Leaders Report - Around the Garden

Someone asked recently what I was doing for the school holidays.  I replied that I was basically staying home to do some tasks and tend the garden.  I should have replied with “I am going to war.” because that is what I think I will be doing.  The summer season has just commenced, November was dry but it was nothing on December, so far!  We have recorded 19.25 ml in October, 11 in November and 1.5 to date in December.  I look at my garden and wonder what I am doing trying to grow plants at all as despite considerable attention we have already lost quite a few, including reasonably mature plants.  A notable loss is my recently “rediscovered” Chef’s Hat Correa (Correa baeuerlenii).  However on Thursday I was reminded emphatically that I am lucky to have a house let alone a garden.  Several friends who live in the foothills at Toongabbie faced one of the greatest foes imaginable.  They were lucky and survived pretty much intact while some of their close neighbours and friends lost everything.  One property, involved in the open garden scheme, now lies in ruins surrounded by the charred remains of the garden.  These poor people will need to summon enormous strength to make a fresh start.  On Thursday morning I was up the ladder cleaning out my gutters and due to the heat and mainly the wind I decided to cease my activity.  Needless to say, at the first opportunity I completed the task and I did not leave a single leaf to burn!  Also, on a sad note, I believe that the Welcola camp was burnt to the ground.  I am sure this will upset those members who had such a good time there last February and were looking forward to the next visit.  Well back to the war – to save my plants I have my watering regime, a three quarter empty rainwater tank, my watering cans, buckets etc, and all that before I even think about activating a fire plan!

In actual fact some plants appear to be enjoying the dry, including Grevillea chrysophaea of which I have two thriving and displaying strong new growth.  Also enjoying the dry are my Xanthorrea australis which have flower spikes at present.  A recent episode of Gardening Australia erroneously stated that these plants only flower after fire!  I can assure you that there has not been a fire at my place, …yet.

Cup Weekend in the Grampians

Talking of dry, we in Gippsland haven’t seen dry yet.  Col and Mary went to the Grampians with Susan and I for the Melbourne Cup weekend.  We mainly wandered the northern end of the ranges and many of the plants were dead or suffering.  It was the driest I have ever seen in all my visits to the area.   The main reason for the visit from my point of view was to follow up on our September visit to see what different orchids would be around as we had seen a number of different leaf types that appeared to be ready to emerge.  Needless to say we saw no orchids and no sign of the leaves.  We camped at a most pleasant location, Plantation Campground, near Heatherlie quarry which we explored.  We also enjoyed a visit to the Venus Baths area which had been through the recent fire and was coming back to life.  On Sunday we went further north to Beehive Falls (nearly dry) and looked for a Grevilliea lavandulacea that I had located on previous trips, the only example I have seen in the area.  What confronted Col and I was a small sawn-off stump.  It appears a track maintenance group had been through to do their thing and had kindly removed the plant as it was overgrowing the track!  That afternoon we climbed to the top of Mt Zero and enjoyed the magnificent view.  On the walk we all had quite a debate about several Leptospermum plants.  There was one excellent flowering example and others not so robust and attractive and we debated as to whether they were the same plants.  There are six different types found in the Grampians area.

Despite the relative lack of plants the trip was not a complete waste of time as we did see some different flowers to those we normally see in spring and were able to dust off the cameras.  Some of the plants we saw – Brunonia australis (Blue Pincushion), Calectasia intermedia (Tinsel Lilly), Gompholobium ecostatum (Dwarf Wedge-pea), Billiardiera bignoniacea (Orange Bell-climber), Isopogon ceratophyllus (Horny Conebush) and Correa aemula (Hairy Correa). 

An added bonus was that the company was excellent and we enjoyed a “laid back” fun evening on the Saturday.  Unfortunately Susan and I had to work on the Monday so at about 5.30 we sadly faced the five hour trip home, leaving Col and Mary to further explore a most wonderful part of our country. 

Newsletter articles

To increase interest in the newsletter I will be asking willing members to put pen to paper on any topic that takes their fancy and submit their masterpieces to Marg for inclusion in the newsletter.  Obviously a “planty” flavour would be of benefit however you may prefer to write about something completely different.  Anything, to save poor members from being bored to death by ME!  

Our web site

Due to an excellent effort by Mark to sort out my poor attempt at web design, we now have our own web site.  It is on vicnet, so type in “Morwell Australian plants” in Google for a direct “hit” or look at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~apslvg/   You will notice that we still have some corrections to make, but we are in cyber space!.

Break-up at Rawson “Stockyards”

The break-up was well attended and a most relaxed and enjoyable get together.  The food was very nice and it would be an understatement to say that there was plenty on the plate.  After sitting inside we moved out onto the deck to alternately enjoy the cold breeze and the hot sun.  Some of us (including yours truly) had to employ some unusual methods to stop our scones from being sunburnt!  A big “thanks” to Marg for suggesting/organising the venue.

It’s time to say “Ho, Ho, Ho” and all that, so thankyou to all who have contributed throughout the year to make it a most enjoyable one.  All the best for “the silly season” and the coming new year.  

Hope to see you all fit and well (not too much Christmas pud!) at the next meeting in February.

John Stephens