Topiary work in progress

I've been on this for about five years. They're slow when they're small.


Care to guess what I'm trying to sculpt?

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Creative villainy in the native garden

Cape wattle is a noxious weed. I bought one fifteen years ago before it was declared. It grew, tall, a little ugly, threw out some seed pods and died. A second generation plant grew, got tall and straggly, three out some seed pods and I recently cut it down.


And now for the creative villainy. A third generation Cape Wattle - its a South African plant - is About 4ft tall. I will let it grow 15ft tall, but then poison it and leave the trunk there for the Happy Wanderer (Hardenbergia) to climb up. Both are sitting there to start their duel.


With any luck I won't need to kill the Cape Wattle. The Happy Wanderer might strangle it.

If anybody wants to see how thuggish the Cape Wattle is, go for a walk above Waterfall Gully in Adelaide. They're rampant. All my leaf waste stays on my property so it's not breaking out of here. But this is the last generation I'll be allowing to grow.

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Poor Bluey: A painful lesson

He died yesterday. His seed had run out and didn't get replenished. Hard lessons.


The theory of using pets to teach your kids the about life, fine.

It's the practice that's hard. And it has a few innocent victims. That's very sad.

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Exotic fruit tasting at Cape Tribulation

What a shame, I didn't get a photo of the mame sapote.

But our traveling coconuts, the mango sorbet and my sandwich manage to get a guernsey.


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Sacrificial Salt Leaves

I'm told that as a method to survive in the seawater the mangrove trees push the salt out to selected leaves, which then drop.


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Killer vege bed

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Tomatoes in North Queensland dry season

I have never seen tomatoes get away so well.


Here in North Queensland you plant your tomato seedlings on Anzac day and they run through until - maybe - November.



And the tropical dry season means no disease and heaps of growth. Incredible.

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