Other Gwondanaland Plantings

I do not want to give you the impression I have the sole little piece of gwondanaland struggling to survive. A lot of direct descendants of the original Cretaceous forest still struggle on today out in wild. Some are ideally acclimatized for the harsh climates of southern Africa and Australia.  Others are tropical forest specialists. Some are being pampered in special collections, like these cycads in Adelaide's Botanical Gardens.

The green drought!

It has been a long time between post. I seemed that the rain had come and things where returning to their normal seasonal cycle.

However I have just noticed that the new fern was looking decidedly dry. Maybe it was true, the myth of a green drought was coming true. I firmly believe the culprit was actually a few days of unseasonal dry north winds, but I am returning to the shower bucket method and watering the head of the stem as new shoots emerge just to be on the safe side.

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)

something new

This is the first time I have noticed a spiders web in my cretaceous garden. It might indicate that the garden is drying out, normally I associate spider webs with dry, very low humidity, places. Whilst i have seen plenty of spiders around, red backs, white tails, and huntsman, but i suspect this is an orb spider web (the nicely circular section on the center is very characteristic). You never know it may well be a close relative of the spiders in space that perished when the columbia came apart on renetry. Those golden orb spider came from around this way.

Looking around the web, internet that is, I still can't find any evidence to support my suspicion that spiders webs mean the garden is drying out, but here is great page a spider myths

saving a tree fern

The tree ferns of melbourne are having a hard time, even my own ones. They seem to have been dropping their outer fronds, dry and brown at a great rate. I suspect it is just a sign of drought stress, a lot consider that they are dying. Anyway to cut a long story short I have me offered a couple if i think I can save them.


Well I may as well have a go, my first patient is a very thin fern and I can not figure out exactly which species it is, my best guess is Dicksonia fibrosa. So rather that just do the old saw it off and stick it back in the ground, whichwork well enough for Dicksonia antarctica, I decided to get a significant part of the root mat, which were only growing across the surface.

I also trimmed off all the fronds other that the new sprouts. With a little close supervision to make sure the roots don't dry out I expect it will thrive in my little bit of gwondanaland.

The final problem remains where to plant it?

Something for April Fool's Day

Its official Melbourne's water storages are currently 32.1% full (as at 1/4/2007). Despite the rain the overall storage is still falling. Some dams are rising by other failing a lot. Should this be a problem? The common explanation seems to be that the soil is taking up all the moisture and keeping run-off into the dams minimum. Another explaination is water may to be being shunted around.

The aprils fool day message bit is that this should have triggered level4 restrictions. However the Victorian government, or more specifically those politicians based in Melbourne,has gone a bot weak at the knees and changed the rules. So now we are have a claytons change to the rules when a real change to the rules could have had a bit of a voter backlash. So now we have water restriction level 3a.

Happy Plants

growth collage
Originally uploaded by imageo.

Yesterday's rain has given way to sunshine and a glorious march day, perfect to take some photos for the photofriday challenge growth. The plants just seem to be happy :)

rain

Well decent rain is falling, and we may even get close to our normal march average. With the long term predictions still suggestion better than average rains through autum. If you are interested the Australian Bureau of Meterology has a great area on their website to graph and compare a number of key climate measures.

sorry for the hiatus

I've been away and back and away a lot, so my humble cretaceous garden has had to fend for itself. It has done so admirably, compared with other more conventional plantings elsewhere in my garden. So I think there may be a myth, ormoral here, perhaps cretaceous plants thrive best by neglect! (and tropical weather, even without the rain).

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.

the rule of 10

I've been away and my garden missed any watering for almost two weeks during hot dry weather, with the remote possibly of a local thunderstorm/downpour in there maybe. Things were looking wilted but survived, infact the cretaceous part has faired better than most other parts of the garden (most probably because it is protected from the scorching north winds). One water and things seem to have sprung back to life.

So "How long to water?" is probably the big question around here at the momement. My mother's suggestion is possibly the best I have heard

Count to ten (1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10) slowly as you water important shrubs
...my mum

How much water the plants get depends mainly on your water pressure and which nozzle setting you have on your triger hose (under current water restrictions you can only water, at the designated times, using a hose fitted with a trigger nozzle, which instantly cuts off the water when you release it). However it is easy to work out the flow, just place the hose into a standard plastic bucket (most of which have volume marks on the side) count to 10 and see how much water is there. With a bit of calibration you might be happier count to 5,7 or even 15).

How much water your garden needs, is a more complex issue and is sure to be the topic of posts to come.

The bucket brigade, a month on.

Melbournians, including me, have embraced using plastic buckets as a really easy way to save water (eg. first flow in the shower). In fact their has been a massive 24% reduction in water usage for january 2007 (compared with the same time last year) in a year when January has been significnatly hotter and drier than average. So water restrictions are working and most people are acting responsibly. We even have a website to monitor weekly water usage now.

Well done folks.

Drip Watering #4

The Melbourne City council have come up with a great way to water their significant trees. All around the center of Melbourne at the moment you will see the red and white traffic barriers babysitting a big tree. These barriers are designed to be filled with water to make them heavy, in their normal traffic`hjazard management duties, but with the simple addition of a drip hose they can become a personalised tree watering system that the council can refill with recycled water periodically.

Nocturnal visitors

This guy, a small bushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula, is not such a welcome quest. His relatives devastate fruit frees and prize plants around here this time of year and seem to be flourishing in tree lined street of Melbourne. Whilst they are officially protected in Victoria, most locals consider them pests. Despite looking cuddly and docile these small marsupials have sharp teeth and claws as many dogs and cats soon find out.

This is the species of possum that has caused such environmental destruction, when they were introduced to New Zealand.

my other (token) conifer

At the moment they only other conifer (other than the wollemi pine),is a very low growing juniper. It was planted long ago, vaguely I remember it having a name like carpet juniper, and it looks a little like a Juniperus squamata but thats supposed to be fast growing and this one is definitely not that!

I did have two other conifers, pencil pines, but they were growing so fast and tall I had to move them well away from the house. They were definitely unsuited to my restricted space. Now I just have to dream of getting a more slow growing King Billy, Celery top or Huan Pine to replace them.

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.

what's happening to ENSO?

Like many weather watchers the Australian Bureau of Meterology has its own El Niño watch page on their website, and today it has some good news

"Summary: El Niño continues to weaken

... it bodes well for a switch towards average or wetter than average conditions across eastern Australia sometime in the late summer or autumn."

CURRENT STATUS as at 31st January 2007

In simple terms that means more rain and maybe even the end to the current drought conditions and it will start happening soon. Assuming it does I will confidently predict now that this will re-ignite a lot of discussion about whether the drought conditions in south-eastern Australia are part of a normal el-nino cycle or that they are evidence of mankind induced climate change.

If you want to monitor the changes in el niño, also known as the southern oscillation (or ENSO), the Noaa/TAO website is a great place to start.

New growth update

The new growth at the top of my wollemi pine are developing fast into a new series of branches. I'm amazed how quickly they are developing and the muliple branching. Might be time to repot the plant, or maybe I should wait till after the next hot spell.

meet the cycads

Cycads (pronouces sigh-kads) are an order of plants that flourished during the Mesozoic Era. They have large pinnately compound leaves (fronds) that superficially resemble palms and some ferns. However these plants have a markedly different strategy for reproduction, since they developed before insects had evolved on land. They are dioecious, which means there are seperate male and female plant, and have cones rather than flowers.

Cycads are very common in the Australian fossil record They are generally very hardy plants and are still growing in many parts of the world. Most widely in South Africa, South America, the Pacific and Australia (as a relict of their Gwondanaland floral heritage). They are widely believed to have been a significant food source for dinosaurs. The seeds of many cycads are poisonous, containg BMMA, a neurotoxin which results from the cycad's roots close relationship with blue green algae that also helps these plants fixed nitrogen into the soil. In the pioneering days of european settlement in Australia, cycads where "harvested" as a rich source of starch, not for eating but as a laundring aid.

I have several sago palms, cycas revoluta, a japanese variety, which is probably the most popular cycad for cultivation. They where starting to look very unhealthy in the heat, the frond turning yellow and dropping down. Then just as I was worrying, two of the larger plants sent up new fronds. I am not sure if it was the heat, or the smoke hazy that triggered this change, I remember hearing that cycads are a type of plant that flourish after a fire

the bird nest fern

The birds nest fern,Asplenium australasicum, is a epihyte fern which is common in the tropical rainforests of northern australia and nearby pacific islands. It has long simple radianting fronds that are an attractive light green. Like the soft tree fern its inverted umbrella shape of fronds helps collect and channelwater and leaf matter down onto its growing center.

Of all the plants in my garden it is this fern that likes the highest humidty. I expect this to be the best indicator plant of creataceous-like condition in my garden. However since it doesn't have a true ground penetrating root system it does not really give me a representative view of the saturation/driness of the soil.