floral experiment #2 and more hare-brained schemes

• Wannabe Farmstead

nb: this is kind of in a thematic/narrative order not really a chronological one.

We hit up Bunnings over a couple more weekends to pick up more concrete for the chicken fence, and of course bought more plants and seeds (fortunately I had the bag notebook so we didn’t double up on anything except chicken and insect mix which was done deliberately).

On one of the trips we somewhat accidentally split up (on a previous trip I had seen a couple of paint swatches that made up my domain name and wanted them) so Eldest (who had come with us) ended up scuttling back and forth as messenger asking what seeds we had, and after finding (or not finding) his request and telling him I said the only “bad” thing about the notebook was no search function XD

As I think I mentioned in the last garden journal, Satan the chicken had eaten all the Alyssums and either had a go at or scratched up/around the Hypoestes (not Coleus as I incorrectly guessed previously) and the two remaining amaranths in the patio bed.

^{I found out after it transferred to the big rig that the other one backfocused and I couldn’t be bothered taking another, aside from being all yellow it looks similar anyway}

Both have since died. The other three shrivelled up and died (one shortly after transplant for no reason I could decipher, the other two could be chicken or not enough sun or gone to seed or all of the above).

I really wanted to get more Alyssums but decided to wait til the chickens had some forage (the foraging mix includes Alyssums, they are actually tasty chicken treats) out back and Satan had a higher chance of staying there so I got some mixed colour violas and lobelias (Satan appears to have had a peck at one and decided she doesn’t like them that much).

A bunch of them went to fill out the tree bed.

and the rest went into the porch bed and the wall bed.

I planted them a little over from where the dead amaranths were in case they came up again.

Funny story: I think J secretly likes violas as on a Bunnings trip after we’d gotten the violas he saw more on a shelf and asked if I wanted any, I said we already had a few and he asked if I wanted more XD

There are some plants appearing in the tree bed which PlantNet initially hesitantly (very low accuracy) and later more confidently when they got bigger identified as blackberry nightshades, a climbing fumitory and a “cantaloupe”. I eventually found out cantaloupes are rockmelons (and still don’t know if that’s what the plant was because it vanished), one of the blackberry nightshades is actually a tomato as I suspected – that got transplanted next to the other random one that appeared in the wall bed for all the good that will do – and the rest of them will be getting binned (poor things).

Of course Satan happened to the porch bed a few more times and in one of those times the poor Impatiens that was hanging on by a leaf was finally pushed over the edge.

Other than that all of the plants from floral experiment 1 have continued or started to biggenate (not an actual word, just another one of Youngest’s from when he was a toddler). The Hypoestes that was in the porch bed has started brightening up again and looks like it’s finally getting bigger, the two that were not keeping up with the other two in the tree bed are now noticably larger than they were when we got them.

The pink Impatiens (came with flowers on it) is adding on more flowers (it had more than what’s pictured here, it lost a few before putting these ones on), and the second Impatiens sprouted white flowers.

This thing is still rallying (aside from being a weird shape it surprisingly looks perfectly fine like nothing happened) from being bisected when Satan investigated the tree bed (she literally kicked it in half while scratching around). The only interesting thing it sprouted was this interesting looking bug.

One of my friends said was a beetle that they have forgotten the name of that they suspect live up in trees, but they have some in their yard and it doesn’t seem to do much to the plants.

At some point while researching amaranths I semi-randomly decided to do what I probably should have done BEFORE buying a million plants and got Brave AI to help plan the garden beds. Much research of the plants it suggested to double check that they were actually appropriate for where they were going and whittling down based on whether it was “the look” and how easily available it was later I have plans and a nice plant list and the floral experiments might now be slightly more directed.

^{weirdly this makes it so much easier than aimlessly wandering around any given nursery admiring everything}

The plans don’t really account for some of the plants already present, they will mostly be worked around, and I may try to carefully shuffle some of them around for better compositions (like currently I have a thought that I may have to shuffle the pink Impatiens “forward” away from the tree closer to the rock ring or closer to the other Impatiens as I want to put the Bulbines around there somewhere and don’t want that Impatiens to be obscured but that may be a next year problem as it looks like I’ve missed the optimal Bulbine planting time).

I showed J the list grumbling about how everything wants to be planted in April and how one of the nurseries had everything I wanted but was more expensive and further away. He looked at the list and said something about how we would work on it or something, he didn’t finish the sentence.

Funny story: when “Bulbine bulbosa” came up on the list of recommended plants in the AI conversation, I really hoped I would like it for no other reason than I liked saying the name, and also

the starter I would have picked if I hadn’t started with Pokemon Yellow.

Following the plan I decided to put the Acanthus mollis into pots and see if I could rehome them or at least put them somewhere more out of the way so they wouldn’t stab me again as I wanted to put Correas where they were. I had read that Acanthus mollis were rhizomes but my dumbarse brain somehow failed to register that they were rhizomes and they were one hell of a mission to dig out.

And also their roots were way too big for the pots I had.

That poor thing got left on the ground for an extended period of time as I rushed around trying to find bigger pots and failing that (as J was using almost all of them to propagate fruit trees and the one we had left was being used as a secondary grass bucket at the time) I decided to move them to the other end of the bed and see how they fared.

I even watered them in to give them a fighting chance but the following day they got very wilty and unhappy, the two bookends eventually just ended up flat on the ground and I’ll be surprised if they survive. The three bigger ones in the middle are doing alright.

Speaking of rhizomes, after our Sun King sunflowers once again failed to die for the second year in a row, I did a little bit more research and now think they might actually be Jerusalem artichokes. When they go dormant again (which is what I’m pretty sure happened last winter when J thought they’d died and was waiting for them to collapse and they decided to spring back to life instead) we’re going to carefully dig down and check the roots, and if we see rhizomes the ones that were shading the pear tree will be carefully dug up and transplanted to the chicken area where they will hopefully survive and provide additional shade over summer. The grove that’s shading the young avocado trees can stay where they are for now as the avocados under them are doing really well unlike the other two, one of which we’re pretty sure is dead as it’s basically a twig stuck in the ground and the other one is really struggling.

I also found out that apparently elkhorns need sphagnum moss so that happened.

We got the Correas from a different Bunnings to our two usuals as we’d dropped of the boys to game with friends in that area, and after searching for ages for the things we wanted and me arbitrarily deciding that I didn’t like that Bunnings as much as “ours”, I finally found the Correas and grabbed the last three.

Only to find when we got home that there were two different types; two “Dusky Bells” and one “Bicheno Bells”. Okay whatever they’re all pretty and they looked similar enough with slightly different coloured flowers so in they all went.

Some research later the Bicheno Bells were Correa pulchella rather than reflexa which is what I was aiming for (identification is made slightly difficult if the species name is left off the labels) and will probably be fine.

I need two more Westringia Grey Boxes and a few more Correas than I thought for the driveway (I wrote that I needed 5-7 total in my plan but after looking at the three that I put in I think I need that many more at least). And also Dampiera diversiflora. After seeing the grasses at Bunnings I’m not sure if they’re “the look”, going to see how I feel about things if I can find the Dampiera I want and see how the composition is looking.

We got a star jasmine from that same Bunnings for the cottage garden vibes, and I think we’ll be getting another one for the catio and chicken coop areas.

The chilli plants next to it are fruiting. We have been having some of the chillies with dinner. I keep forgetting to see if any are ready whenever I make my instant noodles though.

Meanwhile some random things are popping up in the tree bed, I suspect they’re more Easter lilies (or some kind of lily) and I did find one “onion” (it’s not an onion, it is in the photo as I forgot to pick it up) while digging and planting but somehow not the rest given I’ve been working in that entire area.

They’ll get transplanted into the lily patch or pots when they’re transplantable.

The catio garden is flourishing and had a couple of additions (two more passionfruit and a lavender in pots waiting for the chicken gate to be finished so they can be planted in their assigned areas).

I think the nasturtium is trying to choke out the aloe. I’m planning on relocating the aloe into some pots (nice ones that will be staying here and just to contain the spread and some to give away to anyone that wants them) and the nasturtium to literally anywhere else so we can transplant the cat plants into the catio patch when they’re big enough to withstand cats rolling all over and nomming on them.

They might be a while off yet.

J concreted in the posts for the chicken divider fence, we left it “24 hours” (aka til the following day) to set properly and the following day was light rain all day and then we were out of long weekend.

The chicken wire was stapled on the following weekend and the chickens were slightly miffed at this obstacle that had just randomly spawned in.

J decided that the aquaponics could move into the same area as the fruit trees in the raised beds which necessitated relocating the sleeper bed to the fence between the mulberry and olive trees. I asked Youngest to do it while Eldest and I were gathering free chicken food and mulch from the verge.

I had been studiously avoiding doing the gathering for ages and found out the hard way that there was a pretty cool grasslands that we were interrupting the development of and the grass had matted over and died and regrown that many times that the ground had actually risen slightly.

Funny story: Eldest is probably the only person who would consider “karate chopping” as a viable gardening method (he was “karate chopping” his way through some really tough grass clumps that I was going to tackle later or get shears for) and in that process accidentally punch a stray gumnut so hard his finger swelled up. He iced it for a bit then helped pull another couple of buckets before retiring for the day. He recovered fine XD

Another funny story: on one of my trips in I noticed the railway sleepers were not completely up against the fence (one side was but the other was sticking out a lot) and pointed it out to Youngest. I attempted to help him push the errant side up against the fence and we failed. He asked me to move out of his way and then picked up the bottom sleeper on the errant side (so lifting all three at once) and moving that corner in to the fence. After finishing the sleeper bed he figured he didn’t need to go to the (gym rat) gym that day.

The chickens enjoyed the greenery and whatever unfortunate bugs happened to have hitched in.

I feel a need to show off the cute markings of the little chickens as I think they’re quite cute.

A bout of sickness further stymied efforts and eventually J got around to shovelling out the last of the gravel from the last bed and we got everything settled where it needed to be.

I was only slightly miffed as I had wanted to take the area as flat as I could manage it and try to get some of it cleaned up before putting things there but also didn’t want to have to keep redoing work (because I make the ground nice and soft after raking the chickens of course just want to dig everything up) but ended up doing a very fast half arse job in a hurry. I have since started trying to rake everything flat (with the chickens digging everything up in my wake) and finding all sorts of interesting rubbish and so much gravel, if I can bring myself to try collecting ALL of it as opposed to just the big bits I might actually have enough for a path (I don’t think I’m exaggerating).

One of the aquaponics ponds was salvageable and we’re going to be using it as a sump tank and looks like we’re going to order some slightly larger tanks for the fish. We’ll probably cycle it a million times over winter and find fish when it starts warming up again.

And I got a nice shot of the sun through the neighbour’s trees.

Some of the plans got modified a little bit as we discussed things more and started actually working on them. This will continue. Probably indefinitely.

plans

• ▶️ rebuild chicken divider fence
• plant bee garden (lavender bush, first round of chicken foraging mix and beneficial insect mix, leave a spot for birdbath)
• ✔️ clean and prep planters for cat plants
• ✔️ plant cat plants
• move beehive and birdbath (which is primarily easy water source for the bees) into bee garden
• replant birdbath pockets
• ❌ try to let everything grow out a little bit before allowing chickens back in there (may be a struggle with Satan) - cancelled as J decided that the chicken fence is going to be permanent
• ❌ build vertical garden on chicken divider fence
• apparently we are expanding our aquaponics with the pipes now
  • ❌ small pond or aquaponics pod
  • pvc pipes
  • ❌ guppies
• ❌ continue reseeding chicken foraging mix and beneficial insect mix over the entirety of the chicken area every few weeks indefinitely or until it looks like it’s able to reseed and regrow itself before getting completely destroyed
• ✔️ plant chicken forage area 1
• ▶️ relocate and set up aquaponics properly
  • ✔️ climbing frame?
  • butterfly koi (3-5)
  • shubunkin (5-20 apparently)
  • ❌ may have to replace one or two or all of the ponds x_x
  • two ponds need replacing and we might be getting another one
  • which may require moving the one we’ve already positioned under one of the other beds as the pending ones are bigger
  • wash all the gravel and replace as apparently we’re doing that instead of buying more
• dig out tree stumps
• ✔️ mark out where the granny flat is going so we don’t plant anything there
• attempt to transplant the apparently immortal Crapemyrtle to where the bigger tree stump was
• ❌ sprout creeping thyme and try transplanting when big enough to be visible to the naked eye
• make seed mix out of creeping thyme, kidney weed and white star creeper and go ham
• separate Easter lilies
• transplant whatever the hell is coming up in the tree bed into pots (if rehoming) or the Easter lily patch (if keeping)

side quests

• desktop aquaponics
  • Youngest’s old fish tank setup
  • really small dwc raft or materials to make one OR modified planter for constant flow system as suggested by J
  • betta
  • see where neighbour got shrimp and snails from or if they have a population excess to rehome

This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License