Plant the planet

 I'm reading a book about rice. Interesting so far. I am a rice-eater. But the book doesn't say how you can grow rice. I mean I eat the finished product, but how can I grow my own rice?  It's dead easy to grow potatoes, you can just chuck them in the ground when they start sprouting. But if there was ever a rice shortage and all the shipments of rice stopped, what would I (or more importantly mum) eat? 

Dad wouldn't care. He would just subsist on potato chips and ice cream. Now there's plant based ice cream and I have to say that I can't really tell the difference between that and ice cream that comes from a cow. Having never milked a cow I sometimes wonder if I should really be drinking so much milk, seeing I'm not a baby anymore, but dad can't break the habit of a lifetime of buying milk, butter and cheese. 

I'm curious about where my food comes from if I haven't picked it from the garden. I've just eaten a juicy mango that says its from Peru. If only I could grow mango here. I would be eating them everyday. 

The feijoas are now ready to pick up and they are fat this year. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with my pruning? Mum thought I pruned to much but that tree is the one that usually produces small thimble sized feijoas. 

I won a $10 Kings voucher for coming 3rd in Best Blooms at garden club. I spent it on an echinacea, and granny bonnets. I have 50 cents leftover. I hope they do well as I'm never sure what plants will take in the border which has always had creeping buttercup take over. I transplanted lychnis to by the fence and took out all the aristeas. There's another clump by the magnolia that I might remove too. 

Then chopped down the maguerite daisies, scented geranium and did general bed clearance in Snowy's bed. I transplanted a penstemon that was struggling in the shade. So in general planting musical chairs. I'm glad I don't have a garden manager bossing me around saying I can't do this or that or saying I have to ask permission to change anything. Or is it mum. 

I'm very unhappy at the moment. I'm not sure why. I have a great job that pays well, but...I'm wondering if I am ever able to do what I really want to do if I have to seek permission to do anything. I think it would be nice if I was treated like an adult for once. I decide to grin and bear it before I fall into a deep depression again. Things could be worse, I could be living in a 40 storey apartment building in Hong Kong with not a scrap of earth and a long way to fall down. 

On weeds

 On Saturday a few garden club members made the trip to Ayrlies for their annual plant fair. The garden, now familiar to me, delighted everyone again in a post-summer day of showers and sunshine. This time, naked lady lilies carpeted the forest floor, lotus and water lilies blossomed in the pond, and the waterfalls round the entrance never failed to enchant. 

From the plant fair I snagged three lousiana iris, one bearded iris from the iris stand, planting them straight away into my border. My garden could never be Ayrlies, I'm to restricted to a dead straight border for that. At times I wish I did not live in a rectangular plot that feels like I am boxed in, that I could have at least some curves but than dad would have to adjust his masport mower to mow a curve but he cannot do that after forty years of doing so. So am stuck forever with this straight-as-a razor blade garden border. Trouble is plants don't really like growing in straight lines, they have a habit of clumping together. 

Apparently there is a concrete strip underneath all the soil that he put in twenty years ago, but I doubt I could excavate it to find it and whether it would actually be of any use, since plants like to ignore concrete strips and grow over them. Especially plants like 'creeping buttercup'. Though I think I have cottoned on to a solution. Replace the creeping buttercup weeds with an even more invasive weed - no not kikuyu, but one that has flowers - aristea ecklonii. This plant also known as 'blue iris' has woody rhizomes and just randomly comes up in clumps, crowding out 'desirable' plants. Some had been growing randomly in the fat lady sings bed and by Mt Asher magnolia.

I took the blue flowers to Garden Club to identify one evening and sure enough it was classified as a weed. However it is such a pretty weed and I can scarcely find blue flowers anywhere save my plumbago. So I have divided the clump and placed them all along my border. They don't grow as tall as dietes, but if they stop creeping buttercup and applemint, and prevent paspalum and kikuyu from taking over, could I be onto a winner? 

All I know is my efforts at gardening are still not appreciated by anyone in my household because whenever I try to weed anything the weeds have to come OUT of the soil and get piled up on the grass, and apparently I am not allowed to place any weeds ON the grass. Even just temporarily, while they dry out and wither. 

This is like when I try to move books and have to place them ON a table, in the library so I can move them somewhere else, but apparently I am not allowed to do that either and the books have to stay on the shelves at all times, never weeded until the shelves collapse and nobody can fit any more books on them. 

Do people not actually know how much effort goes into weeding? Apparently not. That weeds just magically disappear? Or how about covering everything with black plastic so you can't see ANY plants or books? 

I try not to get frustrated and start whacking everything with a broom like my dad did suddenly when his precious lawn had some weeds dropped on top of it. Nobody actually uses this lawn dad. The last time we tried to do anything on it, you got all angry so that is why I never invite anyone over for barbecues or fireworks anymore. Because what is the point, people will step on it and you'll start yelling at everyone for dropping crumbs, and then chuck all the weeds back INTO the garden border when I'd just spent hours trying to weed them OUT. Because having a finely chopped rectangle green lawn with a weed filled border is every man's suburban dream? I don't know.

My next place of residence will not involve anyone who is attached to their precious noisy lawn mower. I will use sheep and rabbits to mow the lawn instead. 

Bulb time again

 Get your spring bulbs! I am fundraising for Woodside Community Garden. The money will go towards building our raised beds and other things needed for the garden. 

There are some new bulbs this year - I'm going for the Sparaxis! Bulbs will reward your garden year after year, plant once and forget. Planting guide is enclosed with each order.  Email me your order - payment due 24 March.  I'll deliver them to you. Thanks GardenPost!  gardenplanetfm@gmail.com

7 Daffodils - Early Fragrant Mix $12.00

5 Daffodils - Earlicheer $9.90

10 Tulips - Mixed $10.70

10 Freesias Fragrant Single and Double - Mixed $10.90

10 Ranunculus - Rainbow Mix - $7.00

7 Dutch Iris - Super Mix - $9.30

7 Sparaxis - Harlequin Mix $9.00

10 Anemone - St Bridgid Mix (Doubles) $7.80

Sweet Pea - Early Multiflora - 20 Seeds $5.20