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Post by Thorn on Oct 4, 2023 5:56:04 GMT -5
A while ago my mum was giving away a lot of saplings from her older plants. The bank behind my apartment block looks like...well, it looks like this. Dang English ivy!!! It's invasive and spreads fast, strangling everything. Our landlord is supposed to be responsible for the gardens, but they have been left unattended for years. I had the bright idea to adopt one of mum's cabbage tree saplings, clear away some ivy, and plant it on that bank. Not only are cabbage trees hardy locals, but they are native to the specific region I live in. Fast forward a couple weeks and I have two more plants, a lancewood and a hebe! Both have had some space cleared around them and been planted. I got to reading about what plants are native to this specific area (there's a council map breaking down types of forest across the city), and I took some cuttings from a kowhai to try and propagate. It's my first time trying to grow anything from a cutting (although my mum used to do it all the time), so who knows if it'll work out? Close-up of the hebe. Thus begins my quest to revitalise this messy bank! I know it's a very small start, but all things have to start small. I've made this thread to share updates and pretty plant pics to assess the change over time! |
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Post by Thorn on Oct 4, 2023 20:08:42 GMT -5
My goal for today was to clear the weeds between the three plants I've already planted. Managed that pretty well! Will start to work outward from there. The clear space! The Hebe is on the far right, the lancewood in the middle and the cabbage tree on the far left.  The baby lancewood (slightly sad because I accidentally uprooted it oops.)  The cabbage tree (looking very grass like as the bbs do.)  |
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Post by Thorn on Oct 11, 2023 17:55:28 GMT -5
It's been too windy to garden the past few days. Today looked fine, but literally AS SOON AS I picked up my bucket with my tools, it got all blustery.
I went down the back anyway and planted a little cabbage tree, because I received it a few days ago and it's just been sitting in a pot ever since. Haven't weeded around it yet though- too windy to stay out there today and for now, the weeds will help protect it from the wind anyway.
It's a few metres from the bit I've already worked on and further down the bank, to give it space.
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Post by Thorn on Nov 21, 2023 19:11:32 GMT -5
No new plants (my mum's stock of leetle ones dried up), but three of the four previously planted are thriving. I went out today to do some weeding and while the lancewood was looking a bit sad when I last saw it, it looked so much better today!!
One of the cabbage trees was overrun when I was distracted, and then someone threw a bunch of their own garden waste over that way so I have lost track of it. I'll have another look tomorrow just in case, but I think it's done for.
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Post by Thorn on Nov 29, 2023 18:59:41 GMT -5
Today I added a very special plant to my backyard garden.
Last night I went to a candlelight vigil for those killed in the war in Palestine. It was in the heart of the city and organised by our local Palestinian community. There was a wall of flowers and people lit candles, but there were also a lot of seedlings in plant pots.
The organiser told us that in Palestine, you plant a tree in a person's memory when they die. She asked us all to take a seedling home and nurture it, saying that each represents someone killed by Israeli soldiers. Because we're in Aotearoa, the plants available were those native to this country (and even this region) rather than what she and her family planted back home. I ended up with a young lemonwood tree.
After clearing more space around my existing plants, I balanced precariously on the edge of the bank to dig a hole in which to plant my young tree. Lemonwoods can grow to ten metres tall and five wide, so I needed to make sure it was well clear of my other plants, while also positioning it so as not to block the view from the back windows of the apartment complex.
This little lemonwood will be my highest priority among these plants.
Next step is to find some hound's tongue fern to be a regionally appropriate replacement groundcover for the ivy.
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Post by Thorn on Nov 29, 2023 20:53:59 GMT -5
Found that hound's tongue fern!
Went on a walk to the reserve ten minutes away. Hound's tongue fern is a common native groundcover, so I figured it would be easy to find. Plus, this reserve is one of the few big areas of native forest remaining in this area. So I reasoned: if I end up with a different groundcover by mistake, it'll still be part of the original local ecosystem.
Quickly found a massive patch of this fern. Since it replicates via rhizomes, it was easy to separate a section and tuck it in my bucket to bring home. It's now planted where I cleared a big patch of ivy earlier today, between the lancewood and the hebe. This fern had some excellent roots already despite just lying on the surface, so I'm hopeful it'll do well.
I also discovered a very well established banana passionfruit vine on the shortcut to the reserve! Boo because it's an invasive weed (it's illegal to intentionally propagate it), but yay because the fruit are almost ripe. Gonna do our part to combat invasive weeds by eating them!
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