Santa Rosa plum espalier and vege patch

The Santa Rosa plum was put in last winter - a year and a half later than the other three espaliers that run across the garden. It replaced a cherry which I dug up and moved to the fence (with great difficulty).

This plum variety is hardy with medium large, crimson to purplish red, lightly freckled plum with yellow flesh slightly suffused with pink especially near the pit. The fruit is firm, sweet, juicy, and aromatic, except near the pit, where it is quite acid.

Currents and berries

The strawberries are nearly finished - in the last few weeks they dried out, got too wet in the constant rain and were also overun by snails.
I like the idea of the big strawberry pot with fruit hanging like a fountain. It's also a great space saver. Unfortunately it isn't all that practical. The pot heats up and the small spaces that hold the strawberries don't seem to hold much water and dry out very quickly.

We have been having record rain in Canberra but the pot still dried out and half the plants died.

You win some - you lose some! The rest of the currants and berries are now staring to ripen. I'm spending a lot of time tying up long thorny tendrils.

Pond

The rain keeps coming! - The pond is loving it. There is a frog hanging around I hope it stays.

The pistachio has nuts!

A pair of one year old pistachios were grown during winter 2009.

Pistachios require a male and a female plant to cross pollinate. They were placed a metre apart.

The pistachio tree can grow high but responds to open centre pruning which will keep it shorter. For open centre pruning select three or four side branches and cut the central stem off above the topmost side branch. The tree will continue upwards and outwards along those side branches. Mine, however have yet to produce side branches big enough to clip the central stem.

The two pistachios were situated at the front of the house, near the neighbour's boundary. Here they will not cast too much shade over areas of the garden or the neighbour's garden.

Making a hedge - Nandina domestica or sacred bamboo

The right side of the driveway is to be lined by a hedge of nandina. There is one large existing plant that has been growing under the neighbour's fence into the backyard. The line will be extended from the backyard under the carport down the driveway to the letterbox.

The young leaves in spring are brightly coloured pink to red before turning green; old leaves turn red or purple again before falling. Flowers of Nandina domestica are white, borne in early summer in conical clusters held well above the foliage. The fruit is a bright red berry ripen in late autumn and often persisting through the winter.

The plant is drought tolerant but responds well to watering and feeding. It grows to 1.8-2.4 m. so makes a great short hedge. The nandina growing in the space between the carport and the fence is bird and insect attracting. There is a blue bee that can be seen below it was photographed while visiting the white nandina flowers .

Spring garden

Canberra gardens definitely go through the four seasons. It's always lovely to see a garden burst into life in the spring. The city is on track to have the highest rainfall in 40 years. Everywhere you turn there are fresh green shoots, bulbs, blossoms and roses. The rain has really been a bonus - I think back to last year when I was struggling to establish plants under water restrictions and drought.

Mystery butterfly

I photographed this butterfly while it was sitting on the wall of my house. I've been using
Michael Braby's The complete field guide to butterflies of Australia to identify my garden visitors. I couldn't identify this one in the book - so it remains a mystery for the moment.

Butterflies

I am committed to creating an environment that will attract butterflies to the garden. They add beauty and magic and, on the practical side, help pollinate plants.

In order to create an environment for butterflies the garden should also take into account food for the catapillar. Butterflies and their catapillars are dependent upon different plants. The favorite food of the Australia Painted Lady caterpillar, for example, is the commom everlasting daisy. The best means of attracting a broad variety of butterflies is to have a diversity of flowering garden plants. Different species have different colour preferences.

Butterflies are migratory and generally on the wing between spring and autumn. Some of the large butterflies, however, semi-hibernate during the winter months and can sometimes be seen on warm winter days in the garden.

The pond forms part of the environment designed to attract butterflies. The shallow wet areas provide a place for the butterflies to drink. Unmown grass areas are recommended for catapillars and paved areas provide a space for the butterflies to bask in the sun before they take to wing.

Small tubular flowers are the best nectar providers. Meadow Argus likes fairy fan flower Scaevola.

I photographed the yellow admiral above as it sat on the fence while I was paving in the vegetable garden. The Caper White (left) migrates through the ACT and was photgraphed in the garden 31 October.

The truffle beds

No dig beds sown with potatoes make excellent trojans for what you may want to plant in the long term. The compost and potatoes will shape and soften the soil where the truffles will eventually be grown.

No dig recipe:

Step 1. Mark out the area and shape with bricks.

Step 2. Create the layers:

Layer 1: brown cardboard boxes. placed thickly straight over the lawn.
Layer 2: semi broken down clods and weeds that were dug up from the vege patch covered with fresh weeds and glass clips.
Layer 3: cardboard boxes again.
Layer 4: lucurn Hay
Layer 5: manure
Layer 6: pinoak leaves
Layer 8: lucern, blood and bone, worm juice and Seasol.
Layer 9: straw 20 cm thick.

Step 3 Make cup holes in the lucern down to the thin layer of soil. Put the seed potato in and fill the cup with a little soil topped with pea straw.

Zuchinies are grown in the cups made in the straw filled with a little soil.

Peas are grown along the fence for temporary privacy and nitogen for the soil...and also for the beans.

Potatoes like phosphorous - blood and bone , manure and plant leaves are good sources of phosphorpus.

Hazelnuts and truffles - notes

Unlike other fruiting trees, the hazelnut tree blooms and pollinates in the middle of winter. Wind carries the pollen from catkins (male flowers) to small red female flowers, where pollination occurs. The flowers remain inactive until spring, when fertilisation occurs and the nuts begin to develop.

All hazelnuts require cross-pollination in order to produce nuts, so every planting requires two or more varieties. Hazelnut trees are generally in commercial production when they are about 6 years old, and
a well managed orchard can remain active for 40 years.

The nuts mature during the summer months and are harvested in late summer and early autumn when the nuts fall to the ground within a short period.
Hazelnuts require a very well-drained, slightly acidic to neutral range soil of pH 6.0 - 7.0 to thrive. Higher pH soils are required to produce truffles in the range pH 7.5 – 8.0.

Most of a hazelnut trees roots are found in the first meter of soil, but soils must be sufficiently deep to allow active root systems to penetrate 2 - 3 meters. Root penetration can
be stopped by rock, high water tables or lack of aeration.

The truffle hazelnut trees were produced in October 2008 and inoculated in December 2008. Hence the trees were 18 months of age when planted.

Truffles thrive in dewy dark forest conditions and alkaline soils. Attention must be given to trace elements such as iron, manganese, copper, boron and zinc. Slugs and snails will attack truffles that are close to the surface and may need to be baited in autumn if necessary.

Truffles ripen and are harvested during the winter months. In the southern hemisphere, this is during the months of June, July and August.

The edible part of the truffle is botanically a fruit, containing spores. It is located up to 20 cm below ground and may weigh 500 g, but can be as
heavy as 1.2 kg.

Hazelnuts

The natural growth habit of the hazelnut is a bush, or multi-stemmed small tree. Three hazelnuts were grown in 2008 as the start of a hedge along the west side of the fence. Cultivars 'American White' and the seedling Cosford which was a seedling.

The young hazelnuts, however, proved vulnerable to the hot summer sun and looked scrappy with their sunburned leaves. The plan for this type of hedge went into doubt. The hazelnut hedge plan came back with a force when we discovered truffle trees.

Six more hazelnuts will be placed along the fence to complete the hedge. The six plants are 18 month old seedings that are truffle infused.

The photographs of male catkins and the female flower.

Plants that host truffles - Hollyoak (holm oak - Quercus ilex)

The Holly Oak is a rounded evergreen tree with smooth dark gray bark and lanced shaped, dark glossy green leaves. The leaf shape is variable, the adult leaves are entire, 4–8 cm long and 1–3 cm broad, while those on the lower branches of young trees are often larger (to 10 cm long), and are spiny, resembling that of the common European holly.

Building a truffelerie

Holly oak, hazelnut trees and truffle spores.

The left corner of the yard is an unattractive space - dominated by the tank and the shed. Typical of our whole backyard the ground was covered with pine bark.

This unattractive corner was a horrible space to mow particularly in summer when the grass dried off and is the planned area for our future truffelerie.

For preparation some treated pine off cuts that were sitting along the shed were removed. The shed has just a dirt floor and the pine was bridging the gap between the shed wall and the ground. These have now been replaced with bricks.

The white pipe for managing the tank overflow runs along the fence and was never buried. It had become full of water and heavy to manoeuvre. For fear of building a mosquito breeding ground the piping was removed.

There are three existing hazelnuts that have been grown for nuts and as a screen between out house and the neighbours. It is planned that the truffle hazelnuts will continue along the fence in this space.

For truffles the soil in the space needs to be built up and it is planned that the beds will be edged and paved.

A truffle infused hollyoak was grown in a container. Hollyoaks are very slow growing trees. They eventually grow to over 12 metres. It is often said that you can plant a young Quercus ilex tree and you will be old and the tree will be still small.

This tree will be managed in the garden by hedging and growing in a large half barrel. This protects the truffle spore infused roots from contamination by microbes in the roots of other plants.

Berries near the vege patch

The berry patch was created along the left hand side of the back fence during the winter of 2009. Over the hot summer it was found to be in the wrong position. The bed was exposed to the hot afternoon sun. The plants became distressed in the intense heat and the leaves became burnt. The position also became quickly overgrown in weeds and neglected.

The berries were moved last winter and will now form part of the vegetable garden. Hopefully they will be better looked after here. The vege patch takes on the morning sun and is sheltered from the afternoon sun.

The gooseberry has been transplanted to the middle of the vege patch. Gooseberries grow to about 1.5 m and can tolerate semi shade. The plant is said to be a companion of the tomato and so will be grown near the tomatoes. The tomatoes will also help to shade them during the hot summer months. The gooseberry will be pruned off one spur in a goblet shape.

The rest of the climbing berries have been grown at the back of the vegetable garden so that they can be netted with ease.

Thanks to the local hardware store I have managed to fill the area with wrought iron climbing features. The berries have been grown against these.

This area has less how afternoon sun. But I am considering growing a callistemon or wattle behind the unsightly pole to attract bees and help shade the berries.

Berries - location and soil

Location: Currants like morning sun and afternoon part-shade. They can be grown in the high shade of fruit trees such as persimmon, as well as on the north side of buildings. The leaves sunburn readily and the plants collapse quickly when the soil or air temperature exceeds 29°c.

Soil: Currants are not finicky about soil but prefer heavier soils richer in clay. A thick mulch of some organic material also keeps the soil cool in summer while adding humus to the soil. Sandy soils are less suitable for currants because they dry out too fast. The plants will not tolerate alkaline or salty soil

Landscaping with currants and berries

Currents grow best in cool regions. They are deciduous shrubs, fast growing under optimum conditions. The plant is a multiple-stemmed clump, to 1 ½ m high and is suitable for training aswell. Annual growth is in a single flush in spring. The roots are close to the surface, fine and easily damaged by frequent cultivation.



















Foliage: Black currant leaves are pale green, while those of the red currant are deep blue-green. Both are easily burned by intense sunlight. Leaf size and number is reduced under water stress.

Currant flowers (green in the case of red currants and blush pink for black currants) are not that showy, but joined together on the strig they give the bush a lacy texture.

Pollination: is by insects. Black currant flowers also attract bees. Most currants have self-fertile flowers, but a few cultivars are partially self-sterile, so set more fruits with cross-pollination.

To increase both fruit size and number, clip off part of the ends of the strigs while the bushes are flowering. Depending upon the cultivar, fruits ripen from
70 to 100 days after blossoming.

The garden path

The ground was levelled and packed hard. The sand was laid to about two centimetres thick. The pavers were set on top in a pattern. The tiles were laid on end at the sides and held in place by star pickets.

When the paving was finished sand was spread over the top and pushed into the cracks. The star pickets were removed. The outer edges were packed hard with mud. The shape changed in the process of making the path. It is now a more organic horseshoe shape.

Vegetable patch

The cosmos at the end of last summer were very pretty but did little to cover the messy fence at the right hand end of the yard.

This corner has low hanging overhead wires, a messy power pole, a falling down fence and periwinkle growing through the fence.

The lawn in this space is a mix of paspalum and kikuyu. The previous owner of the house had covered the ground with pine bark. Grass had grown through the pine bark in places. Mowing in this space resulted in being covered in a cloud of dust.

The grass was removed from the area. The periwinkel was weeded out and the ground covered with a heavy cardboard and mulch. This would reduce the opportunity for the periwinkle to reshoot.

An almond, apple and nectarine were espaliered along the right side of the fence. These were some of the first trees grown in the garden in 2008. The fruit trees are underplanted with some bulbs and garlic.

Mariposa plum - espalier

The Mariposa plum was the first plant that I grew in the garden. It was a mature espalier. It is early flowering and has a delicious fruit. In its first season it produced more than we could eat. Giving away the excess was good way to make acquaintance with the neighbours. A colleague at work also made me some jam from the excess.

Citrus trees

The space along the driveway was chosen as the site for the citrus trees. It is the only place in the garden that gets enough sunlight but doesn’t get frosted. The brick wall creates a warm microclimate over the winter.
A dry brick wall was built around the weeds and periwinkle in this scrappy area of the garden. The weeds were roughly pulled out of the hard clay ground.
The whole area inside the brick wall was covered with card board box. Chook poo was sprinkled on the box and then the surface dampened. The next layer put down was a bale of Lucerne.
This garden bed was built in autumn and there were plenty of leaves on the ground especially from the large pin oak in the front garden. The lawn was mowed and the mulched leaves and grass thrown on top. A layer of soil was shovelled on top for the mix to help it break down.

A Washington naval, Eureka Lemon, Mandarine and blood orange were planted early last spring after the worst of the frosts were over. We left a few of the fruits on the tree and ate the last blood orange on the weekend.

Thirty seven fruit trees

In under two years we have planted 37 fruit trees and there is space for a few more. I'm hoping for a tally of 50. Most will be espaliered but some are grown along the fence line as a screen or hedge.

The tree list

Apple - Eight varieties - 'Golden Delicious', Malus Domestica Delicious 'Co-op 39', Pink Lady - in pot. - requires another pink lady as a cultivar, Jonathon Granny Smith, 'Crimson crisp','Sundowner' and 'Gala'.
Two Apricots - Moorpark and Trevatt
Almond - All in one. Zaione.
Bay tree - pot
Cherry trees 'Royal Ranier' and 'Stella'
Five Citrus - Washington naval, blood orange, Eureka lemon, mandarin, lime in a pot
Eight Hazelnuts - Two 'American White' Filbert and 1 Cosford - Corylus avellana - seedling. Six truffle infused seedling grown hazelnuts
Fig in wooden barrell - Ficus carica - Preston Prolific.
Three Grapes
Nectarine - 'Zaiblargro'
Three Olive trees
Two Pears 'Buerre Bosc' and 'Sensation'
Two Pistachios - 1 male and 1 female
Three Persimmons
Three Plums - A self seeded plum tree already existed on the property and two espaliers: Mariposa and Santa Rosa.
Three Pomegranates
One quince
Holly Oak Truffle tree
One Walnut Wilson's Wonder

Pond landscaping

As I landscaped away from the pond I chose Kangaroo paw and Grevilleas to create a soft natural environment.

Within a few weeks these plants had died. The soil that I had used was mainly the clay that I had dug out of the pond. The soil was also drawing out water from the pond and was too moist and being clay not free draining enough for these plants.

I eventually replaced these with reedy strappy looking plants like Dianella and flax. These are natives and will have purple flowers. I also chose correas as they can handle Canberra frost, hard summers and heavy soil.

I created a native bed behind the pond away from the water on a raised bed. I continued to use the clay but improved it with compost.

Winter pond maintenance.

After trialling many different types of implements and piercing the pond liner in the process, the best de-algae tool was found to be a bottle brush.

Pond life

Butterfly - Meadow Argus

Pumps and fountains

During the winter all the water lilies died and Colin disappeared. He was too exposed to birds. The algae became thick during winter and I had to manually remove it. I used an object that was too sharp and accidentally pierced the plastic liner.

The pond began losing water and I had to drain it and remove all the plants to repair the puncture. I took the opportunity to do some reshaping and I put in some more shelter for the fish. A more reliable pump was required. My car mechanic did some research for me and recommended a house alarm battery as it can withstand getting wet in the rain and being regularly run to empty. A local camping store recommended I use a bilge pump. These pumps are used for pumping the sludge out of a boats bilge so has good application in a pond environment where the water can include algae.

The new pump and battery have worked very well. I have restocked the pond with fantail goldfish and white clouds. The fish are essential for keeping down mosquito larvae. I was also given some tadpoles that were big enough not to be eaten by the goldfish.