Sweet little Sturt Pea update.

Do you remember back in January that I bought a packet of Sturt's Desert Peas off of Ebay?

Well look at them now!

OK, granted, they're still pretty small but very cute and healthy.

I have since learnt that they hate having their roots disturbed so I think I should have planted them in something like Jiffy Pots, or the DIY version of rolled newspaper, or old toilet paper rolls, but I have lots more seeds left so I might try that for Peas Mark 2 soon.

Propagating and preserving.

At the moment, in the midst of Summer and the growing season, it feels like there is so much going on that it's just easier to take a photo and make a note.
I cut most of the chillies from our Thai Chilli plant - it was a Christmas gift - and have laid them out on a wire rack on the concrete to dry. Not across the wires -they weren't fat enough- but between them to stop them blowing away. We haven't actually eaten any yet, the plant has been at my mother-in-laws after we forgot to take it a month ago, so we don't know how hot they actually are.



Many of the strawberry plants have sent out runners and so I've put some of them in pots, with a twig fork to secure them, to grow on properly, and later be cut free from their parents. I want lots and lots of strawberries, and it's a nice bonus to know I can buy half a dozen plants and they'll multiply so easily for me. Here's to many years of strawberries to come!



Yum!


My beetroot and cauliflower seeds have already sprouted mere days after being sown. It's so warm at the moment; the weather is perfect perfect perfect. That would be helping.


I am dutifully keeping the kangaroo paws damp in their pots (all recycled from previous purchases).


And, to my amazement, I already have a teeny tiny Sturt's Desert Pea sprout! Can you see it? Guess that hot water works on it's own after all :)


And I caved in and bought two American pomegranates today. The carbon footprint on these beauties doesn't even bear thinking about. Bad Greenie! I think I will plant my own pomegranate tree and then I can eat these ruby-jewels to my heart's content. I only need to decide on a variety: The American 'Wonderful' , or the Russian 'Rosavaya'?

Paws and Peas

I have become enamoured of Kangaroo Paws (Anigozanthus sp). Close up, they splay out half a dozen flowers like an extended hand, closer still, each flower opens like a furred six-pointed starburst.

(Image from the Australian Native Plant Society)

But from a distance, a single plant is not especially striking, with it's low strappy leaves close to the ground. It's a bit of a shy and retiring kind of plant, and to be honest I hadn't thought too much about it, my Native Love being almost entirely focused on Correas (Ahhh, Correas!)

And then I saw them planted along the new, rather extravagant and overblown overpass between South Road and Anzac Highway in Adelaide (for those playing at home), of all places. And then I understood. To appreciate the Kangaroo Paw, that retiring native from Western Australia, you must see them en masse. The flowers, which can be up to 2m tall, rise above those green strappy leaves in a froth of upraised hands. Beautiful.

(Image from here)

So, naturally, I must have some kangaroo paws in my garden. Lots and lots of them. I google, I look them up, I work out how many I would need (perhaps 100+), I am aghast; even little plants are $8 each. $800 in Kangaroo Paws? I am, for all intents and purposes, a stay-at-home-mum. I have no money, but I do have lots of time. Off to Ebay, where I dither for an hour: do I want yellow ones, or red ones? And then in the post arrive 150 Red Kangaroo Paw Seeds (Anigozanthus flavidus: $3). Read the instructions, seems fairly straight forward - plant in seed-raising mix, keep damp etc - wish me luck!


With my Paws, I also ordered 40 Sturt's Desert Pea seeds (Swainsona formosa: $3), the SA floral emblem, dontcha know?

(Image from Fir0002/Flagstaffotos).

They're pretty cool, and seeing the seeds for sale I couldn't resist. The propagation instructions for the Peas is, unlike the Paws, not very straight forward. One must soak the seeds overnight in hot water (which is happening as I write).


Then 'nick the seed coat of the seed lightly with a sharp knife opposite the eye'. Hmmm. They're only about 2mm long. And flat. Then they need to be soaked again. Mind you, some more googling tells me I might be able to get away with just very hot water, lest I slice off a finger in my nicking attempts. Or I can use sandpaper to break the coat open. I am hedging my bets by just trying half of the seeds to begin with. Such a hard coat is necessary in the wild to protect the seed until ideal germination conditions arrive (we have a hard climate, here in SA). And then I read that they can be hard plant to maintain in a home garden. $3 well spent, or more trouble than they're worth? We will see!