Changing Seasons : April 2020

It’s been a busy month and the weather has been perfect for gardening. Also due to voluntary isolation and everything that I would normally be going out to do, now cancelled, it has given me more time to spend in the garden and on projects that I have been putting off. But it took me quite a while to actually knuckle down and do things. I was out of routine, couldn’t settle to any task, kept thinking, “well I have plenty of time!” Consequently through March I didn’t achieve much.

Finally this month I have settled into a routine. Written a “to-do” list and started ticking them off. Top of that list was the “BIG” prune. Every 2-3 years the taller trees get a major hair cut. This last year has been such a good growing year that if left any longer we would not be able to reach them.

This is a before and after shot of the back border. Rather difficult to see how much we took off, but it was about one third.

Now we are in the front garden and Jack took the chain saw to this one and brought it back down to fence level.

This is what I call the rain forest corner, but at this time of the year the sun is lower in the sky so the trees can be hard pruned, in fact the white ash gets pollarded., cut right back to the top of the trunk. By summer this will produce branches again that will shelter this corner. The mango tree on the right still has to be pruned.

Now to feed them all through this great little mulching machine.

Many wheelbarrows full later we have a decent sized pile of mulch material. There will be some more to add to the pile when the Mango is pruned. It is then covered with a tarpaulin and left to rot down. It should be ready by spring. How satisfying to tick this off.

Vegetable growing is back on the “to-do” list now. After telling myself I would not bother with vegies this season. I had plans to maybe do more short term travel this year!!! So I filled the former veggie beds with perennials. Now I am starting some vegetables in pots.

I start them off from seeds or seedlings in a sheltered area. Then they go out into the “kindergarten” area to be hardened off. Then into the raised beds or big pots.

I have spinach, silver beet, eggplant, strawberries, various herbs and tomatoes. The first flower opened on the tomatoe plant this week.

Some veggies go out into this border, but it does not get much sun, so they don’t do very well here. I’m planning to put some Primulas in here too.

It has been an incredible season for butterflies and spiders. In the past couple of weeks hundreds of butterflies have been invading the Gold Coast. Whole battalions of butterflies have been flying across the garden, all heading north.

Here are some of the native plants I put in last year. They are doing well…

The Rosella is covered in these dainty, hibiscus like, flowers. They are a bush tucker plant and I’m looking forward to trying the seeds soon.

A bit hard to see, but the “Peaches and Cream” Grevillea is thriving. Here are a few other things flowering at the moment.

Dietes

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When we first planned this garden, 22 years ago, we made curved paths leading you through the garden. So I would like to include these 2 photo in Jude’s weekly  “#20/20 Photo Challenge”

This month’s final assignment – Curved lines. Curved lines allow the viewer to explore an entire image, meandering from one part to another. S curves divide an image into equal parts and lead your eye through the image.

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As usual a big thank you to Su for hosting this monthly “changing seasons” challenge.