Victim of a vicious assault.

OK, that's a bit silly! That is a pot of Lomandra, variety Chewton Grey. I bought two big pots of it with hopes of dividing it up to make lots of little Lomandras to make a border along the front path leading to the front door. I also caved in and bought a Kangaroo Paw (Firelight).


Today the battery went flat on my good camera so I used our little compact instead. I'm glad to have it, but the photos are a lot more hit and miss than I am used to!


This is the obligatory 'before shot' of the front path (with SP enjoying her lunch in the background). I am standing with my back to the gate.


A few of the plants alongside the path needed to be relocated. It's not the best time to be digging up bulbs, after they have begun to sprout, but it had to be done. I've moved them to under a nearby rosebush. Incidentally, I planted about half a dozen of the bluebells last year, and today I found that they have increased to well over 20 bulbs.


If you look left from the same position you can see where I've peeled back the gravel for my lavender hedge (I know, I know, looks dreadful! I am getting rid of the gravel, I promise. It's just taken me a lot longer than I intended...) The Lavender hedge (Hidcote) was planted from plants in punnets in November last year. It hasn't grown very much yet!

This afternoon I got going. I soaked each pot in a Seasol mix to begin with, to minimise the shock.


Then I got cutting. This was quickly followed by me thinking oh my God: what have I done?! Oh boy. It was a lot harder to cut them apart than I thought it would be! I grit my teeth and powered on, with the aid of my secateurs, and crossed my fingers that I hadn't made a complete hash of it.


Now, I knew I needed to get 12 plants out of my two pots to do the entire path, but I chickened out and did nine instead. I just couldn't bring myself to cut them apart any more, fearful I would kill the lot! This meant I didn't get quite the entire way along the path. I'm going to have to go back to the nursery and get another pot to fill in the gap at the end. The right hand side of the path will be done later in the year. That part is going to be a whole new garden bed.
Obligatory after shot!

Loving Lomandras

Autumn is nearly over, and as it gets colder I slow down, and so does my little blog. It's been almost a week since I last wrote, but I haven't forgotten you all.
Today I was helping out with the fundraising sausage sizzle for my ABA group. It was held out the front of a certain enormous hardware store. Both store and weekend sausage sizzle are likely to be familiar to most urban dwelling Australians, and SIL, BIL and I landed the lunchtime rush shift. Once we'd handed over the tongs and cash box to the next shift, we went off for a 'browse.' They headed off for the hardware, and I hot-footed it straight out to the nursery section and quickly found myself a box of green goodies.


Now, there's this range of plants labelled 'Flying Start,' which are a mere $3 each. They tend to vary a bit with what's available when, or where, and I still regret not buying more grey-leaved ground cover-type salvias when I saw them at my local because I've never seen them since. However, I was absolutely thrilled to see that this time there were Lomandras (L. longifolia) for sale, so I snapped up all five available pots. Lomandras are native to Australia, although not my area. Some quick reading tells me that the 'Loma-' in Lomandra means 'edge' or 'border,' and while that's actually referring to the flowers I think it's perfect because edges and borders are precisely what I'm using these grasses for.


Here's a shot of the next section of garden which is getting some action. I took this photo a few weeks ago when we were getting our concrete delivery, but you can still get an idea of what's going on. In it, I've started peeling back the black weed mat and removing the blindingly white gravel. At the very bottom of the photo is where I planted my little persimmon tree. I intend to plant my Lomandra border along the edge of this garden bed (to the right, by the driveway).


There were only five pots of the Lomandra available, and I don't know how many I actually need but I dare say it's more than five. I think I might be able to divide even these little pots quite easily, because there is quite a bit of 'space' between the separate plantlets in the pot. Fingers crossed! I've never tried to divide a plant before.


Of course, grasses are not all I came away with for the garden. I also got a little Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium), two thymes (Lemon - one of my all-time favourites - and silver posie), and a Hibbertia (Guinea flower, another native). These are all ground covers; I am intent on filling in the space in the front garden with ground covers. On my list of 'things to do' is to create a proper plan for the front garden as I have done with the back.

Lots of gardeing goodness to be had over the next few days. Fun fun!