
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| My Toolkit: Felco No8 secateurs |
- Secateurs can be bypass style, where the cutting blade passes a curved non-cutting 'anvil.'
- Secateurs can also be anvil style where the cutting blade cuts into a 'anvil.'
- Good quality secateurs will cut easily, feel comfortable to hold and spare parts are able to be purchased.
- Secateurs are used for the 'green' wood on plants cutting easily up to the diameter of a person's fingers.
Garden snips ( bottom of picture) are closer in appearance to scissors, with two cutting blades. Unlike scissors, they have a spring to make repeated cutting of plant material easier.
- Garden snips are best used for trimming off spent flowers on plants such as calibroachoa, petunias, and other annuals and perennials. Light trimming of soft 'green' plant material is OK as long as the stems or branches are not too thick. Garden snips don't have the cutting power of secateurs.
Let’s find out more
I'm talking with Tony Mattson, general manager of
www.cutabovetools.com.au
PLAY: snips vs secateurs_18th August 2021
Like me, a lot of gardeners would have both types of secateurs-anvil and bypass as well as a pair of snips.
After all, not everything can be pruned with the one tool.
August 19th, 2021
TOOL TIME
What's the Difference?
Dibbler or dibber vs bulbs planter
Ever wondered if there’s a difference between two garden products, tools or ways of doing something? Tool time will look at some of these differences over the next few months.
- Today, it’s about the difference between a tool that’s used to mainly plant bulbs.
- Planting bulbs is a lot of fun, but can quickly turn into a chore if you have quite a few different bulbs that need to go into the garden.
- Just imagine planting out the scene pictured, at Keukenhoff in the Netherlands.
- Every type of bulb will have a preferred depth and spacing so to get it right you will need a special tool.
- This is where those bulb planters of plant dibbers come in handy.
Dibbers are those carrot shaped bits of wood with a pointy end, that are used to poke holes in soil.
They will have graduated markings showing depth and sometimes have a metal tip.
Some come with a T-shaped handle, others just a rounded knob at the top.
Dibbers are great for quickly planting up lots of small bulbs, seeds and transplanting seedlings.
Bulb planters are mainly for bulbs, big ones and little ones, but especially big ones.
- This is a heavy duty implement that acts much like an apple corer with either a short or long handle. Bulb planters have the ability to push through hard soil because of their serrated edge and also have a spring-loaded handle that dumps the ‘core’ of soil you pushed through.
- This also makes it a handy tool for digging out bulbous weeds such as oxalis and onion weed, and it can be used to planting small seedlings and tubestock, too.
- Depth markings are along the side taking the guesswork out of planting.
High quality carbon steel ones will keep their edges sharp and not get coated with rust if you are forgetful about cleaning your garden tools.
Let’s find out more: I'm talking with Tony Mattson, General Manager from www.cutobovetools.com.au
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