Someone has stolen the salvia that was thriving in our street garden and covered in flowers for months. It has been carefully dug out.
One of our neighbours has given up on a nice front garden because of people stealing his plants. This is why I stick to nasturtiums and geraniums - free and easy to grow from cuttings or seeds. No-one wants to steal them.
@aeduna I agree that it is almost certainly locals. I have someone working in the business opposite who has self-appointed himself as a plant guard (and caught a thief in the act). I reckon this must have happened overnight.
Yes, security cameras may be worth it with a notice asking people to smile for the camera.
@weezmgk I am thinking of a 'smile for the camera' with a smiley face sign. I want to make the point but do it in the spirit in which the garden was planted - to bring joy to people. It might be too subtle but I will try it and see.
I will replace the plant with another geranium. They don't seem to steal them.
@mativity If one accepts this as fantasy, not historical fiction then I suppose go for it. Not my cup of tea. Comparing Beethoven to Taylor Swift has me scratching my head.
'Ditch the lawn' movement in southern Australia shows the benefits of removing the traditional patch of grass in front of homes and planting things that will attract birds etc.
My mother ripped up her front lawn in 1987 and again in her new place in 1993. At the time I thought it was strange but the results in both gardens convinced me that this was a great idea.
If we needed a place for our children to play we walked to a park
@mativity We have low rainfall here so grass left like that would probably be dead over summer. My mother ripped hers up and covered the space with pine bark. Then she planted things and created a path using pavers.
The beauty of this is she can change where paths go and easily dig new plants in. I haven't got a photo from the last garden redesign a few months ago which involved rebuilding a path.
I moved into my social housing flat 5 years ago this week. My garden has gone from this to this ! Also I was finally allows and nhs wheelchair, (can only have one of you live in an accessible property ). My gardens my sanctuary from my illness, pain, extreme exhaustion.. 💚 #gardening
@Rachelburch Thank you very much for sharing this transformation. Just yesterday I was asking for ideas of how to transform our small backyard of artificial turf covering concrete. Your photos are helpful
Managed to do a fair bit of gardening today despite battling the start of a migraine (eventually thwarted by caffeine and rest in the afternoon). I repotted a blueberry plant that was in a way too small pot. I also repotted my $5 tubestock camellia I purchased recently.
My big success was finishing sieving my worms from their worm poo and therefore being able to retire one tray of my worm farm. It has taken me many hours over a few weekends to accomplish this because it is the first time I have done it and I didn't know what I was doing. Eventually with advice from @treevan and @earthmothering9 I got it and this morning I was much more efficient. This is what social media is so good for - sharing skills and experience as well as encouraging others.
So I cleaned up a worm tray and felt good! #worms#vermiculture <- newly learned word for me :-)
I used the worm poo slurry for our street garden. After a harsh summer I have been giving it some loving care. Despite the perargoniums being stunted while they held on for dear life during the period of no rain and high temperatures I pruned them a bit yesterday to encourage new growth.
I have grown the pelargonium (geranium) pictured below on the left from a cutting I took from a street planting in North Fitzroy. Those pelargoniums needed cutting to invigorate them and make them bushy. The cutting had thrived in a pot so I planted it out yesterday.
The pelargonium on the right is a slower growing variety grown from a cutting from my mother's garden. I have put it in a more sheltered position in the street garden as it is a slow grower and seems to be a bit more delicate.
While I was tending the street garden this afternoon a neighbour I have not met before stopped and said he likes seeing me take care of the garden so often. That makes me happy because that is the point of the garden. In an area covered with signs of addiction, rubbish and grafitti of the tagging variety, I want this small patch to uplift passers by and awaken in them the thought that it is possible to make things better here. #StreetGarden#Melbourne#StreetGardening#GardeningAU
This morning our gardening group gave away a lot of cuttings to a family nearby. We had been nurturing the plants over summer. We also gave away plants that my mother no longer wants.
Gardening can be an incredibly cheap hobby if you know a bit about plants. Many gardeners have piles of black plastic pots they no longer want and some plants like pelargoniums (geraniums) are easy to grow from cuttings. I pick up cheap potting soil from a supermarket as the easy to grow plants don't really care about what they grow in.
@melanie Gardening requires a lot of hope doesn't it?
I am nursing a rhododendron cutting that is probably 5 years old. It only grows during autumn. This year it has grown a couple of tiny shoots at the base (if you expand the photo you can just see them). I am looking forward to the year it flowers. It is a cutting from my mother's garden and has beautiful orange flowers (see the right-hand photo). It is a Vireya Rhodedendron 'Simbu Sunset'.
Oh god my flight's been delayed. In my experience, the more tired and desperate you are to get home, the higher the likelihood of your flight being delayed. [sigh]
@timrichards I learned the hard way, never get an evening flight out of Brisbane in February. For a few years I would only work up there in February and get caught at the airport with flight delays caused by their afternoon/evening storms.
Day 3 of my quest to separate the worms from their castings and retire one bin of our worm farm. I have been following helpful advice from @treevan and @earthmothering9. This morning I bought a cheap sieve and have been pouring rain water through the castings to separate the worms and put them in the other tray.
To my annoyance I found that there was a bit of shredded plastic amongst the shredded paper we had been feeding the worms. I have been painstakingly fishing the plastic out as well as the worms.
I will get there! I am being slow and nitpicking doing this but that is my nature and it is better to get those personal qualities out on the weekend and in solitude rather than annoy people at work with them. #GardeningAU#Melbourne#worms
The light failed so I finished the weekend's gardening work. I managed to repot and divide 3 gazania pots. I watered the lemon and lime trees as well as the gazanias with the worm castings that I had filtered through a sieve with rain water.
Last week I planted a geranium (pelargonium) which grows a couple of feet next to the garage. In front of that I planted a jasmine plant I grew from a cuttingnso that it can grow up the fence. Then on the street I planted a 'Big red' geranium that has a small bushy growth habit. Today on the other side of the garage I mirrored the planting of the previous week.
You can see the stump of a tree on the left. The builder planted a Cyprus on each side of the garage which predictably became nuisances in such small spots, so close to the building. The previous owner had them cut down but when we moved in a couple of years ago, they were sprouting. We poisoned them and waited. They have not sprouted for about a year and the wood is rotting, so now I am planting some more suitable plants. #GardeningAU#Melbourne