Gingko becomes Photo of the Day

Great backlighting late yesterday after a very storm day created this wonderful photo. My Photo of the Day yesterday
Yesterday's heavy rain also bought great relief to the ferns in particular there are a few new shoots that had been really struggling in last weeks hot weather

Autumn Becomes Winter

A bit of Nostalgia

I was experimenting with OnoNe’s Perfect Photo Suite 9 and noticed that amongst the presets is a comprehensive set of slide film emulating filters. Slide film was great it bought a true luminescence to photos, particularly landscapes, but at the same time it was very demanding, even half a stop out and you could "blow the highlights" or a stop under exposed and you would have gloom. However in between was a magic place full of rich colour. Perfect to capture the gingko turning yellow early this year.

Thriving under Neglect

The two hot weeks back in febuary really fried the fern (the looked dead) and savaged pretty much everything in my Gwondanaland garden. I did refurbish the irrigation sprays, now that the water restrictions have been eased BUT I haven't used them regulalry instead the garden has had to struggle on under on its own. Well the spring rain bought on some nice new growth on the tree ferns and the gingko. Now everything is looking happy and healthy

Already the Leaves are turning Yellow

While I haven't been posting in here lately I have been paying attention to the wealth fare of Gondwanaland. We had a bruising hot and dry spell in February, and all the tree ferns had the fronds burnt and it has taken a few months to get the the tree ferns sprotting and some signs of life back into my mini forest. Returning home form a long trip I was pleased by the splashes of yellow, especially the ginkgo.

First leaves on the gingko

The garden have been left to its own devices ove the past couple of years, and this year I was starting to worry about the gingkpo, which normally sprout a full cover of leaves to welcome spring but this year it was way behind the fruit trees and maples. I'm please to announce the delicate green leaves have appeared (its probably time to plant my tomatoes)

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.

Introducing the plants

How rude of me I have been rambling on mainly about watering and I forgot to introduce you to some of the important plants in my 100 million year old garden. The plants themselves are of course not that old, most are less than 10 years old. They are just the same or very similar species to those that existed back in cretaceous times.

Having a look at my plants I see that my Ginkgo Bilboa (Maiden Hair tree) has some spotting on the leaves. Not sure if this is drought stress or the result of hail at christmas. You can see a younger and happier leaf, on the same tree, in my photo blog, wandering in the light.

The gingko is not only a fascinating plant, it is the source of a powerful phytochemicals (commercially produced GBE or Ginkgo Bilboa Extract, is normally standardized to 24% ginkgo flavone glycosides and 6% terpene lactones) that has many claiming it as a wonder drug but it cannot be safely mixed with a number of common prescription medicines, including asprin. You can also dry the leaves yourself and make a great "pick me up" tea. Another amazing fact I found out about gingko is there are four special gingko trees that survived the 1945 atomic bomb at Hiroshima in Japan, and are still alive today.

Stay tune because I'll write a lot about my gingko