4 urgent mini-posts

The ideas pile up, crowding my brain. I'll just park them here, letting them out into the blogosphere where they're clamouring to go. I might be back some time to write about them in more detail ... but I probably won't. There are only so many weeks in a year, and weekly posts are enough for me.

1. Bicycle gardening ideas - planters on the handlebars of a bicycle, or strapped to the bars. ('Bring your plants on an adventure...') Or when bikes are retired, they can be recycled in the garden or on the roadside and have plants growing all over them. The whole bike becomes a planter. Skeeter from In the Garden blog did this. Or bike parts can be used creatively in the garden.  Jonathan Maus used old wheel rims to form edging. Or ...  or...  there's no end to the creative ideas thinkable  ...

Photo by Friend of Humanity 

2. Backyard pesticide use may fuel bee die-offs.  Many garden bloggers have voiced their resentment at being told what they should and should not do in their own backyards. Maybe this will give them food for thought. The most popular class of pesticides found in many commonly used products, is called neonicotinoids. They have been found to disrupt bee navigation and make them vulnerable to disease and stress. But it's not a clearcut situation and more studies are needed. In the meantime Mace Vaughan (pollinator director  of Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group) suggests that consumers be warned about the dangers of these products. "Maybe a big butterfly with an X over it and a sign that says, 'May Kill Pollinators' ".

Honeybee on Appleblossom 

3. At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks have been nesting on a light pole for the past 4 years. This year the Dept of Ornithology installed a camera to enable people to watch these birds 24/7. On its All About Birds website you can see the female laying eggs, the eggs hatching, the male bringing a dead vole back to the nest to eat or just generally check in to see how and what they're doing. But be warned: I have found this site to be addictive!

'Big Red' from All About Birds website

4. The Briars is a lovely old homestead on the Mornington Peninsula about an hour and a half from Melbourne. It has an Eco Living Display Centre and has become a community hub for those committed to green values. My friend P. lives nearby, and she has a wonderful voluntary job in their Hands in the Dirt program. Here's P. talking about it:

 "One teacher was telling the class abut the old days when you couldn't just go to the shop for food, and another teacher was showing some tiny lettuce seeds. They all got to take some dried beans out of pods, plant them as well as lettuce seedlings, learn about seed-saving, worms and making a worm tower, see soil microscopically, and other fun activities. We had preppies to grade 6 from local schools. All seemed to enjoy it and the teachers learned too. A highlight for some groups was tasting my fennel seeds, which taste like liquorice - they all wanted to take some home!"


About a year ago my son was in the United States visiting his wife's relatives in Omaha. He wanted to buy some fresh vegetables. He went to the local supermarket and asked someone working there where he could find peas. Yes - you guessed it - the young man directed him to the freezer. He was unaware that peas existed in any other format! In a way he was right, because in that supermarket fresh peas didn't exist.  What a shame when he was at school that there was no Hands in the Dirt program.

Photos by P.

what happens to our blogs when we die?

Has anyone else thought about this confronting topic?

In our various non virtual communities we have rituals and processes to help the bereaved in their grief.  Preparing a will is recommended and is the usual practice in Australian and many other societies.

But how might this relate to our online lives?

I recently read a post called What Happens To My Gmail Account When I Die?  The writers (from the cloud storage service Backupify) are not talking about blogs. They are looking at the implications of  personal information held in Gmail accounts. The question they are asking is:  Can our loved ones inherit our Gmail accounts when we die?

They point out that this is a potentially serious issue. For example, your partner may not be able to access your Health Savings Account without access to the Gmail account. If you give your partner the password, then they can access your account. But this is against Gmail's privacy regulations, and if Gmail finds out you are impersonating the account owner, they will cancel the account. (If you want more details, it's worth checking out the post).

In summary, the Backupify people suggest we need to name a digital beneficiary. In other words, we need to make a will and treat our virtual assets in exactly the same way as our non-virtual ones.

Back to blogs. Our blogs are part of our virtual assets. For many bloggers they may have significant monetary value. For many others (like me) the value is sentimental - a bit like a family heirloom.

I value being part of garden and nature blog communities, like Blotanical and Nature Blog Network. When we first started blogging, I remember some of us would send anxious messages or comments, because we weren't sure what the norms were, what was expected. It was all so new. Now it feels pretty comfortable on the whole. Some cyberfriends visit regularly and often, others irregularly and occasionally. It works, and it's more or less a two-way reciprocal process.

Our gardens are incredibly important to us, but we share even more than our gardens. With varying degrees of disclosure, we also share many aspects of our lives. If possible, I would like to know if posting on a cyberfriend's blog has stopped, never to be resumed, because they have died. I hope that knowledge will enable us to develop cyber-rituals to express and share feelings and memories.

Unless I choose to stop blogging before I die, I would like my husband or one of my children to write the final post on my blog for me.

GBBD - April 2012 garden review

It's autumn, still quite warm, without much rain. Because of my recent surgery, my garden has been left to fend for itself with mixed results. (Actually it should be OK to fend for itself since it's supposed to be a wild naturalized sustainable garden... But sometimes I think it forgets this ...)

Still, there are a few lovely photos to show off for this month's GBBD.

First, a closeup of the yellow fluffy balls that are the flowers of Acacia iteaphylla, or Flinders Ranges Wattle.

Wallflower, or Erisymum cheiri, come in quite a few different colours. I love this particular soft pastel combo. 

Anenome japonica, or Japanese Windflower, such a perfect specimen. (I think Japanese is my favourite aesthetic, although I have never actually been to Japan. I have often virtually visited Japan, via Ruma's extraordinarily beautiful blog, Calligraphy in the Landscape.)

Weaving a delicate picture around a fern is Campanula poscharskyana 'Blue', that to me always sounds more like a cocktail than a flowering plant. It's otherwise known as Serbian Bellflower.

The next 3 photos are strictly from the bee's point of view. The bee doesn't know or care whether this lavender plant is Spanish or English or French. All it cares about is the nectar, and is plea-zzz-zzz-ed to report was of good quality and worth making the beeline for.

This is a very close closeup of the Liriope muscarii flowers, modestly peeping out from below the lower leaves. Reminds me of orchids, or maybe something else ...

Good old reliable Valerian.

Now these rabbits strictly speaking don't belong in a monthly update or GBBD. Because chances are you'll find them in exactly the same position next month. There are people who call them kitch, but I recommend them if you want rabbits that don't eat the garden and won't make baby rabbits that eat the garden.

Thanks Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting this meme.

noisy visitors in a neglected garden

The other morning a large flock consisting possibly of thousands of Little Corellas came to town.  Here's what they sounded like ...

After about half an hour they moved on. The birds who call the garden home drifted back and reclaimed their territory.  The frantic, harsh, raspy cacophony was replaced by more familiar peaceful birdsong ...

The Little Corellas were perched high in the plane tree in the street overlooking the garden, where they appeared to be eating leaves and seeds.

Little Corella badly photographed by me.
Sepia effect helps image to stand out a bit better. 

Little Corella from website Birds in Backyards

Here are some interesting facts about these birds ...

1. Their scientific name, Cacatua sanguinea, means 'Blood-stained Cockatoo' and refers to the dark pink marking between the eye and the bill.
2. They are widespread throughout Australia, and their range is increasing due to land clearing and increased water sources. (They like to graze on the ground).
3. They pair for life. Both sexes incubate the eggs and both care for the young chicks, that hatch naked and are initially totally dependent on their parents.
4. Their numbers are secure, with no threat of extinction. In some agricultural areas they may be considered pests.

Information from Birds in Backyards

My garden is starting to show the signs of my inability to tend to its needs.

The birdbath has creatures breeding and living in it. While fascinating to look at, I don't think they are particularly desirable: mosquito larvae.

It has been quite hot and not much rain. Some  plants are struggling, drooping and asking for water. This is unprecedented and is happening because the soil has not been cared for. No rich dark crumbly soil covered with a cosy blanket of mulch. Just grey dry earth, exposed to the elements, inhospitable to worms and all the tiny creatures that live in healthy soil.

I normally try not to interfere with cycles of insect life in the garden. But when I saw some eggs on a leaf on the Eucalytus leucoxylon that a couple of years ago had been decimated by caterpillars I decided to pick it.  If anyone out there knows what kind of eggs they are, and why some are cream and some are blue, I would be interested to know.