Australian Gardening Thread

[GT]

How much would I like tulips! But that would be ridiculous in Sydney, right? I know I can cool them etc but it would look silly... It would be ideal for my difficult nature strip though.

Nope, not ridiculous for Sydney at all, so long as you do the fridge cooling of the bulbs before planting, plant late May and expect flowers in August/September.

I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!

The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.

Swing past next time you visit your folks.  I'll hook you up.

[deborah]

I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!

The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.

Swing past next time you visit your folks.  I'll hook you up.

WOW! That's awesome! Thanks. I'm down next week for the week but I doubt I'll make it then, but a week after that I'll be down again, and I'll be near you on 2nd March - I'll be able to swing by in the afternoon.

[Fresh Bread]

I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty. 

[deborah]

I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty. 

It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.

[Fresh Bread]

I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty. 

It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.

I'm ten mins walk from the beach and we've never had a frost.. I might put a handful or crocuses in under the tree and it can't hurt.

[pancakes]

Posting in anticipation of having a garden!

We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.

[GT]

I’d love to come and take some tulip bulbs off your hands!

The quarantine laws are interesting. Nothing to WA from the east. Nothing to Victoria from NSW or ACT... Of course, if they do it right, garden supply places can.

Swing past next time you visit your folks.  I'll hook you up.

WOW! That's awesome! Thanks. I'm down next week for the week but I doubt I'll make it then, but a week after that I'll be down again, and I'll be near you on 2nd March - I'll be able to swing by in the afternoon.

That'll work out fine - see you then.

[GT]

I've just realised I'd need to dig up bulbs and cool them every year... Added layer of difficulty. 

It depends where you are as to whether you need to cool them. And what bulbs they are. And whether you want more of them to flower than you otherwise get. We have a few tulips (not enough), and they flower without digging up, but we are in one of the coldest zones in Australia. On the coast, you really need to dig them up. But I have never had problems with daffodils or freesias blooming, no matter where I've lived. Also, I think bulbs in containers need this more than bulbs that are in the ground.

If you don't want to dig up tulips then I'd recommend Grape Hyacinths, Jonquils, Daffodils and Freesias for set and forget.  And if you did a bit of planning you could get 4-5 months of flowers with a few varieties of Jonquils or Daffodils.  I.e. for Jonquils Paper White (June), Grand Soleil d'Or (July), Erlicheer (August), Silver Chimes (Sep).  Just took that info from the latest Hancocks Daffodils brochure - worth hitting them up for a copy that they'll post out to you or take a look at it online.  http://www.daffodilbulbs.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=59

[GT]

Which Rosemary variety gives the best spears for kebabs?

[PDM]

Alright - has anyone installed these bad boys?
https://gardenbeds.kingspanwater.com.au/product/slimline/

I'm thinking 4 of them - 2.4m*1.2m*0.51m.

This is my chance to build my dream vegetable garden. I want raised beds for visual appeal, I also don't trust the soil around a house from the 60s and want to keep dogs etc out of them.

[GT]

Alright - has anyone installed these bad boys?
https://gardenbeds.kingspanwater.com.au/product/slimline/

I'm thinking 4 of them - 2.4m*1.2m*0.51m.

This is my chance to build my dream vegetable garden. I want raised beds for visual appeal, I also don't trust the soil around a house from the 60s and want to keep dogs etc out of them.

I have only installed old railway sleepers as raised garden beds.  Setting them up as no-dig was the best option at the time with the dodgy soil that was underneath.

I follow a number of people who do have the corrugated iron ones and their only issue seems to be during summer that the metal becomes hot to touch and can burn roots that are against them.  To compensate they plant further in to ensure the roots don't have to go to the edge of the container.

Damien at Mudflower seems to have done OK with his at his new place.

http://living-mudflower.blogspot.com/2018/08/raised-vegetable-beds.html

Depending on the brand, some come with a rolled edge at the top and for those that don't a hose split down one side and fitted around the top protects the user from that metal edge.

I've got a 3000L corrugated water tank out at the rental that leaks at the bottom and it's destined to become three round raised beds.

[HappierAtHome]

Posting in anticipation of having a garden!

We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.

Something edible? A shade tree? Or I think certain roses are meant to be very long-lived.

[PDM]

These have a rolled metal edge, and some kind of liner - "Food grade internal polymer lining"

I didn't think about the heat - they're pretty deep at .5m so  the volume of soil plus mulch should help. I'll likely do up shade cloth etc for the summer months if needed.

This is a permanent set up so planning on spending a bit to get it right.

[PDM]

Posting in anticipation of having a garden!

We are trying to think of something to plant to commemorate buying the house. Something that will hopefully outlive us.

I have taken and grown some frangapani cuttings - one from my parents house on the Sunshine Coast, the first place my wife and i lived together at and one from her grandmothers place. I like that they're easy to strike and you get a connection to another place.

[pancakes]

Something edible? A shade tree? Or I think certain roses are meant to be very long-lived.

We have lots of shade trees there already. I am thinking maybe a lemon. We definitely want to have lemons growing.

I have taken and grown some frangapani cuttings - one from my parents house on the Sunshine Coast, the first place my wife and i lived together at and one from her grandmothers place. I like that they're easy to strike and you get a connection to another place.

Excellent idea! I think my FIL has a frangapani cutting he has in a pot for us. It’s from the old tree at the caravan park where Mr Pancakes has holidayed since he was a baby. If it turns out it isn’t for us, we will grab one next summer as the kids always knock bits off climbing it.

[deborah]

My parents had metal raised garden beds. Definitely a problem in summer drying out and too hot to touch. They were the type with the edging, and it kept on falling off in summer.

[Anatidae V]

I have a raised metal garden bed, but it's VERY tall, maybe 1m high. Gets ALL the sun in summer and everything inside is crispy except my basil. I reckon 0.5 m ones would be great. I'm hoping once I add some shade for next summer it will be OK. Thanks for the link GT.

Mine has the edging and no problems with it popping off.

[happy]

I have 3 sided corrugated metal compost structures about .6-.8m high. Empty or half empty they work great to grow late season veggies, mostly volunteers , creating a little microclimate inside. I'm using one bin  to grow sweet potato: I was late getting the slips in, and I'm hoping this will keep them growing up to winter and maybe even through winter.

The garden is quieting down now. Quite a few of the straw bales have collapsed down. Currently harvesting just the odd cucumber, and a few green beans. The second clutch of volunteer tomatoes will start to ripen soon. I've used this break in harvesting to try to catch up on neglected sowing and planting. I've sewn basil, lettuce, pak choy tatsoi and flowers and a couple of my own pigeon pea seeds. I've been pulling out last years parsley and sprinkling seeds all over the place. The basil has germinated already, its always quick. I've begun planting out the netted vege garden that the goats have helped to clear.  In one section I've placed pidgeon pea in a pot,  and comfrey at the back, for an ongoing supply of mulch, and a sacred basil at the end of the row. At the front is a line of clumping onions. All mulched with dead vegetation from the pen, mixed with goat fertilised hay/chaff.

[GT]

Anyone have any recommendations for Pomegranate varieties?

I have Elche (4m plant) and Gulosha azerbaijani (2m plant) in mind to buy and there's 30% off Poms at one of my local nurseries this month.

[deborah]

We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.

[PDM]

We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.

I see your heathen story and raise you my heathen story. My parents built a house on a large block with two existing full grown avocado trees (a hass and a sharwill). Both must have been 20+ years old and 10m+ tall. We climbed them, threw avocados at each other, mashed them with our feet, let them fall to the ground and rot - every thing except actually eat them. We just weren't an avocado eating family. I don't remember anyone eating a single one in the 18 years i live there.

Next minute...move out of home...we're back there every season to load up a box with avocados to take away.

[middo]

We had a pomegranate when I was a kid. It must have been a 4metre variety. It was lovely to climb in. I don’t think we ever ate the pomegranates. We were heathens.

I see your heathen story and raise you my heathen story. My parents built a house on a large block with two existing full grown avocado trees (a hass and a sharwill). Both must have been 20+ years old and 10m+ tall. We climbed them, threw avocados at each other, mashed them with our feet, let them fall to the ground and rot - every thing except actually eat them. We just weren't an avocado eating family. I don't remember anyone eating a single one in the 18 years i live there.

Next minute...move out of home...we're back there every season to load up a box with avocados to take away.

Our story isn't as bad as that, but we rented a place 25 years ago that had a feijoa tree.  Everyone said we were lucky, and they were great to eat.  We tried one.  Only one.  Interestingly, when we offered them to those that said they were good, they never quite got around to getting them.

[Anatidae V]

DH is determined he wants an olive tree. ACI, he wants two olive trees. I'm tossing up between Kalamata (nice black olives, bigger leaves) and Manzanillo (smaller and can be eaten/brined as green olives). Anyone have opinions on olive trees? Plan at present is to put them on our northern boundary fence to add to the greenery and shading on that side. Garden bed is about 1m wide. I'm leaning towards 3 trees for visual balance unless we can manage that by making the 3 spaces between trees and shadesail poles to do that work instead, which would be better as there isn't quite space for 3 trees.

[HappierAtHome]

1m wide and how long?

[Anatidae V]

1m wide and how long?

6m, or thereabouts.

[HappierAtHome]

1m wide and how long?

6m, or thereabouts.

I would squish three trees into that. Which may or may not be good advice.

[JLR]

Picked up two of those corner raised bed Aldi were selling recently. Haven't filled them yet.

My other two raised beds are full of tomatoes. Lots of little green ones. They are just starting to turn red. Hoping the weather holds until I can harvest a bunch.

Lettuce is looking a bit sad overall, but the baby spinach looks pretty good.

I have one pumpkin plant that looks healthy, but I don't think it has flowered at all.

Need to get around to giving the old apricot tree a heavy prune. Any suggestions on the best time to do it?

[Anatidae V]

Good luck with the tomatoes JLR!

I bought some seeds, going to keep myself occupied with attempting germination. I am hoping this will stop me from buying plants to kill via neglect, seeds are a lot cheaper for the same level of entertainment!

[GT]

Need to get around to giving the old apricot tree a heavy prune. Any suggestions on the best time to do it?

Post fruiting, end of summer while it still has leaves, on a hot windy day with no rain expected for a day or two.

Apricots are susceptible to infections in open wounds and pruning late summer on a hot windy day prevents moisture getting into the cuts and causing an infection leading to gummosis.  It also still has time during the end of summer and autumn to generate energy through it's leaves and heal wounds and prevent infection during wet winter months

[deborah]

Speaking of seeds, where do people like to get seeds from? I started with diggers, but they seem not to have the range that other places have, their advertising is a bit excessive (this wonderful seed that is rarely available), they drop seeds that I want, and their membership policy irks me (you have to be a member to see much of the information about a seed you’re buying, you buy only from them to maximise membership use, and you just don’t need enough seeds on an ongoing basis to justify membership) and have been buying from other places like Eden Seeds, which seem to have a much better range.

[Fresh Bread]

I have bought from The Seed Collection and quite like them. There was a duff packet of lettuce that would not germinate but everything else seems ok and they have some interesting varieties.

[HappierAtHome]

I find my Diggers membership well worth the fee, but then I'm in the accumulation phase of gardening ;-)

Just received my first seeds from Yilgarn so will have to report back on them.

[happy]

I was given a 5 year membership to Diggers so I am still using them from time to time. I find Green Harvest and Daleys fruit tree nursery better suited to my requirements and tend to use them in preference more and more.

[GT]

I tend to buy seeds from whoever has what I am looking for at the time, I generally aim for five or more packets in a buy to make it worth my while in postage.  Also I can get to a couple of places (Diggers/New Gippsland) when I'm on my way home from gardening at the property.

Green Harvest, Eden Seeds, New Gippsland Seeds, Diggers are where I generally look for stuff online.

Bulbs I get from Hancock's or whatever I find in nurseries when I am out ND about.

[PDM]

I use Eden seeds (just placed an order) and Green Harvest - primarily because they are pretty local to Brisbane and in my mind that makes all the varieties adapted to local conditions (may not actually be true).

[deborah]

Today I went to the plant sale and bought some plants.

Soil is very dry. At the plant sale they advised people to dig holes, water them for FIVE days, then plant plants. Our soil is not quite the driest it has been in recorded history, so I guess it is reasonable advice. But FIVE days?

[GT]

Over Easter we built a raised bed on the property at Gembrook.



It's 3m x 1.5m of untreated cypress in 75mm x 200mm dimensions bolted together with 130mm M10 stainless steel coach bolts and washers in pre drilled M8 holes.  Good for at least 15 years.

Due to the slope we had to dig the bottom layer into the ground.



And once we'd done that the internal volume would have been too small for a no dig layered bed to be built.  So we took the second timber bed we'd built and flipped onto the top of the first one, creating a nice depth for the initial layering.  The intention was always to build up layers as required to at least 600mm in depth, but it was thought it'd take a few years to get there.



Heading out there again this Friday for me normal gardening maintenance and I'll be setting up the layers of the No Dig bed.

From top to bottom it'll be thin layers of.

Sugar cane mulch
Worm castings
Compost
Coconut Coir (I have three bricks from the worm farms that we never used)
Pea Straw
Sheep Manure
Lucerne
Cow Manure
Wood Shavings/Sawdust
Chicken Manure
Lucerne
Horse Manure
Newspaper
Blood & Bone

And all that is totally dependant on what I can get hold of on my way out there.  Horse manure is generally available in bags at the front of properties on the road for a couple of bucks each.  Bagged up sheep and cow manure, Lucerne, Pea Straw all from the nursery.  Wood Shavings/Sawdust from the pet store where I know I can get an uncontaminated with treated pine source.  Worm castings, Blood & Bone and Newspapers (collected from grandparents over the weekend) I have at home.

Layer it all down, well watered in for each layer and let it sit for a while, letting the tenant plant out stuff if they want to.

[deborah]

How did you join the layers together? Where did you get the cypress?

I'm trying to work out what to do with our raised garden beds. We got some kits from Aldi a few years ago, and joined them up. Ended up with 4 boxes - 3 are double height (60cm?) and two of them are 2 joined together while the third is three. They are coming apart (even the single, that was put together only a few years ago), so are beginning to leak soil (actually, there's no soil - it's all weeds and paper and manure and blood and bone and leaves and lucerne, but it's good stuff), and I don't know what to do. The wood is still OK, but it's warped. SO has put some corner brackets on some corners, but the whole lot need to be redone.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[GT]

How did you join the layers together? Where did you get the cypress?

At the moment they're sitting on top of each other.  It takes two people to move a layer, so it's not easily moved.  I am looking at screwing them together on the inside with a couple of galvanised plates alahttps://www.bunnings.com.au/dunnings-120-x-35mm-m10-galvanised-bracket-plate_p1076773 and some short stainless coach bolts just to avoid any future slipping issues.

Cypress came from a mob called I Got Wood http://igotwood.com/ in Bulleen.  It was the end lot of stuff they'd got in ages ago so was well aged.  I have another 3m length and a 2.7m length sitting in the garage, along with four 1.2m lengths left over from cutting up the 2.7m lengths to get the 1.5m ones I needed to build the beds.  May use the 1.2m lengths to either build compost bins or use as surrounds for trees.  I chose 75mm wide sleepers to assist in preventing the bowing issue I've seen in 50mm wide sleepers.

While we were out there, we worked out we can fit in 9 beds of that size easily in the area we planned on using.  So for me to use the same sleepers I'd be up for another nine 3m (six at 3m long and three cut in half for another six at 1.5m lengths) sleepers per bed to get 600mm high we are after.  So 72 sleepers for the other eight beds and another 2 to go with the remaining sleepers we have in the garage to finish off the bed we've already started.  That's a fair chunk of cash at roughly $35 a sleeper, ~$2590, plus bolts and gal tie plates.  Change from $3k would be scarce.

[GT]

I'm trying to work out what to do with our raised garden beds. We got some kits from Aldi a few years ago, and joined them up. Ended up with 4 boxes - 3 are double height (60cm?) and two of them are 2 joined together while the third is three. They are coming apart (even the single, that was put together only a few years ago), so are beginning to leak soil (actually, there's no soil - it's all weeds and paper and manure and blood and bone and leaves and lucerne, but it's good stuff), and I don't know what to do. The wood is still OK, but it's warped. SO has put some corner brackets on some corners, but the whole lot need to be redone.

Does anyone have any ideas?

How wide are the timber panels of the boxes?  25mm, 50mm?  You can get galvanised joiners, generally used for sleepers, to joing lengths of timber together or form corners.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/search/products?q=galvanised%20joiner&redirectFrom=Any

[middo]

I wanted to show our planters while they were under construction.  I used 200 x 50 x 2400 mm treated pine sleepers, and cut some up as vertical supports buried into the ground (with a bit of quickset down the hole).

It is probably not the absolute cheapest solution, but it should outlast our stay here.

But my pictures are too big to upload.