The palm "terrace" takes shape

The new fern has prompted me to remove the remaining bamboo (a hard task by the way) and start the basis for the palms end of my cretaceous garden. I know "Palm Terrace" is a lofty title but it is a fraction elavated. I plan to leave the center hollow so I can rotate potted palms from indoors. The soil is hopeless clay but in the process of digging out the babmoob runns it has had a good digging over. I plan just to add about 30cm of leaf litter rather than a top soil to gove it a rainforest floor feel. The fern looks quiet happy after its transplant, despite the continued warm (and dry weather)

What the?

The bamboo, that I still intend to remove, is one plant flourishing, But why the heck is this new miniature growth appearing on most spikes. Is it the mythical 50, or was that 500 year flowering. The myth says all the bamboo dies (now that would be a good thing) after that gregarious flowering event but famine, dark despair and untold hardship descends on the land.

An interesting (re)discovery

Today I came across some old sketches of my original ideas for the cretaceous garden. The first was perhaps a little ambitious, with a water feature and mini pier from the carport. However on the back of this sketch was an interesting hand written list-

suitable plants with cretaceous ancestors

• ferns
• moss
• cycads
• laurel (eg sassafras)
• cypress (low growing)
• deciduous beech
• ginkgo
• bamboo ??

The fact that I had included bamboo suggest that I had not researched this list well, if at all. Grasses, of which bamboo is one, didn't really evolve until until after the cretaceous (but more about bamboo later) I suspect it is on the list because it was already there in the garden.

I also has a second list of look-alike cretaceous plants

• broad leaf cover (eg aspidistra)
• pin cushion plant
  

Looking back that was a pretty good list to start, and matches what has flourished, I'm giving myself 7 out of 10 for plant selection (now is that a B minus or a C plus on a standardized marking system?)



My second design is much closer to what I have created it has a dry creek bed of rocks instead of a pond. I left out the stepping stone and have a mini island instead.

You might like to see what the area looked like before it became cretaceous.

BL**D!3 B@MB**

This area is to be an extension into the late creataceous, mainly palms, and also where I plan to put a rainwater tank. I needed to clear the area for the constrution of a new fence. Previously the area was a bamboo grove (I'm not the one that planted it there but it looked ok so I had left it). I had cut all the stems out in early december, and got a lot of usefull garden stakes. Now all I have to do is dig out the roots! I did some just before christmas but to be honest it has been very hot since and the cricket has been good. I did notice one or two shoots on boxing day but i am surprise at just how quickly they have shot up. (over 2 meters in 17 days)

Now the problem is getting more immediate how do I R3M*V3 TH3 BL**D!3 ST%F5

A little search for "removing bamboo from garden" in google shows a lot of discussion with varying opinions. Many suggesting it is a urban myth that bamboo is so invasive it is impossible to remove. Others maintain the real solution is not planting bamboo at all. Always the optimist I am going to test the theory that you only have to remove the thick roots (the rhizomes). So I'll keep you posted.

"Lot of gardeners have unknowingly planted running bamboos, only to have it take over their entire landscape, and I'm one of those people," master gardener Paul James admits