Fil and Sienna

This has no horticultural significance, sorry! I few people have asked me about my horses so I thought just for fun (probably more my fun then yours) I would dedicate a blog post to my horses. My horses are what my life revolves around if they are happy then so am I.

I have a grey mare called Filly aka Sparkle aka Miss Mina (she has a range of names). This horse is the love of my life. We have had a long rollercoaster ride of a partnership. She is strong, dominating and opinionative (yes horses can be all that) but I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

My main horse Sienna (aka Blackie) is a black 5 year old Irish x Warmblood mare. She has a beautiful nature and is so kind and willing. She is completely the opposite of Fil. A very funny little horse!   

They say horses are the eye to the soul. They can fix a broken heart and they can teach you how to be strong and to trust. They are pretty powerful creatures.

Blog Posting Comments

I have been having a huge amount of trouble posting comments on other blogs. As an outdoor person I have a short tolerance for machines that don’t do what they are told! Humm…control freak much? So after countless attempts I am admitting defeat (for now) and going to post some comments here in my blog.

I read Lillie’s blog post titled ‘Banjo and Sweetie’ and what a beautiful place it is! I quite like these landscapes as it reminds me of where I kept my horse for a number of years in Warrandyte. I found the compacted soil made it hard for grass to grow but the weeds were keen. I was wondering if much Patterson's Curse crops up around there at all? It's my most hated weed along with the dreaded Cape Weed. Thanks Lillie for posting this I like hearing about Banjo! I do think Sunny may get a rude shock if he chased my horse Sienna who is 500kg and not particularly canine friendly.

Reading Katherine’s blog Hipsters and Hibiscus, the untitled post on succulent lovers touched on a few things I had been wondering myself. At work I have people come in all the time and make a V line to the succulents. I asked a customer one day why she liked them so much and I got a similar response to Katherine. So that’s a useful little piece of information from that blog. By the way nice hat Katherine!

So there are some comments that I really would have liked to be able to post but sadly not today, or any day I have tried for that matter.

Fire Proof Gardens?

Sorry to everyone who thought I was going to speak about street trees throughout my blog. It has taken a detour for the time being. So I’m back on the bushfire bandwagon.

Out the window on my way up the Kinglake, this was just out of Whittlesea.

The other day we had a lecture on plant adaptations and part of this was devoted to fire and how plants respond and recover. It got me thinking…could there be garden design methods used in areas prone to bushfires that could reduce the impact?

Pretty certain this is the turn off at Kinglake West.

 As I went from house to house in Kinglake I noticed some things that to me seemed obvious. One house in particular, had a hose (plastic) attached to a tap on the other side of the driveway…the fire came from that angle burnt and melted the hose cutting off the water supply to the roof sprinklers before the fire had even hit the house. Other things I notices were all the tanks that were plastic melted and the tanks that were tin got so hot the water boiled. The generators were useless due to the amount of smoke.

A good friend of mine was in a house in Kinglake West on that day (which caught fire but they managed to save most of the house). She told me the fire seemed to never touch the ground; it was in the trees and the air. I think we can prepare the ground around the house only so much but I think we need to look at plant around us. Are they making the house more fire prone?

                                                             The first place we searched.

So there are some pretty obvious (or what I think are obvious) things to do like positioning of tanks and other water supplies, hose material and structures of the property. Mulch, as we know helps retain water in the soil but it’s not recommended by the CFA and increase the risk.

I’m thinking that just as there are plants that burn quickly, intensely or explosively, are there plants that don’t burn or burn is such a way that they help limit the spread of a fire? Can a garden completely loaded with watered plants have an impact on a fire? Just as a trait of eucalypts is to explode I would be interested to see if any plants react differently to fire. Can a 'Fire Proof Garden' be created?

Maybe I’m just dreaming that a garden could be created to lower the risk of fires. And maybe not but I’d be keen to check it out. We live in a country that will always have bushfires so it’s something to think about…

Please note that these pictures do not even begin to describe what this place was really like. These are original pictures.

A Run Around The Streets

One of my favourite things to do is run around the streets. As much as I like the physical ‘pavement pounding’ side of running I also use the time to see how my local area is developing.

                                        

This suburb is scattered with original Victorian, Federation and Californian Bungalow houses. I must say I am fairly partial towards these houses as I grew up in a Californian Bungalow. I get a bit angry when people move into the area and construct a monstrosity. To get an idea of the area (perhaps you have read my first post) it has very old tree lined sweeping streets that provide shade in summer and in winter they loose their leaves to let the sun in. Surrounding the trains station are some lovely homes typical of the area and worth a fortune. Then someone comes in and builds a concrete box that uses the entire quarter acre block with no garden. Usually they are rendered in a grey shade with no character. These houses destroy the feel of the suburb. I get very angry when I run past these houses with only Yuccas and Cordylines surrounded by synthetic turf. The garden is suppose to be a place of expression and individuality not whatever the local ‘plant world’ had on sale that week.

Maybe the lack of garden space in this houses is because we have so many parks and space in Mont Albert? Maybe people think they don't need a backyard because there is a park only five minutes walk away? The main park is Becket Park which is attached to Marano Gardens in Balwyn, a very short walk from anywhere in Mont Albert. Even though the parks in the area are lovely, I still think a backyard is important. Here is a map showing the parks in the area.

                                   

  

I do not mean to offend anyone who thinks this house style to be beautiful. I’m certain there are many people out there who this would be their dream house. I guess all I’m saying is that suburbs like Mont Albert are not the place for these houses and it would be nice if people were more considerate of the suburb characteristics before the build the complete opposite.

There are not many of these places but the few that are here do not fit. I hope so much that this style does not set a trend…

(A Californian Bungalow from the late 1920s)

Watering

This year has kicked off with a rather strange beginning. We have had rain and lots of it. This certainly affects the way we water and care for our gardens.

I took some time to log onto the Smart Garden Watering site to check some things out about how much water my garden uses. During January my garden requires the largest amount of water at every five days, February and December still needed a bit every week but from April to September no watering was really needed. This site showed me the soil type around my area is loam which is half way between sand and clay soils. Our soil has more clay then sand so we have added compost to help break up some of the clay. I have noticed that this soil retains water quite well. We have about five Rhododendrons that are extremely fussy and over the drought we only lost one. I’m putting this down to the soil holding water well. The one we did lose was in a position with a few other plants so I think it lost the competition battle. The Smart Watering site is http://www.smartgardenwateringorg.au/ so take a look. I found this website really useful  and interesting to see how much water my gardens requires. 

                                             

I think the rain we have had changes the plants we may select for our gardens. I work in a nursery and the plants I was selling last year are quite different to the plants I have sold this year. Over the January break I found that we were not particularly busy which I thought was strange as most people have a bit of free time to get out into their gardens. I asked my boss and she said ‘well people haven’t lost and many plants this time round so they’re not replacing them like most other years’. So that is pretty good news for everyone who has a garden. I think that with this weather having a positive impact on our gardens people are noticing them more too. I think that over a decade of drought has taken its tole and perhaps people have lost interest in pottering in their gardens. Hopefully with this rain bringing life back into our homes and spaces those who lost faith can be coaxed back out. Gardening is a good thing!

                           

Possum Magic

Over the years I have watched Mont Albert and the neighbouring suburbs become more and more city suburbs. The suburban fringe is constantly on the more outwards. I can still remember when Ringwood was paddocks and orchards. And now it virtually goes all the way to Lilydale.

There movement of suburbia has displaced native animals from what once was their home. I read an article in the newspaper on possums and the impact they have on properties and gardens. It seems to me that people are very happy to complain about the damage and inconvenience possums cause but not so happy to do anything about it. It’s really quite simple, if you don’t want possums residing in your roof don’t have holes for them to get in. In the surrounding trees of my house we have put nesting boxes. These mainly attract the Ringtail possums which I think are very cute especially when you get to see mum with all her babies on her back. This hopefully will encourage possums out of the roof and into the boxes. It did at my place and then we patched up the holes and now have a possum free roof. I see them every now and then madly scurry across the fence sometimes pausing for a second to have a quick staring competition then scamper off again.

We recently have had Tawney Frogmouths move in and this has reduced the number of possum sightings. Again people will complain bout the noise and the mess they make. It’s a shame people when people are so negative about wildlife we get to see in the eastern suburbs. At then end of the day they were here first and we chose the move into their space.

They say it is a privilege to have nature living along side you.

These are 2 Tawney Frogmouths on our clothesline. Pretty good I think.

Time Tells

I just have something to talk about that is a bit off the beaten trail. I hope it’s not too boring for you guys.

For Easter this year I drove through Kinglake to get to my friend’s farm. Two and a half years ago most people would not have known Kinglake and now how could you not know it. I didn’t know very much about it, only that it was one the way to my friend’s farm.

My first real experience in Kinglake was Wednesday 11^th February 2009. We had heard that they needed horse people to help vets assist burnt and injured horses. I travelled up the mountain with my friend and a bushfire survivor. Everything was black. The smell I cannot explain. Trees stood as skeletal silhouettes. The ground was hot through my boots but the air was chilling. There was no green. The fire had come so fast and strongly that some birds where still in the trees, burnt of course. It looked like the end of the world. I ended up working with the RSPCA and small animals that day. We were given areas by landmark (the street signs were piles of ash) to go carefully into properties and search for peoples pets that were missing. An SES crew member said “Okay, guys it’s really important you don’t look too closely, some of these places haven’t been searched yet and we don’t want you to see anything you don’t need to”.  I found 2 cats, a red heeler and a goat alive. The red heeler sat on my lap the whole way back into town shivering, the tips of his fur where melted and his paws burnt.

I drove through last week and the trees are just not what they were. The bush is trying to regenerate. The burnt outlines of eucalypts are covered in new shoots of intense green, the juvenile foliage one day to become the canopy. I am amazed how it has changed. Each time I drive through the region my first reaction is ‘wow, look how much it has grown’ but then I get to the Kinglake West post office which is still joined with the milk bar, and it’s still a portable in a service lane. When I get here I think about that red heeler. It just shows how long it's going to take to restore this place.