…hmm, not that many more. We leave here on Monday.
WWOOFing here we come. Carole’s off to Brunswick, and I’m bound for Balingup and Tintuppa Native Plant nursery (hussah!) I have the car for the week, petrol-sniffing and burnt rubber are my watch-words. My excuse being the purchase of native plants for a couple of gardens we’re planting. [Weak]
So, final few walks in this area of stunning natural beauty. The estuary remains (mostly) unmolested by developers, although I have this sense of them lurking, papers in hand, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike.
On an unrelated note…a very strange thing happened two nights ago. There are several cats here, who eat at night, we leave the food plates on the stairs to keep them away from the dog, who doesn’t do stairs. The other morning Carole got up to find all four plates cleaned and, oddly, moved about 15 feet and into a “perfect” square on the lounge carpet.
We have no explanation that isn’t “paranormal” or “first contact” in nature. It feels a bit uncanny, but not disturbing. The incident hasn’t been repeated…although I’m alone here tonight…
Well, six cats, two horses a dog and I are alone here tonight. I wait in hope.
Meanwhile…
The estuary continues to deliver “wow”. Melaleuca probably rhapiophylla. Large stands extending to the shoreline.Windswept, bleached, gnarly.Suaeda australis. Prolific new growth between shore and scrubland.Clumbing reed, unknown. Starts about 5m from the shoreline, damp, saline.Unknown possibly melaleuca, starts about 10 m from the shoreline and drier sands. Small, hardy, open habit.
The estuary is part of the Peel-Yalgorup Ramsar site. Apparently, an international agreement on wetland protection was negotiated in the Iranian town of Ramsar in the 70’s. How cool.
And Australia must be one of the signatories…which is a minor miracle. Shh, don’t tell Tony!
Fortunately I’m looking after a dog who likes walks and we’re a five minute walk from the estuary. Sparsely populated recovering farmland. Rolling dunes, scrubby paperbark woodland, big open skies.
Harvey estuary eastern shore…a bit less populous than the west. I hesitate at unspoiled, but it’s close enough. It is so nice to be away from the city…hark…no young men being doughnuts.It’s saline, I had a little taste to check, so these must be salt marshes…interesting…Coastal meadow…a bit uninspired, I was trying to catch the contrasting flora…Heminadra pungens in the foreground, aka “Dog Stopper or Snake Bush. It’s prickly.Pig face – Carpobrotus something or other, probably virescens…almost a succulent…lovely plant.Unknown purple coastal plant, possibly Suaeda australis…it’s very close to the shoreline.Unknown sea weed on the shorelineLichen on treeUnknown Melaleuca seed head, might be Rhaphiophylla…?Lichen on twig
I’d abandoned this blog in favour of a slightly more…focussed? serious? gardening blog. The focus being the garden I just left behind in Mandurah, WA (Western Oz), and maybe some posts about a couple of WA gardens I’ve designed and am in the process of planting…owner’s permissions allowing.
And now that I’m travelling again I’ve returned to this blog to enthuse about Australian flora…one of life’s simple pleasures!
A bloody pest got in the roots and ate its way up the stem…I hesitate to call it a “trunk” as it was still so young. Anyway, I pulled up the dead plant yesterday and there was the proof, a bloody great hole running right up the middle and out one side. All sub-surface.
So, at least I now know what got it, if not the exact species. It must have been a pretty substantial beasty though because the hole is not small. Well, at least I know and don’t have to wonder if I under/over watered/fed/mulched/talked to it.
I’ve decided to definitely replace it with a euaclyptus erythrocorys, and I’m going to put in a hakea laurina nearby too, in case the erythrocorys croaks too. H. laurina (aka Pin cushion hakea) looks to be a total beauty (aren’t they all).
Right oh, short but sweet.
E erythrocorys growing in the local estuary reserve. I caught it at dawn and the light was stunning.E erythrocorys flower…stunner.Hakea laurina – picture poached from the Flickr account of Westflora (Russel Dhans). His pictures are outstanding and he seems to be very thorough about getting his names right too. A great source of images on plants!
A special for those who like to obsess about details and numbers…and gardens.
So, reticulation: I was hoping to avoid it, but…well, this is Western Australia, very hot, dry summers. I’ve used only Western Australian plants, so the idea is they should be quite happy. However, a number of factors have driven me to install a retic system:
1. I keep reading that while Australian plants will survive without added water and nutrients (more on the “Great Fertiliser Scandal” another time), they don’t thrive. To quote the sage (John W. Wrigley):
“Many plants we see in the bush are, however, growing sub-optimally. They may be stunted, flower production may be poor or foliage may be sparse. In gardens we expect to grow a plant so that it is at its best.” From Australian Native Plants by John W. Wrigley and Murray Fagg, 6th Ed, page 59.
And I really want the garden to be at it’s best for when we go traveling in May and, longer term, I want it to look stunning for when we come to sell in a few years time.
2. The front garden is clearly stressed (take a look at the pictures of acacia rostellifera below). I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems reasonable to assume that the two mammoth Agonis Flexuosa (“WA Peppermint”) and two palms (how I wish I’d cut you down a year ago) are sucking up the water and nutrients.
Acacia rostellifera – same plant, same size at planting, front: about knee high, back: about neck high. Big difference.
3. I’m about to launch a third wave of planting and won’t be here to nurse the new plants through next summer’s onslaught and I’m really not sure I can ask a tenant to spend the hours needed to hand water effectively.
Thus, retic has arrived.
Given how prolific retic is in WA I expected it to be easy, but then, the Devil’s in the Detail and I’m a perfectionist and a tight-wad. I’ve been a bit surprised by how little decent information there is out there. I skimmed a number of library books, but they all turned out to be a bit “fluffy” and not much use at all when it comes to details; in fact their default position seems to be “pay someone to do it”. That’s no use!
Hence, I figured it out as I went along and here are some of the details:
A Case Study in Retic Installation
Site
A front garden. About 200 m2 of south facing, road bordering, sandy soil, heavily mulched with “raw” (in the sense of “rough and ready”) woodchip. Minimal soil improvements: compost at planting, light feeding with an organic fertiliser once. (No Bentonite clay added, on reflection it might have been a good idea.)
Here it is: the desert. Note the mangled appearance of the agonis flexuosas, for quite a few years it appears Mandurah Council thought it was smart to plant trees with a mature height of around 20 m under power lines…which just goes to show: just because someone is in authority, doesn’t mean they have any intelligence. And as for the palms, let’s not get started on why there are so many bloody exotics here.
Around fifty WA natives were planted last June and October. I have plans for another twenty five’ish plants in May this year. Two very mature Agonis Flexuosa, south side, front and centre. Two evil palm trees, reasonably mature, east side. We did have some straggly grass, which became the victim of chemical and trench warfare May/June last year.
The plants seem underdeveloped compared to their compatriots in the back garden where the competing trees (all exotics) and were eliminated over winter last year. That said, the neighbours over the back fence have a couple of huge palm trees right on the boundary and they don’t seem to be affecting our back garden too much.
Materials (full list with prices in the spreadsheet available on request…I can’t work out how to attach it)
I’ve gone for 13mm poly pipe running off the garden tap at the front. I’ve used about 85 m of pipe and 57 drippers (standard Pope “Easy Clean” drippers designed to deliver 4l/hour).
The pipe is assembled as follows:
From the tap to pipe there is a timer, an in-line filter and a pressure reducer. Then there’s a run of about 8 m to the centre of the garden, from which there are three branches made up of three T pieces.
Each branch consists of a loop (note: Loop, not straight lines). The loops are about 32 m (Front verge and main screen), 18 m (round the palms) and 21 m (inner screen and in front of windows).
Each loop includes a tap mid way along it.
Most of the drippers are inserted directly into the poly-pipe. I used a 3 mm drill bit on a cordless drill to make the holes (!). A few drippers run off 4 mm hose attached by 4 mm screw thread joiners.
House side of garden…I drew the pipe in by hand on P’shop…it’s not so wobbly in real life.Front on the road verge side…look at that spaghetti near the house! I have nightmares of someone with a garden fork working in that area.
Design points
Because detailed information was so sparse, I made the system up as I went along. It may be sub-optimal, but seems to work fine. Some points:
The “In-line filter and pressure reduction” piece went in because when I connected the system straight to the tap it sprayed water from all sorts of places: the pressure was too high. I had read that drip systems need between 100 and 150 KPa (Kilopascals, a unit for measuring pressure) of pressure, but nobody mentioned what the mains pressure out of the tap is likely to be: clearly it’s a lot more than 150 KPa.
I never even entertained the idea of cutting into the mains and running a solonoid/auto controller-box-thing system off that. Those systems seem to be for people who love lawns, and don’t mind seeing water flying everywhere and running down the gutter.
I went for drippers rather than drip-line (“drip-line” being the hosing that has little holes in it every 30 cm or so, so it drips along it’s entire length) because I wanted to make sure that water went to each and every plant in the front. I wanted that because the whole area looks so stressed I was concerned a drip line might miss some bits. However, I’m considering a drip line for the back because it looks easier to install, costs a bit less and the garden is a lot healthier looking overall.
I went for loops rather than straight runs for consistent flow across the system. I read in one book (no idea which one now), that the usual maximum length of a drip-line is 50 m. Any more than that and the ends get less water. Apparently if the same line is run in a loop, it’s effective length is 100 m, which makes sense. Anyway, I thought that what’s true for drip-line would also stand for drippers. Hence I used loops in the hope it will result in a more consistent flow across the system. This appears to be true, although I’ve not measured the performance of individual drippers along the line (yet!).
Each loop includes a tap for flushing purposes, so the line can be cleaned.
I ran the line from the tap to the middle of the garden and then to the three loops to try and ensure the water was evenly distributed across the three loops. On reflection, the water pressure and flow seems more than adequate for the number of drippers, so this feature may be redundant.
Installation
(I’m beginning to understand why most people’s words on drip irrigation are so lacking in detail…!)
Frankly: I should have put the retic in before putting down the two truckloads of wood chip out front. C’est la vie. Hence, I spent a happy few hours in thirty plus degree heat digging channels in the wood chip, laying pipe and then covering them back over. I found the best method was to use a “grubber” (aka “pick”? Like a hoe, but more robust) to break up the packed wood chip a bit and then used my hands (gloved, it’s spiky wood-chip) to clear the channels.
I found the poly pipe a total bastard to work with (excuse me) because it kept re-coiling. I eventually found that I could get it to lay flat by laying out a length of about 6 m and then twisting the remaining coil against the natural turn to get the twist out…good Lord, that makes about as much sense as the Tax Code. Swearing helped too.
I used clips on all joins in the poly pipe (of course).
The cordless drill was a God-send. As were the garden secatuers I used to cut the pipe with.
Performance
I love my water meter. I ran the fully assembled system for an hour the evening it was finished. It consumed 300 litres (exactly!). Over the 57 drippers, that’s about 5.3 litres per dripper, slightly more than the design specification of 4 litres per hour. I’m not sure why that is, but I hope it’s going to be OK. It doesn’t speak of any huge leaks anyway.
That result was reproduced on a two hour run yesterday…I’m beginning to realise how tempting it is to over-water with retic in place!
More importantly, it suggests that the system could happily carry more drippers, which is good news because I’m about to plant another 25 or so plants, and each will have its own dripper.
And, I want to see if I can extend the system to the back and run both the front and back off the one tap… coming soon!
Financials
I have a spreadsheet…a very detailed spreadsheet it is too. In the unlikely event anyone is reading this bit and is similarly obsessed I’ll email to you if you want (just use the comments to ask). Anyway, some points:
Total spend = $203.76 (That’s Australian $’s).
Cost of components actually used = $142.79 (I have quite a number of straight 13 mm joiners, 13 mm and 4 mm pipe, and a large number of drippers left over.)
Waste as a %’ge of total spend = 30% (Bad! Some is in unopened packets and so is returnable. Also, I’m hoping to get the figure down when I install the back garden system and use up some of the left-over bits.)
Overall, $142.79 is pretty good for a fully installed drip irrigation system, certainly better than the thousand or so I’d have probably shelled out if I’d followed The Books’ advice and brought in a professional.
Finally: sadly, I worked out and plotted the unit cost of drippers in different pack sizes. I wonder if anyone else gets the same sense of satisfaction from knowing that the unit cost of Pope’s drippers follows a very nice exponential curve from the bag of 10 to the bag of 25 to the family pack sized bag of 50. Here’s the graph to prove it:
A bit unexpected, although it had at least three rounds of bug attack, so maybe that was “a sign”? Anyway, it appears to have croaked, which is a shame because it was one of the “Feature” trees in the back garden; a Key Structural Element (as a professional Garden Designer might put it (!)).
As it was and as it is now…it wasn’t until I put these pictures together that I realised how attached I was to this plant, I have a tear in my eye as I reflect on how glorious it was. I really miss it.
Fortunately I did a late season planting (in September) of an E. Erythrocorys, and it’s going along nicely, so I’ll just have to shift my gaze back and left a bit, though I’m not sure it’s the ideal place for a structural tree: back fence. The E. Forrestiana occupied pride of place: right and centre.
Eucalyptus erythrocorys taken about six weeks ago, it’s grown a bit more since then. It has the most amazing eucalyptus (obviously) oil smell when I rub the leaves.
One thing about these sudden, unexpected deaths, is that I never know what caused them? I’m honing my forensic pathology skills…slowly.
I don’t think it was lack of water, because it got plenty of that, Mr. Hose was a regular visitor, and on the odd occasions I stuck my fingers in, the soil was damp.
Which I guess, leaves disease (hard to say, nothing visible), bug attack (hadn’t had any since it got ferociously hot), congenital weakness…? Maybe. We are 700 km from it’s natural environment.
Map showing where E. Forrestiana occurs naturally. A long way away, but still in Western Australia. Map from Florabase. We’re a touch south of Perth.
Whatever, it is dead and it’s not the first healthily growing plant to suddenly turn up it’s toes and go for no apparent reason. Hakea Lissocarpha is another recent example. And let’s not get into the “inexperienced gardener slaughters delicate Western Australian plants” list, actually let’s, it’s pure masochism: there was the gompholobium scabrum massacre, the kunzea baxteri poisoning tragedy and anigozanthus favidus mass extinction event…to name just three…there are others!
I’m on a learning curve; floundering in the “don’t know what I don’t know” box at the moment…there’s much more to this than met my eye, which is what’s making it so damned engrossing.
Anyway, I’m considering a re-plant of the E. Forrestiana, except I’ll assume the CoD was “species unsuitable for environment” and try something else that’s more local. E. Forrestiana was an exotic experiment. Although, Mandurah City Council (my local council, just thought I’d mention that in the unlikely event that someone other than me is reading this bit) does list E. Forrestiana as a tree that is suitable for this region, so I wasn’t too far off the mark, but still, I’m aiming for a garden that can survive with no artificial watering at all, so I’m looking for something that’s hardier.
Haven’t decided what yet…maybe a Banksia Menziesii, which is local, or maybe Ill just re-shape the layout of the garden with some smaller shrubs, where a bit of die-off isn’t so noticeable. My local MOTT (Men of the Trees…argh, that name! Forgive them, they do good work, but are a bit you know…“old fashioned”… and do actually include Women too) branch has a fine selection of candidates.
Time will tell. Meanwhile, I must go an turn the hose off…or maybe on…
The plans are “bubble diagrams” (I got that from reading too many garden design books) and show the overall gist of the garden and try to highlight some of the main “vistas”…apparently designing the garden to provide vistas is Important. These are on tracing paper and overlay the maps below, an effect which doesn’t work well on a blog, but provides me with hours of entertainment at home.
A plan of our back garden. Four reasonably big trees provide the framework for the garden with layers of small to medium to large shrubs hopefully creating a bowl/amphitheatre like effect. I say “hopefully” because everything is so small it just looks flat at the moment.A plan of our front garden showing the four big established trees (and one exotic shrub) in orange. Two are native (Agonis Felxuosa) and two are exotics (Palms – destined for the chop). The roadside verge is all low shrubs with a medium/large shrub screen towards the house and along the fence line.
The maps, on the other hand, show exactly what is planted where. They look a bit stained because they spend quite a bit of time in the garden and my hands always seem to be grubby!
Map of the front garden. A bit messy looking because some things have died and some new plants have been added. “AF” = anigozanthus flavidus and “HP” = hemiandra pungens.Map of the back garden. Tidier because I had to redraw it as the original was so crossed and scratched and added to it was illegible even to me. Reasonably accurate, although there’s been a few more deaths since this revision.
And here are some recent photos:
The back garden from the drive. Looking towards the Banksia Grandis (faint green blob in the distance…come back in five years…)Back garden from the fence line. Not one of the Garden Design (TM) approved Vistas, but still…Front garden from the drive.Front verge from the drive.
Sounds pretty fancy, huh? I read it in a book about “Garden Design”…apparently it’s popular enough to have an entire shelf in the library. The one I picked up was The New Native Garden – Designing with Australian Plants by Paul Urquhart. Sounded promising and had plenty of nice glossy photos of pretty flowers and those hand-drawn looking plans of gardens: all very appealing to the eye; and then I started reading the words and things went a bit down hill.
A plan of our front garden – my own attempt at one of those pretty looking hand-drawn plans. I think I’ll stick to composting.
You see, Mr. Urquhart offers many different designs to consider and when I was reading the “Naturalistic” one I found myself thinking “Hang on this sounds familiar!”
Reverence of Nature
Apparently, the Naturalistic design ethic “…is always characterised by its reverence for nature. Followers often talk of their stewardship of the earth and this ethic is a strong motivating factor.”
Right on, Paul, sounds a bit like a religion though? However, I agree. Anyone else for a spot of Nature Worship? Bring your own sandals.
A Homage to Nature
Mr. Urquhart goes on…”Unlike the formal garden, the naturalistic garden is not established to dazzle, impress or overwhelm visitors with the owner’s wealth, power or control over nature. Instead, it pays homage to nature.”
Yup, although I’m definitely designing to impress, in the sense of: impress upon visitors the importance of natural gardens. (Not that we have any visitors, but the possibility exists.)
The Plants Rule
Further more…”The plants are the primary features of naturalistic gardens. Architectural elements are forsaken in favour of natural adornments like rock outcrops or old logs. Interest is added by creating contrasts with texture, form and foliage colour.”
How true, I even have a couple of old logs laying around…they’re almost a cliche it seems; might be time to remove them! The bit about foliage is spot on though; Western Australian plants have huge potential for contrasts.
The front garden as it was – conforming!The front garden as it is now – sticking out like a sore thumb?
No Exotics
Tragically, I parted company from Mr. Urquhart after that, it seems he’s in favour of preserving existing exotics in an established garden! Or, to be fair, at least thinking about preserving them:
“…you will need to make a choice – purist or blended. Do you aim to plant only Australian plants and eliminate exotics or do you want to blend your garden with the local environment and preserve some of the better exotic plants too?”
What! Next thing he’ll be harping on about how lovely a rose bed looks. OK, so I’m clearly a “purist”.
And then it all went horribly wrong, Mr. Urquhart appears to be something of a conformist:
“The bush garden is often plonked down amongst unsympathetic gardens where, far from appearing natural, it is the proverbial sore thumb in the suburban landscape. It becomes an oddity – out of place and out of step with the surroundings. This is a major reason why native gardens have acquired such low esteem with the general public.”
Sorry, that’s just bullshit in so many ways. First of all I can’t imagine any garden getting “plonked down”. “Lovingly laboured over” would be a better phrase. Secondly, surely the whole point of “naturalistic gardening” is to reintroduce the bush, not fall into some half-arsed middle ground of trying to fit in with the neighbours’ half-dead, water gobbling lawns, rose and invasive exotics collection. Thirdly, “an oddity” and a “proverbial sore-thumb”? According to whom? That is such a value judgement. And finally, “a major reason why…”…you got data to back that outrageous claim up, Mr. Urqhart? Both the “major reason” part and the assumption Australians hold native gardens in low esteem?
An equally skewed, but much less conformist description might be:
“The bush garden is often lovingly developed to create a harmonious and engaging reflection of the beauty of the Australian Bush. These gardens stand out as beacons of what a sustainable urban landscape could be: shady, water conserving, wildlife rich pockets of diversity that engage the mind, lift the soul and provide a haven from the frantic pace of modern urban life.”
If he’d written that I wouldn’t have snorted in derision and thrown the book across the room (sorry library, it was a gentle lob rather than a vitriolic hurl). I really must stop reading these “glossy” gardening books; they’re like candy floss: nice to look at, easy to consume and make me want to throw up.
Gosh, how interesting a blog post abut the joys of watering garden by hand.
I used to do it with a bucket, but that wore thin very quickly, so now I have a hose.
I don’t use a sprinkler, just let it run. [You were warned.]
And I’ve planted most of the plants in hollows.
So now, when I water…once a week at the moment…I get to crawl around the garden filling the hollows with water; watching all sorts of interesting insects scurry about as the flood waters rise; and doing some “tip pruning”.
I read about “tip pruning” in the Bible (Wrigley and Fagg): start as soon as the plant is in the ground, they suggest, should it need it; and keep at it throughout it’s life. Take off up to a third after flowering. This, apparently, results in fairly dense shrubbery, which is the look I’m after, rather than the “straggly, water-stressed bush” one that was apparently popular in the 1970’s and may explain why there are so few Australian plant gardens around now.
Anyway, back at the watering. Guess what? I put 73 litres of water on the front garden this evening. How exciting is that? Or is it just sad? I read the meter before and after watering…it’s sad. Next thing I’ll be collecting it in a measuring jug, checking the Water Corp have got my bill right and writing to the local paper.
I noticed the front is growing slower than the back. Largely due, I suspect, to the presence of two mature Agonis Flexuosa (WA Peppermint) and a couple of bloody great palm trees. It got me thinking that maybe I need to give them a boost in someway, the new natives that is; so I’m revising my views on Bentonite Clay (I “trolled” the whole “Bentonite Clay is King” business here). Maybe there is a place for the clay where the plants are in difficult situations. Apparently it’s quite easy to water in over time.
I might give them some slow release fertiliser too, although they look healthy, just a bit smaller than in the back. I think that means I need a nitrogen rich fertiliser…or at least more nitrogen in some way. Hmmm? Good “organic” sources of nitrogen? Ah ha! 😉
Took a walk round the garden this morning…well, to be honest I take a walk round the garden every morning and evening, but this morning it was with the camera.
Anigozanthos falvidus, common name “Kangaroo Paw” with it’s stunning red flower. This is a young specimen. More pics here.
Yesterday was truly blistering day: full sun, no breeze, temperatures in the mid-30’s from about 10 am. I managed to slaughter some potted-on tomato seedlings that I’d carelessly left out in the sun. Oops, I wasn’t expecting such sudden death. The natives though are thriving and many seem to be putting on quite amazing growth spurts.
Eucalyptus preissiana, on the left: one month ago, the right: today. Nice growth spurt.
I’ve been watering regularly; I bought a lovely hose a few weeks back. Bucketing was getting to be just a bit to time consuming. I’m running the hose without any spray head on and letting it run into the bowls/depressions I’ve (mostly) planted into. Seems to be working well for getting a really good soak. I read in the unbeatable Wrigley and Fagg that a really good water once a week is better than more regular light sprays.
Eucalyptus erythrocorys, last month (left) and this month (middle). Detail of this months new bud on the right. Another growth spurt.
I’m going to keep watering this way through Summer and into Autumn and plan on stopping/cutting down the water as the rains come in; and then I won’t water again, but let the garden survive naturally. It’ll be interesting to see what survives.
Acacia glaucoptera, the pic on the left is from mid-winter and the one of thr right is today’s. The red is the start of a new branch. New growth on this species is red. It makes it very nice to look at.
One of the key elements to this watering regime is to have planted into depressions. In a couple of areas I planted on mounds and the plants there are not doing at all well. The soil (mostly sand) has become water repellent very quickly as it’s dried out, so the only way to get the water to the plants’ roots is to make it sit where I want it: hence the depressions.
The latest delivery of woodchip!
We also had another load of woodchip delivered last week ($80 for a truck load: bargain, let’s hope it doesn’t bring disease with it!) and have spread that over the front garden. I used the wheelie bin method of distribution. It’s amazing how much wood chip fits in the bin so we were able to move it in a coupe of days. It’s nice to have wood chip about 10 cm deep throughout the growing areas of the garden now. A couple of areas are a bit thin and a couple are un-wood chipped, but they don’t have plants in them, so no worries there.
This was the previous load of wood chip. It went on the back garden a couple of weeks ago.
It’s nice to work out in the front garden because people stop to chat. I met John, who mows the lawns for the folk over the road. He’s originally English but has developed “an Australian eye” so he really appreciates the native plants. We had a good chat, mostly about how nice Australian plants are and the futility of lawns in this climate.
“The wheelie bin method”. It took about 30 of those to shift it all. I’m not sure what the Council would say if they knew I was abusing their property like this!
Derek and Heather also pulled up as they drove past to give encouragement. I hadn’t met them before, lovely people, they live just down the road, English too, but definitely not “adapted”. It was interesting to contrast their attitude with John, they were admiring the plumbago (invasive exotic) that I’ve left near the front door and telling me I should get more of it in. In exchange I offered to come and kill their lawn: they weren’t taken with the idea.
How easy is that?
And finally, mid-afternoon, when the heat was really at it’s peak, two “tradies” driving past in a white truck tooted out “Fanfare for the Common Man” (at least that’s what I heard!) on the horn and waved…I really appreciated the sentiment. I like to think that I have kudos for being willing to labour in the intense afternoon sun: my “Australian Bloke” credentials enhanced.
Mandurah Native Gardens 