I want to write about the environmentally-friendly ways that I live my life ... but not today.
Today, I split my time between tending to a couple of sick trees and my rather taxing essay that I am writing.
Eight years ago, Chris planted a West Australian Red Flowering Gum Tree. It usually grows in sandy soil. I'm telling you - we live by the beach but have the densest clay soil you are likely to ever see ... which meant that it was with amazing joy that I discovered the tree still standing on our arrival back in Oz last month. It even had three small flowers (proving that it was, indeed, the same tree).
My thoughtful tenants had put house bricks around the base in order to protect it but I am afraid that this was exactly the wrong thing to do. It needed space and nourishment. It was being strangled by the grass (which, with the rain we have had, decided to put on inches and inches).
So I cleared the bricks away and filled in the gaps with rotting leaves.
I did the same to the lemon tree.
I used to try to grow plants on the balcony in GE. It was hard work. It was either too wet, too dry - or it stormed so violently that everything was destroyed by hailstones the size of ... well, the proverbial golf ball.
We have winds here ... and dry weather ... and unfriendly soil.
But this time these are my plants and I am here to stay and look after them.
Do you think it will help if I talk to them?
You should write to Prince Charles (I am afraid he won't answer). For inspiration for you garden, have a look at his website ;-))
ReplyDeletehttp://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/focus/the-royal-gardens
I had a mother in law's tongue which I neglected, it lost the water from its fleshy leaves and collapsed into a puddle. I thought it was dead and in a fit of remorse talked to it, touched it, filled it with love and told it how much I adored and valued it; it not only revived, but put up tiny new leaf buds from the base and today is a blazing fire of tall tongues. So, do some talking I say...
ReplyDelete