moonvoice | [Photos] Before, After.

Nothing makes me happier than before and after photos of the garden.
So here's a look at what I've been doing over the past three weekends;
which involves new baby plants,
and remulching in the old plants
and pruning a great deal. Still have to tidy things up, but we're almost ready for artificial turf to go down. And that makes me very happy.

BEFORE (November 2011)

AFTER (November 2012)

BEFORE.

AFTER - The entire garden bed, plants, etc. are new as about mid-October. They are all such babies! Just imagine, everything in the opening shots started out that small too (mostly because Lullfitz sell smaller plants which survive the shock of transplanting better).

BEFORE

AFTER - Sort of. Haha, here you can see that we're using two different mulches. We're actually transitioning to a rougher, easier to access pine-bark mulch, with liberal wetting agent beneath to help the water sink right through the sand (Most Perth plants like 'well-drained soil/sand.')

And a random one, just for fun.

Everything that needed it has been pruned, so is not as abundant as normal. The larger Australian natives represent about three years of growth and don't need watering anymore unless it's going to be a run of 40C days. All the baby stuff with the black mulch is being watered in every two days. As of this week, we switch to every three days, and it'll probably continue on a three/four day cycle until the end of this Summer, at which point they'll also likely never need watering again, unless it's an unusual run of 40C days. The one exception to this is the Verticordia mitchelliana which can just be strangely finicky in Summer. So we'll keep an eye out.

This is a reticulation free garden. It gets fertilised twice a year with a very slow-release, low-phosphorus granular fertiliser. Wetting agent once a year (if I can be assed). It should be mulched every two years, but realistically this is the first time we've mulched in all the old plants since we actually planted them across a range from 2009 -> now. It attracts local birdlife, and a vast array of local insect life, from happy stick insects to glistening jewel beetles to the healthy and happy Esmeralda (Nephila edulis - an orb-weaver), and once the two eucalyptus trees start getting some height, maybe some mammals as well.

I am so sleepy!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

white_rabbit

Holy crow! That all looks absolutely amazing. I love the contrast between the light sand and the darker mulch. :) Your backyard has really come to life over the last year!

From:

moonvoice

Soon it shall be contrast between artificial turf and the mulch! Well, I say 'soon.' That could still be a few months away. Depends on when we can be scheduled in, I guess?

From:

feralkiss

I like your garden a lot ^^ how does it smell like?

From:

moonvoice

The front smells very distinctly of melaleuca, which is a slightly sweeter version of eucalyptus, and more pleasing to the nose (I think). Pruning it is lovely.

The back garden at the moment smells a lot like dry sand / dust because of all the landworks they're doing. However, in the middle of spring, the garden itself smells like an abundance of pollen. Especially the refreshingly crisp scent of eucalyptus blossoms en masse. Most of the plants aren't aromatic (and some of Western Australia's plants can be *oddly* aromatic, like the curry bush, which cannot be used to make a curry, but smells a lot like curry), so the scents tend to be dominated more by all the sand around the place.

From:

feralkiss

Oooh. 'o'

From:

silverjackal

Your garden is delightful. And it's very fascinating to hear about the various permutations in re: native plants. Thank you for sharing it. :)

From:

moonvoice

There's a lot missing in terms of variety?, the most common being the Anigozanthus - or all the kangaroo paws in their delightful array of colours. Kangaroo paws look really lovely and striking in the first few years (see the first photo in the Wiki link), but fall into disrepair quickly without quite diligent maintenance or a whipper snipper to cut them right back. Their dense, grassy growth also harbours cockroaches more readily than other more 'open' natives.

And I also don't have any banksia (alas, dieback is in the neighbourhood) which are so classically 'Perth bushland.' I've tried with two and both didn't make it. And then also later changed my mind about having them in this garden. They are *notoriously* slow growers, and I don't have the patience to wait decades for their most striking form. *blush*

From:

darakat

You garden is awesome, doing heaps better than our garden (which is mostly still dirt), however you don't have a Willow who dug all the new plants up when he was young. No idea if he would do the same if I planted some more, I will find out next time I plant in Autumn I suppose.

From:

moonvoice

A friend actually fenced off her garden until the plants were readily established (a couple of years) and then took the fence down and erected it in a new place. She used chicken-wire and wooden posts, I believe. It might be too much effort, but it is something to consider. That, or you could train Willow not to dig up the new plants and focus instead on an actual digging space just for him (if necessary), but that would take time / reinforcement too.

From:

darakat

Hes not a puppy anymore, so I might invest in a cheep plant I like the looks of and don't mind dying to plant. He also doesn't seem to notice things that come up by seed, but most natives around here are fairly hard to germinate for novices such as myself.

From:

moonvoice

Grevilleas are always good; they're fast growing, pretty cheap, and they respond really well to pruning - so you can shape them. They also come in tall shrub / low shrub / groundcover sizes (and tree sizes) so if the first one is a success, you can try other sizes. :D

From:

darakat

I love gravilleas! I will give a few a try. I know just were to plant 'em.

From:

stephbg

Lovely.

From:

moonvoice

Thank you! It is slowly coming together. :)

From:

mirrorred_star

You've put in quite a lot of work! It looks really good now. It's cool that it attracts a lot of native wildlife as well. Maybe some of them will do something to decrease the summer redback population? *crosses fingers*

From:

moonvoice

Ahahaha, speaking of the summer redback population. *glares outside.* I am actually hoping that... even though the destruction of the bushland behind our house is devastating, that it will greatly reduce the number of baby redbacks blowing directly into our back-garden (you can actually see in one of the before shots the bushland behind us and in the after, it is gone and only the white/grey soil remains).

We've had our first wave of redbacks already, this year, and I've knocked out about 30 or 40? Though the vast majority of those have been outside and along the fenceline. This year has been a terrible year for mature black house spiders *inside* the house. I think they are coming in through the wall-unit air-conditioning thingie. I've surface sprayed it.

I am *very* happy however to have an orb-weaver spider.

From:

sarcasticsra

Oh man, that's really cool.

From:

moonvoice

Woot! :D

From:

lupagreenwolf

I want to hide in your yard. It has *life* in it, in many ways.

From:

moonvoice

Sometimes I just go out there and say hi to all the plants and lifeforms I see. Like the baby praying mantises, and the *giant* praying mantis I relocated onto a grevillea, and dear Esmerelda and so on. It has a while to go, it probably won't look properly mature for another 2 or 3 years now, but this garden has taught me that not only is it nice to be an advocate of local natives in theory, it is fun and awesome to do it in 'reality' too. I am now a staunch xeriscaper, and my armchair research has gotten me to the point where I can actually recommend plants to others. o.o