One thing leads to another

I hadn't planned on doing a blog posting today, but one thing led to another and here I am, blogging about something that wasn't even on my mind as recently as three hours ago. Where to begin? Easy - pictured below is a Syngonium. This is what I didn't know three hours ago. Up until that point it had the rather lengthy common name of "Pam's old pot plant which got too big and so we planted it out in the shady back part of the garden where it has thrived but sorry we don't know its name." Syngonium sums it all up much more succinctly, I think you'll all agree.

Traa daa, our Syngonium, accompanied by three blind mice disguised as mushrooms.

This is what cleared up the plant name thing. Its original label, discovered in a big pile of plant labels in my shed, while I was looking for a completely different label. See what I mean about one thing leading to another?

By the way, if you look carefully at the label above you'd notice that the plant on the label is variegated, but the leaf in the opening photo on this posting isn't. Our Syngonium is doing what all (or at least, many) variegated plants seem to end up doing – they proceed to also grow some unvariegated, fully green leaves. From what I understand variegation is a not a dominant gene in plants. So, if you don't cut off the 'normal' fully green leaves, slowly but surely the variegated leaves will be outnumbered, and after several years it will be a plain, unvariegated plant.

And so, in another sense altogether, one thing (a variegated plant) leads to another (a non-variegated plant).

In fact, this innocent little dig around my dusty plant label pile in my shed also gave me another idea for a blog topic that I'll try to make sense of soon, so one thing has led to another, which then led to another. I love a good meaningless set of tangents – it feels like I'm dreaming!

Goldilocks rain

It began as all good Goldilocks rain should. Early in the morning, before sun-up. We could hear it on the roof. Then it had its moments, falling ubundantly for a little while, without causing any problems. And then the sun came out. Goldilocks rain – not too little, not too much, just right, with sunshine soon after.

To qualify as a Goldilocks-pleaser, there'd have to be sunshine lighting droplets on pretty plants like this floating native water fern, nardoo.

And for another thing it would be heavy enough to thoroughly wash all the foliage, too. I'm sure that nature isn't meant to have jets, cars and diesel trucks throwing soot into the air, so all the gunk and grime of the city needs to be washed away for plants to be happy and breathe freely. At least that's what I think.

These poppies have just been fed, and so truly A-Grade Golidlocks rain falls the day after you have fertilised some plants, and they just start to grow like crazy when that happens.

Of course a bit of rain does knock over some floppy-leafed people for a short while, but it doesn't bash them up. This little moisture-loving lettuce leaf is probably giggling with pleasure about the rain this morning.

Out at the rain gauge the reading was excellent, a classic Goldy number. 8mm. That's one-third of an inch or about 30pts on the other scale. Definitely enough rain to soak into the soil, but not enough rain to wash seeds away or hurt any delicate petals.

We can't get the rain we want when we want it (ie, 10mm every Tuesday and Thursday nights, between 3am and 5am), as that would make things far too easy. But there's no reason why we can't get the occasional dose of pure Goldilocks rain in between the drizzle, the downpours and the droughts.

This morning, I loved your work, Huey!

A break in the rain

As it turns out the break in the rain only lasted till early afternoon, but at least the sun came out on a Saturday morning, so it was agreed by all that we were all enjoying some quality time with the Sun God.

Sydneysiders will know what I'm talking about. Gosh it's been wet lately! While I can't quite come at trainspotting as a hobby, I have been a sucker for rain gauges for some years now. According to my records, since May 18, when the heavens opened and haven't stopped, we've copped 262.5mm of rain, or 10.3 inches in the old money. So, in just 17 days we've received a bit more than one-fifth of our total annual average rainfall. Can't complain, especially after these years of drought.

Anyway, with the break in the rain the sun came out and I quickly realised that some of my plants are simply loving it! Here's a quick lap of the highs and lows of life here in Soggy Bottoms.

Orchids aplenty. Dozens of spikes are up, out and flowering. What a show!

The brodiaeas (spring bulbs with blue flowers) are all up in unison.

Lettuce seeds have turned into lettuce seedlings.

Mrs Lithops is almost there with Daisy. This is turning out to be a difficult delivery, isn't it?

The thyme is outrageously happy, fragrant and healthy.

At the other end of the scale, the Scadoxus has definitely died down for the winter. It should be back in bloom in spring, if last year's effort is repeated.

And finally, even the doormat in front of Pam's studio at the bottom of the garden is sprouting plants! She's delighted, and not at all deterred by my comment that they're probably just weeds. "They might not be" she said with motherly optimism. We'll see. I'm not allowed to touch them.

As I mentioned at the start of this little blog, the sunshine lasted till early afternoon. It's sprinkling again, more rain is forecast, and this wet patch definitely isn't over yet. It's good fun for the rain gauge people, though. We email each other with readings! It's bearable excitement, but I think the dry, drought-hit soil is very happy - it's still saying 'more drinks please'. Chin chin!

The Bucket List

Yesterday, before my lower back kicked the bucket, I…

Fertilised all the citrus trees, as it was time to do so

Fertilised all the orchids, because I hadn’t done it for a while

Fertilised the gardenias, whose leaves were yellowing

Fertilised the repotted and divided French tarragon and mint to give them a boost

Fertilised the lemon grass with high-nitrogen food

Fertilised the Asian eggplant yet again

Put out slow-release fertiliser pellets around the potted begonias

And, as pictured above, I pulled away all the potted succulents which were being monstered by the rosemary bush, drilled some holes into the masonry wall behind the rosemary, installed wall bolts with hooks and tied back the rosemary so it stood more upright. (Stakes just weren’t strong enough to hold back this leaning monster).

Then I repotted the succulents worth saving and, as many of the other succulents were showing some signs of autumn growth, I fertilised them with a liquid succulent fertiliser, too.

And as I stood up after moving the last succulent pot, my rotten lousy lower back said to me “time for a spasm, a real good one, old boy”. It’s still sore. Didn’t sleep all that brilliantly, either. My back said things like “you’ve been in that position for at least 10 minutes, Jamie, here’s a mini spaz to turn you over”. Gee, thanks lower back, I can only rely on you to let me down.

Yesterday, before my lower back kicked the bucket, if I did everything on my 'to do' list (which is, admittedly, very unlikely) I could have also…

Trimmed the large murraya near the pergola

Trimmed the murraya hedge near the shed

Trimmed the last of the climbing fig on the garage wall (you know, the bit with the wasp nests)

Repotted the native orchids into nicer & bigger pots

Replanted the potted oregano in the ground, near the sage

Fixed the bashed-up-by-wind scented pelargoniums

Sprayed the asthma weed under the kitchen and bathroom windows

Trimmed my neighbour Michael’s rampant grapevine

Fed the cardamom and ginger plants

Got rid of the baby curry leaf trees at the base of the potted tree

Harvested some limes, then squeeze/freeze the juice

Trimmed the dead bits off the underside of the nardoo

Dolomited the compost bin and checked how it’s going

Potted up seeds of mesclun lettuce

But I didn’t get a chance to do any of those jobs. They’re my bucket list. Not exactly things to do before I die, but they’re things I might have done had my back not kicked the bucket.

Is my back telling me that my garden is too high-maintenance? I think so. I’m going to have to rethink my garden so it’s easier to look after. Now, there’s a whole new world ahead of me. No, my lower-back, you’re definitely not a pal – at best you're a limiting factor who cannot be ignored.

Raindrops

Beggars definitely cannot be choosers, and as a gardener who only recently begged Huey for a bit more rain I can hardly complain that he/she has left the tap running. Our average rainfall for February is 117mm; it's Feb 8 and already we have had 141mm. Hardly a deluge, but it's plenty. This morning there was a gap in the rain and it all looked so pretty that I whipped out the camera and came back with some snaps a few minutes later, because it had started raining again.

The berries on my curry leaf tree are turning black, and I really should get out there and remove them all, as these trees are gaining a reputation as a weed. Birds eat the berries, fly a few kilometres and while in some native bushland, leave a berry behind as birds naturally do. But right now it's too wet to harvest berries, and besides, they look so pretty.

The native floating fern called nardoo, which is thriving in my potted water garden, holds onto raindrops in much the same way as nasturtiums do – as if each droplet is a little pearl.

My goldfish, John, Paul and George don't care much about the rain, but I do worry a bit when the water level in the pot gets right up to rim-level (they're frisky little fellers), and so I bail out a couple of inches of water each morning.

Most people understandably think of succulents as dry-climate, waterwise plants, but these are often at their prettiest when wet. This is Agave attenuata.

And I'm not exactly sure what this person is. I suspect it's a 'graptoveria' but it could be an echeveria, maybe a graptopetalum. Frankly, I don't really have a clue, but its light blue colouring looks lovely in the wet morning light.

The potted cumquat tree is covered in white, gently fragrant flowers and green baby fruits, not to mention glossy green leaves. And raindrops.

The soil's getting the good soaking it badly needs, I've enjoyed a weekend of rest because there's nothing to do out in the garden, and all the plants are loving the deep drink. If anyone up in heaven reads blogs, please remind Huey to turn off the tap over Sydney. We've had our fill, thanks, but surely there's somewhere else which is bone dry and needs a good drink right now.

Making plans

The rain is doing its best imitation of Madam Lash at the moment, telling Sydney "take that, Sin City" with successive whippings of rain. And so poor innocent gardeners, who've done nothing to deserve this punishment (apart from praying for rain) are sitting with their wet, squishy noses pressed against the window pane, looking out at a super-soggy garden, doing the only thing they can do right now – dreaming up what to do next.

This is definitely one of those "click on the photo to make it readable" photos. This is how the garden looks today, after 78mm rain (three inches) yesterday, and 50mm (one inch) spread over the two days beforehand. That's enough, Madam Lash, I can't take any more! Anyway, what follows are my plans for autumn plantings – probably beginning in March at the earliest. Let's start with the foreground, left – "brodiaeas in here".

Until last Sunday night I'd never heard of brodiaeas, but now I own 50 of them. Aren't catalogues wonderful? After a recent posting here, blasting away at how much I dislike spring bulbs, I've gone ahead and ordered some spring bulbs. I just figured that I wanted to see something different next spring, and as soon as they finish flowering, I'm pulling them all up and, shock-horror, tossing them all away. Total cost is $12.50, roughly the price of an indifferent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. But it wasn't me who picked the brodiaeas.

That was Pammy's job. Pammy is a wonderful shopper, and also a magician with restaurant menus, able to find something amazing on a menu which everyone else misses. I suspect this is because she reads menus from cover to cover, same too with catalogues. Anyway, I tossed her this catalogue with her brief to choose something interesting, and the next morning it was on the kitchen table, with helpful pink sticky note thingys indicating the brodiaeas. Blue flowers. I love blue flowers!

By the following Friday, the postman dropped off the package. Parcels in the mail, one of life's simple pleasures!

Little buttons they are. Currently they're staying in the crisper bin of my fridge until planting time, which won't be until April. I asked my resident horticultural expert, Geoffrey, for some tips, and as well as telling me to wait until Anzac Day (April 25) before planting he helpfully added that the growers incorrectly list brodiaeas as being from South Africa when in fact they actually come from Northern California. So thanks once again to Geoffrey for his growing tips and advice, which is invariably spot-on.

Once Pam had set me off with a blue theme, I wondered what else might I grow that's blue-flowered, down the other end of the garden. It has been about 15 years since I last grew the old-fashioned cottage plant, love-in-a-mist, so I ticked the box for one packet of love-in-a-mist seeds while browsing the online catalogue of another major seed supplier, Digger's. (This photo is pinched from Google Images, by the way).

In the spot where currently I have an Asian eggplant producing a crop, I've decided to grow a dwarf Tibouchina 'Groovy Baby' which is only 60cm tall and 80cm wide. I'll plant this dwarf shrub in April, once the eggplant has finished. This is more of a summer and autumn flowerer, so it'll keep my favourite blue-flowered thing going a couple of months after all the spring blues have gone up to heaven. If all goes well, this will become a permanent planting here, a summer patch of blue in a lovely, sunny spot.

Across the path from the love-in-a-mist, I'm going to grow another crop of broad beans, my favourite home-grown vegetable to eat. This is a photo of the previous crop, which was a tall-growing variety tied to a nice bamboo frame. This time round I've picked a dwarf plant which only grows 1m tall, but as I still have the bamboo poles in the shed, I'll make up some kind of support for the floppy old broad bean plants with them.

This is just the tiny photo pinched from the Diggers catalogue. It's what they solemnly promise their red spring onions will look like, and I liked that look so much I ticked the box for a packet of seeds of these, and they'll form a border around the broad beans.

Of course I am going to grow poppies again for Pammy, in the same spot where I grew them last year, and I hope they'll be every bit as lovely this time round, too.

I've run out of photos for the rest of my autumn planting plans. But on the left side, near the house, I am going to replace my rather dreary big potted bay tree with a far more exciting and interesting potted 'Black Genoa' fig. I'm really looking forward to having a fig in the garden again. When we moved here an old in-ground fig tree struggled along for the first 15 or so years, producing bumper crops every summer, then it just fell over in a storm one day, its branches full of rot. And so 'Son of Fig II – the Black Genoa' will be starring at this blog fairly soon.

And that lovely big grevillea on the left needs pruning soon. Big tip for anyone growing grevilleas: prune them often, do it twice a year, after each flush of flowers. Take off up to a third each time if you like, but that's not compulsory, although some kind of pruning is. Roses and grevilleas have a lot in common - pruning makes both of them flower much better. But grevilleas hardly need feeding. Just pruning.

On the right side of the pathway, I am going to grow a leafy patch of flavours, combining flat-leaf parsley, coriander (cilantro) and some celery leaf plants, which produce lots of celery-flavoured leaves for cooking. Celery is a notoriously tricky vegie to grow, but I do like the flavour of the leaves, etc in making all sorts of sauces, so I'll give the seeds of these leafy relatives of celery (which I bought recently in an Asian food store in Darwin) a try this autumn.

Finally, on the centre, right side of the pathway, yet another crop of mixed 'mesclun' salad greens, a crop which, along with herbs, is probably the most useful, practical crop I grow here.

One thing I can say in favour of extremely wet days is that they slow you down enough to help you do some planning. So Madam Lash's ministrations aren't all bad, but she can stop now.

Morning light

Of all the times of day I love being in my garden, mornings are the best. It's the morning light, low and clear and, compared to the shadows, as bright as the sun itself. As the garden awakes from sleep, dull colours shimmer brightly, dark greens become pale and young again, and honeyeaters come to enjoy their breakfast of nectar as I enjoy my coffee. (As always, click on the photos to make them bigger).

Here's the scene this morning. My garden faces north-east, so the morning light comes in from the right. There are a few bare garden beds here now, as I've just pulled out my tomatoes and zucchinis. And the birds are happy. Covered with mulch, these 'bare' beds have suddenly become a wormy, insecty feeding ground for blue wrens, magpies and wagtails.

Perched atop a grevillea, this perky little New Holland honeyeater checks to see what's going on before enjoying another lick of nectar.

A young wattlebird ponders its favourite grevillea before darting there for breakfast.

As well as the red one providing food to the New Holland honeyeater pictured earlier, this 'Peaches & Cream' grevillea, a young plant just two years old, has come into its own this summer and, flowering well, is now the delicacy of choice for several different native bird species. Maybe it's multi-flavoured, as well as multi-coloured?

As the sun rises all the lower-growing colours get a glow on. In the foreground are my zinnias, and that's blue salvia behind. The spiky grass on the left is my new pot of lemongrass enjoying its sunny spot. Far right, the basil and baby curry leaf trees catch the sun.

Against the dark background of our murraya hedge, the frangipani's leaves are X-rayed by the sun.

So too the hollow shallot leaves. Sometimes I think they'll just spontaneously burst into flames, so aglow they are with light.

I had originally chosen about 20 'morning light' photos for this blog, as everything here looks wonderful at this time of day. But mornings aren't a time for excess. It's a gentle, beautiful time of day and I never miss the chance to be there if I can possibly manage it.

Four inches in one day

Rain! Since noon yesterday, we have received four wonderful inches (100mm) of much-needed rain. And so this morning everything is very, very soggy and I'm not going out there. Just standing back and taking a few snaps, while under the relatively dryish cover of our pergola area.

Here's soggy old Pam & Jamie Land this morning (click on the photo for a better look). The rain still steadily falling, everything saggy yet shiny, lapping it up, but there are a few victims, inevitably.

This is a calamity in progress, which I was planning to blog about in a week or so, once I've solved a few practical problems with the plants and pots and added some fish etc. It's my new water garden, and this morning it looks like a typhoon victim with an "after" caption attached. Needless to say the Louisiana iris has been rescued from its shipwrecked position and is slowly reviving. More on the water garden next week...

Generally, everything else is as happy as my NSW Christmas bush: wet and bedraggled like commuters who forgot to take their umbrellas, but otherwise happy.

Unfortunately, my African desert dweller, the lithops, is in shock. When I got home yesterday afternoon (by which time 60mm – a bit over two inches – of rain had fallen) I rescued the lithops from the garden and brought it under dry shelter. A further 40mm of rain fell overnight, so the rescue was worth it, but it's looking unhealthily crinkly and dodgy. So, no water for the next three months, lots of sunshine and fingers crossed. It's in the hospital wing for sure.

This rain is wonderful, exactly what the garden needed. When I dig down deep into the soil it's far too dry. The top few inches of soil hold moisture and keep plants alive, but deeper down it's a different story. And for larger, more established trees and shrubs, it's the level of moisture deeper in the soil which determines these plants' health or otherwise. So heavy rain, in my books, is a welcome tonic for all the older inmates in my plant asylum.

Life on Mars

Talk about a red sky in the morning. Sydney woke up to what might be its first-ever dust storm this morning. This is how things looked about 15 minutes after sunrise. Instead of the white-yellow glare of a low sun, everything looked deep red, like we were on Mars.

Eeerie is the only word to describe the feeling of waking up with all your windows glowing red. Our breakfast radio announcer ventured 'spooky' as well as 'eerie', and no-one would disagree. And he's playing songs by Dusty Springfield, Slim Dusty, etc. Nice touch!

About five minutes later the light brightened slightly, and this is the scene on the street. The dust has been blown here by fierce, strong winds emanating from the centre of the continent, and the winds here are howling this morning. The weather bureau says to expect gusts of 100km/h (60mph).

Looking the other way down the street and it's just like when it's foggy, except that it's red. The street lamps are glowing, and as cars drive by their headlights send out pinky red beams in advance.

Looking from the back of the garden to the house, and the southern sky, and my lungs are hurting. I suffer from mild asthma, and even five minutes out in that stuff and I'm short of breath. So, for me, it's inside to blog about it all, use the puffer and stay away from the dust. You can taste it in your mouth, and it's unpleasant.

Well, here at the Garden Amateur blog I am sure some readers must get sick of me blathering on about the beautiful Sydney climate, but today it's deadly. Be glad you're not here! Strong winds all day, lung-damaging dust choking everyone, traffic chaos everywhere, and if those gales work up, I am sure some beautiful plants and trees will be blown down. I'm not really sure if this is Sydney's first dust storm, but I've been here 55 years and it's my first one. And that concludes the weather report from Mars, Australia.

Backyard TV – at my place!

What an interesting day! TV crew here all day filming segments in my backyard. The first one goes to air on Friday night, 6.30pm on Channel Nine, as part of the regular 'Burke's Backyard' gardening segment that's within the 'A Current Affair' TV show on Friday nights. Lots of the other segments they filmed here will appear in coming weeks, so they tell me. They ended up doing several different stories, as the show's presenter, Don Burke, found all sorts of things to repair, plant, repot or just generally talk about here.

Here they are hard at work in Amateur Land, Don, cameraman, 'soundo' and the producer discussing how to do the next segment (on my poppy patch, in this case).

And here's me (right) with the star of the show, Don Burke (left), in what can only be described as a pretty good happy snap starring two bearded, middle-aged Aussie blokes. Now, Don and I aren't strangers by any means. I've been working for him for the last 11 years as a magazine sub-editor, but this is the very first time he has ever come round to my place. And having Australia's most famous gardener visit your garden is like having the headmaster over for dinner when you're a schoolkid. Not relaxing! But it seems I passed inspection, although my secateurs are blunt and I could definitely do better in that department. But I got a Gold Star for general neatness (perhaps I overdid the 'tart up' with the new mulch, etc yesterday afternoon?), received an excellent composting tip, and have promised to move my potted pineapple into a warmer spot.

It was a combination of nerve-wracking anticipation and good fun (plus relief) to have a really expert gardener check out things here at home. Don and I have a great working relationship, and I've learned so much from him over the years. As well as working on his magazine, editing all the text and writing some articles when it is deemed safe for me to do so, and even contributing a few photos, I've lent a hand with the creation of a variety of gardening books and I also have a regular weekend radio spot (for Aussie blog readers, it's on 2UE mornings, 6am-8am, syndicated nationally) where I talk about growing food plants and toss in a recipe or two for good measure. Here's a link to the podcasts for the radio show. I'm on every second Saturday, mostly (the last one was Saturday 25th July, talking about cumquats (if you check out the podcast it's just a bit before the half-way mark in the program), and the next one will be on Saturday August 8).

However, until today I've never had anything to do with the TV side of things, and watching a TV crew work is really fascinating. Very professional but also quite relaxed. They curse the noise from passing planes, trucks and motorbikes, saying in the middle of a take "bugger, stop, let's do it again" (and that happens a lot here in inner-city Marrickville, which is close to airports, shops and transport, as they say. And sometimes they say worse words than bugger, too!). But the whole team works really hard, head down, tail up, as they say. All day long: 9am start, until sunset.

PS: a couple of friends have asked me over the last year, knowing what I do for a living, why I call my blog 'Garden Amateur', when I work on gardening magazines and books and do a regular radio spot on gardening/cooking.

Well, for one thing I don't have any formal gardening qualifications and I'm no expert at all, and don't pretend to be. Out in my garden I keep on making lots of mistakes and don't know the names of zillions of plants, or how to grow them, either. I only blog about what I know, and that's not a lot.

But the real reason for the 'amateur' name is that I do all my gardening for the sheer love of it, not for any other reason. And I also love the old 19th-century idea of the 'amateur' scientist: the person who, without formal qualifications, devotes so much of his/her time to pursuing knowledge about something for love, certainly not for profit or fame. That's why I garden. I do it for love, not for any other reason. And I blog about it for the same reason, too. So there you go, that's me, in case you were wondering.

Rainbow morning

It was more the quality of light itself which caught my eye this morning, saying to me "get the camera out, there's something happening".

My favourite photo enhancer – rain – was making everything shiny, cool and clean (apart from my muddy shoes). The cumquat fruit in particular look lovely dusted with droplets.

The rain itself is the showery stuff. Heavy at times, stopping suddenly then beginning again as if on a switch.

Glistening paths and glowing colours. The sun was doing its best to break through. The light was more yellow than golden, but all the greens and yellows had their saturation setting a few clicks richer this morning.

Wandering a little further out into the garden as the rain eased, the patch of blue suddenly opening up in the active clouds allowed the morning sun to warm to its work.

And then I finally managed to turn around and look back over the house. You can see a hundred rainbows and be delighted each time, and then when you see your hundred and first it's the same thrill as the first. Wow!

Rushing through the house to the front landing – chasing rainbows no less – the wonderful full arc reveals itself.

Touching down to Mother Earth – peaceful, quiet lightning – the rainbow's colours become richer then fainter as the clouds behind darken then lighten up, as the sun's beams wax and wane through the busily drifting clouds.

What a welcome way to start a day! For me, it's not a gardening day. It's a working day, a very busy one in fact. I'm about to rush off to see another issue of a magazine off to the printer, then hustle a book a few more stages in the same direction as well. And attend planning meetings too when they can be squeezed in. And now, this wonderful rainbow-powered start to the day has put all this frantic activity into a better, healthier perspective.

Slow down, take in the beauty around you. Then begin the day.