Yard Gardening <3

I just transplanted old, fertilized soil from my Husbands Iguana tank and used it to make a new flower bed near my shed....

It was quite the nasty task, but Im all about reusing stuff... out with the old and in with the new...

My reasons for making this thread is to see what kind of outdoor projects are all of you doing this year?

Planting flowers? yard transformation? any fun stuff?

Actually, yes.

Rosaura & I have an ancient mulberry tree from which a sapling "volunteered" in a large pot which was currently empty. It had grown to six feet a couple of weeks ago when Rosaura offered to donate it to the park by our neighborhood.

The park rangers were very rude, told her they don't accept donations any more, they don't have the resources to plant them, etc. Rosaura was PO'd

Last week, in the dead of night, she & I snuck into the park and planted it ourselves. We've made two trips back (at night) to attend to the tree. I'm proud to say the mulberry is straight, tall & turgid with life.

LOOOOOOOOOOL LARRY. Oh my gosh, I love that so freaking much!

I have a gangrene thumb unfortunately.. lol.

Gigggggles...oh that makes me smile!!!!

Britt,

I could see you planting little seedlings in a foam cup....great project for your seniors....hint hint!

Well done Larry, good stuff

About to plant 120 Acacia and Eucalyptus trees this weekend near the roadside at my place just off to buy some Seamugus fertilizer....

I'm so bad with plants :(
Admire anyone with a green thumb.

Nicko...Eucalyptus trees? Are you sure you want to plant them close to the road?

Andrea... just about any manure will be good for your garden beds as long as you dig it in, I also like to recycle things and, so far, I've managed to harvest tomatoes, chillies and capsicum simply by drying out the seeds from shop bought products (organics are best). I also have two surviving apple trees which were from the seeds of bought apples..they are still very small but very definitely alive :) I try to make my garden a fun area and have things growing out of a toilet pan...the bottom of a shop mannequin..a head...yeah...my garden is a little different I guess but...I love it.

I'm thinking of having a go at aquaponics this summer because we don't have water mains where I am and depend on rainfall which can be scarce at times.

We have been really busy with our garden and my flower garden.

We have 6 acres of planted garden, butterbeans, peas, squash, okra, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, sweet corn, purple hull peas, cayenne peppers, banana peppers, green and red peppers, jalapenos, watermelon and cantaloupe. We use cow, chicken and goat manure and plant by signs and moon to help plants grow. Everything is organic. My summers are filled with canning everything.

For as long as Wally and I have been married we had some red tip shrubbery lining the house. They became an eyesore to me, so we pulled them up and replanted them near border of yard. Wally got me some sunkissed gladiolus bulbs (about 10 bulbs) many years ago. They multiplied, so we dug them up separated them and replanted spreading them out along the entire front and side of house. We also planted and replanted begonias, dahlias, lantanas, iris, calla lilies, day lilies, tulips, roses, daffodils, and century plants. For mothers day I bought myself some purple hydrangeas (in memory of my mom whom had a yard full.) I lined the flower bed with old firewood.

**Tip: use potato feelings or eggs shells in flower beds for compost. Or you can build a worm bed with your refuse. They keep the soil loose and it's fertility is awesome!

Ok after typing this I realize how obsessed with this I have become. Sorry :p

Ohhhh hellon your garden sounds so cool!!!

Egg shells? Ohhhh I must try that....I've heard of potatoe peelings.....

I thought eucalyptus could be planted just about anywhere??

Hellon I love the idea of your garden, sounds delightful. My vision is simple for mine. I have a wheel barrow and some huge cast iron cook pots. I really want a koi pond, but I have too much wildlife and pets that would kill the koi.

Im gutted as I don't have a garden to plant properly in, just a yard with flags so got nothing to plant but got some hanging flower pots.

Hanging flower pots are beautiful Em

I have a small porch...they look pretty and add color to a boring porch

Hey Hellon

there is a gravel road that runs above my property with my fence line about 10 or so meters below that, I will run a two lines (three varieties) of Eucalyptus trees about 3 meters below my fence line
But understand why you questioned it

Hellon once your apple trees start producing make sure you combat the codling moth... they are a real struggle to control unless you start early and can wreck your whole crop.....returning year after year....

All of you are SO industrious!
Kay, 8 acres!?!?! you get the prize
Hellon gets the unique award.
Nicko, maybe 20-30 years ago I might have been that ambitious.

I just try to keep up with Rosaura's Honey-Do list for flowers & plants in the back yard (mostly conventional pots). We do have some unusual pots I made from broken Nicaraguan pottery set into water trays filled with concrete. One includes a circus horse's head & foreleg looking like it's emerging from the concrete - I call it Horse Latitudes (Doors).

Here in the US we have a fairly new rose hybrid called the Knockout Rose. Eternally blooming, self-dead-heading and heat-drought resistant. I put them in my brick mailbox with Asian Jasmine behind them and they just about take care of themselves. I solved the problem of watering by opening up some unused diapers and mixing the absorbent material into the lower soil layer. I soak the mailbox with water and it releases moisture for almost a week - even in the Texas sun.

Oh Larry, I love Jasmine. I have knockout roses too and seven sisters. We have a bunch of honeysuckle and Listeria vines too. That stuff grows worse than kudzu, but I love it. Thank you for reminding me about the diaper stuff. I keep forgetting to try it. I have one straw over my flowers but my eyes aren't as good so I anyway of snakes. Need something different.

P.s. Larry I live in a farming community, my husband and his father and family used to farm about 50- 75 acres of just watermelon. So the 6 acres is small to him and tiring to me. It's for our family but after we get what we can use then it's free for all. A couple of years ago we had an over abundance of corn, so we begged friends to come get as much as they wanted. They were very appreciative.

Yeah, Kay. Growing up in East Tennessee I can appreciate what you describe.

Thanks for the heads-up with the codling moth Nicko...I haven't heard of it before and wonder if it's Australia wide or maybe just native to your area? I will definitely keep an open eye for them. My apple trees are still in pots, only about half a metre in height so it may be a while before they're ready to go in the ground. I have heaps of eucalyptus trees on my block and they're a pain in the neck...some are on the grass verge beyond my boundary so I can't maintain them myself, I have to get the council to cut them because they obstruct my view when reversing out of the driveway and they grow freely in the trough drains blocking them . Also the birds are always dropping the nuts onto my drive and this can be quite dangerous if I just leave them there.

Larry I didn't know about the diapers...sounds like a good idea especially when I depend on rainwater for everything....I'll give it a go.

Em...vertical gardens are beautiful and can grow in really small areas...maybe you could try that?

Thanks Hellon. I think I'm going to. :)

Hellon Codling moth originates from Europe but looking on the internet its not found in two places in the world, Japan and Western Australia.... see link http://agspsrv34.agric.wa.gov.au/ento/codling.htm

wow that's great and I'm jealous lol, I have two apple trees and Codling moth is real problem on one. In fact last year i pulled off every apple just after flowering in the hope of interrupting their yearly breeding cycle as they were infecting 3 out of 4 apples... mind you a family of Rosella's turns up every year just before they are ripe and eats the bloody lot anyway .... wow

Thanks for the link Nicko. I guess I should be thankful that I live over in WA and also grateful that out border security is so damn strict. I'd hate for my little apple trees to become infected with anything...it's taken me so long to get them to this stage haha!! Had to wrap the seeds in damp paper towels and refrigerate them for around 10 weeks to germinate them so yeah...I'd hate for anything to happen to my little guys
:)

Can you net your trees perhaps? I have a huge fig tree out front that attracts black cockatoos and 28s who both eat high up in the tree and the kangaroos scab off the bottom half but, I'm not too keen on figs so I'd rather observe the wildlife eating them than eat them myself.

Yeah its possible to net them but looks unsightly i think... i will be interested what the codling moth infestation is like this year after their food source was nil last year...

Well done on germinating those seeds a fair bit of work went into that obviously :)