My indigenous garden — familiar but not quite the same

Australia has a lot of very unique plants. But we still have a fair range of those that would seem familar to overseas visitors.

Native forget-me-nots

Some that I have in my garden that occur locally are native forget-me-nots. Believe me the seeds are a thousand times more annoying and sticky than the common garden variety. It is also as tough as anything in a dry garden.

Pelargonium australe

Another family we have a few of in Australia is Pelargoniums. This one is currently flowering in my garden. It's Pelargonium australe Austral stork's bill.

I also have the outrageously bright pink Magenta Stork's Bill Pelargonium rodneyanum but it's not out at present. It is a small rockery plant that survived the 10 year drought here without any added water.

Native jasmine

I've also got the tiny little scrambling local grassland jasmine. It's flowering right now and has a sweet delicate scent rather than the absolutely overpowering heady scent of some jasmines.

Common everlastings

Some of the other things flowering now are the common everlastings.

Clustered everlastings

The clustered everlastings which are taller and have smaller flowers.

Scaevola aemula

Other locals that are well worth having is the Scaevolas (fanflowers). I've both the Scaevola albida and the Scaevola aemula in the garden. The Sceavola aemula is my favourite but the both flower for months in my unwatered indigenous area of the garden. They are also the easiest thing to strike from cuttings as well. I'd recommend this as they need replacing semi-regularly as they are inclined to be a bit shortlived.

Vegetables can have pretty flowers too

I haven't blogged for a while as I'd picked up some paid temporary work and life was just too busy. I'm finished now so I can get back to all the things I was running out of time for. Including getting ready to have 16 over for Christmas Day.

Naughty chickens on the lawn.

My dear husband built my permanent escape proof chook run for me. Did you know leghorns can scale 6 foot fences even with their wings clipped.

 I finally got my summer garden going a month later than I usually would.

scarlet runner beans

Lots of the vegetables and fruit we grow has quite colourful flowers if we look closely. I put these scarlet runner bean in, just for the flowers it is often too warm for them to set beans here. So they are sharing a frame with purple king beans (yet to flower) which are predictably productive here.

Pepino flowers

The pepino flowers are attractive and I find the plants themselves as tough as old boots and productive in dry conditions. They don't however like frosts much.

Purple tomatillo flowers

Another one from the tomato family purple tomatillo. I haven't tried this one before so I be interested how it goes. The flowers are a really bright yellow.

Chinese celery in flower

These aren't as pretty but are often covered in beneficial insects like ladybirds. 

This is Chinese celery. It is much hardier the normal supermarket stem one requiring less water by far. But it is still very useful to produce that celery flavour in soups and other cooked dishes or to slice a little very finely in a salad. It has the added bonus it self sows in my garden.

Black passionfruit

A couple of fruiting plants flowering in the garden at the moment. 

Black passionfruit, this one is a seedling plant on its own roots. The grafted Nelly Kelly's rootstock is a pain as it suckers a fair bit here.

Pomegranate

And a pomegranate this bush is just starting to flower now. So tough, with such bright flowers that they should be grown as ornamentals alone.

Tree onion

Not a flower but I still find them fascinating. Tree onions, these little ones can be replanted next year and produce pickling size onions with good flavour and a bit of a bite.

The productive garden

European plum - Coes Golden Drop

It's early spring here so lots of new growth and flowers coming out. Here is one of the European plums. I have two young plum trees last year I had one plum this year they were covered in blossom so I'm hoping for lots more. The rate my kids are eating and growing I need as much as possible.

Garlic

The garlic is growing much better this year. Last years very wet winter rotted out most of it. This year it looks like will be a good harvest.

Variegated sage

The variegated sage I planted out last year is doing extra well. The spot it's in is hot and dry in the summer but is shade all winter. So far from ideal growing conditions. I love this with pork or chicken. Later in the spring it's covered with pretty purple flowers as well.

kale

The kale has done well it's not a family favourite and a lot gets fed to the chickens but I like its looks in the vegetable garden.

Baby figs

I've a small fig tree that I was given that just sat there for years in the drought but has finally taken off in the last couple of years. It's growing on a steep north facing slope that is baking hot and dry in the summer. The slope is a batter on the drive so it's growing in the subsoil and gets no supplementary water. Look at the baby figs. We are not sure what variety it is my Dad gave it to me and thinks it may be Brown Turkey.

New growth on the pomegranate

Who says that fruit trees have to be boring I love the orange new growth on our pomegranate. It's growing in the same conditions as the fig so it is as tough as old boots.

My indigenous garden

My birdbath

We live in Ocean Grove, Victoria, Australia. We live within 1 km of the sea and have a crazy mixture of absolutely water repellant grey sand and a gluggy reddish clayey sort of soil. Our whole block is on a west facing slope which means a lot of it is quite shaded in the morning and subjected to scorching afternoon sunshine in the summer.

Our backyard contains some of our favourite flowers, fruit trees, vegetables and the glasshouse (originally for hothouse orchids but over time it is now more used for raising cuttings and seedlings). But the front yard was a dilemma as it is quite steep. When we first moved in it contained some rubbish trees that needed removal and poorly growing lawn. The trees were removed early on. It soon became apparent that the lawn had to go to as I felt I was taking my life into my hands when I was mowing it, as if the grass was the slightest bit damp I started sliding down the hill.

My indigenous garden

We tossed up do we terrace it to level it out etc, etc. But in the end apart replacing and moving slightly the old brick retaining wall near the house with a new wall and leaving the rest as and planting it out.  I started on it about 8 years ago and the main planting was finished about 18 months later. This is what it looks like today. It's grown more slowly than I originally planned for but as I don't water it at all apart from once or twice after initially planting things (It's survival of the fittest here and the water is saved for the vegetables) and we'd had years of drought.

Shall we say it is a garden that is either loved or hated. The comments range from "I can lend you my slasher" to "this is the best indigenous garden in town" from strangers walking past when I'm working in there.

Hop bitter pea

I've got it planted out as a woody grassland as I love some of the tiny plants that grow in them. These are also the hardest to source so I'm slowly adding new ones as I find them. Whilst I have a large number of indigenous plants in there, I'm not a purist and there are other plants in there that I've added for various reasons.

One of the locals flowering in my garden at the moment is the hop bitter pea.

Some plants are colourful even without flowers. Like the local geranium below whose leaves always turn a delightful shade of orange before they die.

I found when establishing the little grasses and herbs that if the mulch I used contained any fines (like composted mulch) that I tended to have a lot of the plants rot out. Whilst the growth was slower initially, I found the coarse Eucky mulch was much more successful and I lost fewer plants.