Strawberry Fields Forever

It turns out that it you give strawberries love and attention they grow bigger and better.

In winter this year I replanted my strawberry runners into a new position. Mixing chook poo and home grown compost into the soil I made mounds to plant into. Despite the felling of the pine tree dropping bits onto the strawberry plants in September they revived quite well when the patch was cleaned up. After picking some medium fruit in November and December, often sharing the biggest ones with millipedes- grrrrrrr - I then cut off the runners, spread some Rapid Raiser fertiliser and laid down some pea straw. My efforts have indeed been rewarded with larger strawberries and more of them. The straw making it harder for the millipedes and generally keeping the fruit out of the dirt.

Lastly a fence of bamboo on all sides is needed to keep the kangaroos from having their share.

Hard Yacka

The talented Rod has created another sculpture. Crafted from copper and ingenuity this installation has been created to replicate the real thing.

About a year ago we noticed that our Xanthorrohea preissii which had been doing famously for the five or so years since it was planted in the Gekko Garden, was showing worrying signs of illness. We checked the watering system, cut back the dying leaves and hoped for the best. It did not improve, in fact even after seeking advice and armed with fungicide and Gogo juice our Yakka slipped further and further into decline. Finally we had to admit it was DEAD.

The substantial outlay for the magnificent plant removed from native vegetation in Western Australia initially made us a little nervous but determined to follow all the recommendations for initial transplanting and settling. After so many years of going from strength to strength we thought that we would have it for decades. It was upsetting enough to loose the leaves we really didn’t want to part with the trunk too.

Transforming copper pipe .......

.........fitting copper rivets........

........cutting and bending 160 metres of 2.6 mm gauge copper wire for the new leaves.........

........welded into place in neat rings around the copper pipe stem.......

.......hours and hours of cutting and welding........

.......out of the Worksop and into the garden the copper Yakka is a good substitute for the real thing.

“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” William Shakespeare

Visiting my mother’s childhood home in December 2016 we found some honesty seeds on the ground. The owner who is still there, having purchased the estate over 30 years ago said she has never planted them, they just keep self seeding. My Pop would have been the gardener responsible for introducing them into that garden. I am chuffed now to share the legacy of honesty into our garden and enjoy yet another memory of my grandfather.

A slice of spring

        Orchid.              Waratah.         Native Mint.         Arctotis.           Geranium.         Snowball.         Marguerite

Lounging Lottie

Possibly the last open fire for the season, Lottie takes pride of place.

Happy 60th Birthday Meg

Tim......berrrrrrrrrr!

Discovering that one of our large pine trees was dying it was recommended to have it felled sooner than later as Radiata Pines are known to become very unstable as they die.

First the sheds under the tree needed to be dismantled, which was on the agenda before the news of the fate of the tree anyway. Rod worked over many sessions to clear the way.

In the history of our time at Ashwell we have never seen this area totally clear as when we first arrived there was a bird Avery and then we added a mower shed (an existing shed dragged down the hill behind the car) and then a potting shed and screened area for plant raising.



The branches are somewhat sparse compared to the other pine, one of the tell tale signs of its health.

Tim and Matt were  great, hard working tree fellas. Despite that we had some junky piles of stuff and make-shift compost heap they successfully avoided them all. Now to get rid of all this timber!